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In the early 800s, mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi wrote a book on how to do math using the Indian system. Eventually, people all over Europe followed Al-Khwarizmi's example-and switched to the "Arabic" numerals we use today. Ma'mūn was not the only caliph to support scholarship and science, but he was certainly the most cultured, passionate and enthusiastic. As a young man, he memorised the Qur'an, studied the history of early Islam, recited poetry and mastered the newly maturing discipline of Arabic grammar. Most importantly, he was a brilliant student of philosophy and theology, or more specifically what is referred to in Arabic as kalam, which is a form of dialectic debate and argument. It is even quite likely that by the early 9th century, some of their work had already been translated into Arabic.
Legacy and myth as an academy
Its scholars were engaged in translating and preserving a vast array of scientific and philosophical texts. Despite its decline under caliph al-Mutawakkil, who moved away from the rationalