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It has been recognized as a factor that connected many different people and empires because of its educational and research components. The House of Wisdom has been accredited and respected throughout Islamic history and was the model for many libraries during and following its time of function. A large number of libraries emerged during and after this time and it was evident that these libraries were based on the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. These libraries had the intention of reproducing the advantageous and beneficial characteristics that are known throughout the world because of the House of Wisdom. Under al-Mamun’s leadership science saw for the first time wide-ranging research projects involving large groups of scholars. In order to check Ptolemy’s observations, the caliph ordered the construction of the first astronomical observatory in Baghdad (see Observatories section below).
Period of decline
Beginning in the early 1990s, traditional patterns of recreation for city residents were disrupted by war and economic hardship. Although a prosperous class of government and party officials and wealthy merchants continued to frequent private clubs, most residents spent their free time either at home or visiting close friends or relatives. The Muslims are divided, however, between the two main sects of Islam, the Sunnis and the Shiʿah. Non-Arab ethnic and linguistic groups include Kurds, Armenians, and people of Indian, Afghan, or Turkish origin.
The Abbasids’ House of Wisdom in Baghdad
Great Muslim scholars exchanged ideas, created inventions that would radically change society, and translated philosophical works from the Greeks, the Persians, the Europeans, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Sumerians. The father of Arabic prose, he translated and adapted a wealth of works from Persian, including his renowned Kalila wa Dimna, an adaptation of the ancient Indian collection of tales and fables Panchatantra, which would inspire the 17th-century French poet Jean de La Fontaine centuries later. It was even said that translators were awarded the weight of each successfully completed book in gold.
When Baghdad was centre of the scientific world
Rashīd Street in downtown Baghdad is the heart of this area and contains the city’s financial district, many government buildings, and the copper, textile, and gold bazaars. South of Rashīd Street a commercial area with shops, cinemas, and business offices has spread along Saʿdūn Street. Parallel to Saʿdūn, Abū Nuwās Street on the riverfront was once the city’s showpiece and—as befits a thoroughfare named for a poet known for his libidinous verse—its entertainment centre. During the 1990s the street lost much of its old glamour, and its cafes, restaurants, and luxury hotels either closed or suffered from a loss of business.
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Among the academy’s leading lights were Al-Kindi, who commissioned the transition of Aristotle, and Hunyan ibn Ishaq, who translated Hippocrates. It was a time of great learning in the Muslim world, which stretched from Spain to China. Men and women of different faiths and cultures studied science and wisdom of ancient cultures adding to it and making breakthroughs that had a lasting impact on the European Renaissance. During the Golden Age, our region contributed some of the greatest inventions and scientific wonders of the modern world. We are rekindling the spirit of knowledge, glory and hope that inspired the region during this time, and we need you.
About 1001 Inventions
Works translated at the House of Wisdom include Aristotle’s books Rhetoric, Poetics, Metaphysics, Categories and On the Soul, as well as Plato’s Republic, Laws and Timaeus. The philosopher apparently urged the caliph to preserve the knowledge of ancient civilisations by gathering classical literature and sponsoring translation. The second was to dispatch missions to emperors and other rulers throughout the empire to facilitate the gathering of valuable manuscripts, such as the 2nd-century astronomical treatise by the Greek scholar, Ptolemy, whose English name, Almagest, derives from its later Arabic translation.
Baghdad’s Libraries Were So Impressive They Astonished European Scholars
In modern times the library became a symbol of the scientific enterprise and imperial glory of the early Islamic period. It is frequently imagined as a centre of scholarship and collaboration for the greatest minds in Baghdad and its environs as well as the heart of a robust translation movement of Persian, Greek, and Syriac literature into the Arabic language. The libraries that have flourished following the example of the house of wisdom's have had their doors open to scholars from all over the world. Libraries have had almost the same kind of translated books that were culled from scholarships of dozen languages.
Arabist Dimitri Gutas posits in his 1998 book that “House of Wisdom” is a translation error from Khizanat al-Hikma, which he asserts simply means a storehouse, and that there are few sources from the era during the Abbasid Era that mention the House of Wisdom by the name Bayt al-Hikma. This theory is debatable, owing to the destruction of the Round city of Baghdad and conflicting sources in both academic texts and poetry. It is likely, given the Abbasid Caliphs’ patronage of the arts and sciences, that an extensive library existed in Baghdad, and that scholars could have access to such texts, judging by the volume of work produced by scholars centered in Baghdad. Without consistent naming conventions, a physical ruin, or corroborating texts, the phrase “House of Wisdom” may just as well have been a metaphor for the larger Academic community in Baghdad rather than a physical academy specializing in translation work. The House of Wisdom grew rapidly with the acquisition of texts from Greece, Persia and India, swelling with the addition of the Arabic translations of these texts, a process that was already becoming an industry in Baghdad. This growth would have gathered pace with the use of paper, the production of which the Arabs had learnt from Chinese prisoners of war, as a new and cheaper writing material replacing papyrus and parchment.
The end of the center of knowledge
The term ‘algorithm’ is derived from a Latin version of al-Khwarizmi’s name which is ‘Algorithmus’. He was instrumental in introducing the Arabs to Hindu numerals and algebra so he is known as “The Father of Algebra”. Additionally, al-Khwarizmi wrote about the astrolabe, sundial, and elaborated on Ptolemy’s geometric model. Al-Khwarizmi is also known as the first geographer of Islam with his famous Picture of the Earth treatise. In Picture of the Earth, he arranged the coordinates of hundreds of cities in the world at that time and gave instructions for drawing a new map of the world. George Sarton, one the most famous historians of science known for his book, Introduction to the History of Science, called the period between 800 and 850 AD “The Time of al-Khwarizmi”.
There are many religious centers distributed around the city including mosques, churches and Mashkhannas cultic huts. All these men are no less worthy of mention in the history of science than Aristotle, Galileo, Newton or Einstein. People from all over the Muslim civilisation flocked to the House of Wisdom – both male and female of many faiths and ethnicities.
(MJ & AS, pp. 254 & 255; NM, p. 129) Such cities included Mosul, Basra, Shiraz, Rayy, etc. (Encycl. of Islam). The languages which were spoken, read and written there were Arabic (as the lingua franca), Farsi, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek and Latin; also occasionally Sanskrit, which was used to translate the old Indian manuscripts in astronomy and mathematics. The House of Wisdom was also referred to as Al-Hikma Bookstore (Khizanat Al-Hikma), and The House of Wisdom Bookstore of Al-Ma’moun (Khizanat Dar Al-Kutub Al-Ma’mouniya). It should be pointed out that the Arabic term Khizanat Kutub, meaning literally a bookstore, is an old name meaning a present day library. Foreseeing the impending tragedy, the Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi ( ) saved several thousand manuscripts by moving them to the Maragheh Observatory in northwestern Iran, built by Mongol ruler Hulagu in 1259. The Assyrian scholar Yahya Ibn al-Batriq ( ) translated all the major works of the ancient Greek physicians, including Galen and Hippocrates.
Beginning in the 1950s, the government used increased oil revenues to develop manufacturing industries. Some of the important cultural institutions in the city include the National Theater, which was looted during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but efforts are underway to restore the theater.[134] The live theater industry received a boost during the 1990s, when UN sanctions limited the import of foreign films. As many as 30 movie theaters were reported to have been converted to live stages, producing a wide range of comedies and dramatic productions.[135] Institutions offering cultural education in Baghdad include The Music and Ballet School of Baghdad and the Institute of Fine Arts Baghdad. The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra is a government funded symphony orchestra in Baghdad. The INSO plays primarily classical European music, as well as original compositions based on Iraqi and Arab instruments and music. Baghdad is also home to a number of museums which housed artifacts and relics of ancient civilization; many of these were stolen, and the museums looted, during the widespread chaos immediately after United States forces entered the city.
The architecture of the city ranges from traditional two- or three-story brick houses to modern steel, glass, and concrete structures. The traditional Baghdad house, usually located on a crowded narrow street, has latticed windows and an open inner courtyard; a few fine specimens from the late Ottoman period are tucked away in traditional quarters of Al-Karkh, Ruṣāfah, and Al-Kāẓimiyyah. The typical modern middle-class dwelling is built of brick and mortar and has a garden and wall. At this point Baghdad was ruled by the Il-Khanids, part of the Mongolian Empire centered in Persia.
Instead of repressing what remained of Sasanian society, al-Manṣūr absorbed it into the new bureaucratic structure and portrayed Abbasid rule as the revival of the Sasanian empire. The current conducted research has a very original contribution since previous studies on the House of wisdom have only dealt with historical backgrounds of some libraries. The paper contributes in highlighting the extent of creativity for authors that had flourished due to the House of wisdom in which book authoring took a very progressive trend. It also adds new historical and factual contribution to studies on the administrative and managerial aspects and the way they function in the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikmah) that was later assimilated by several libraries in the Muslim world.
In the 1970s the government attempted to curb “horizontal” expansion, and a new phenomenon, high-rise apartments, appeared. The Western community, once substantial, has been reduced since 1958 and is limited mainly to businessmen, members of the diplomatic corps, and executives of foreign companies. Likewise the city once was home to a large community of foreign Arabs, including hundreds of thousands of Egyptians. A large modernistic shield, built by Khālid al-Raḥḥāl in 1982, commemorates the Unknown Soldier. The Martyr’s Monument, a 150-foot (50-metre) split dome built in 1983, commemorates the casualties of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–90).
He then formed a library that were referred to by the name of “Bayt al-Hikma”.Books written in Greek, Latin, and Persian in the fields of medicine, alchemy, physics, mathematics, astrology and other disciplines were also collected and translated by Muslim scholars at that time. Remarkably, the Umayyads also appropriated paper-making techniques from the Chinese and joined many ancient intellectual centers under their rule, and employed Christian and Persian scholars to both translate works into Arabic, and to develop new knowledge. These were fundamental elements that contributed directly to the flourishing of scholarship in the Arab world. On 14 July 1958, members of the Iraqi Army, under Abd al-Karim Qasim, staged a coup to topple the Kingdom of Iraq. King Faisal II, former Prime Minister Nuri al-Said, former Regent Prince 'Abd al-Ilah, members of the royal family, and others were brutally killed during the coup.
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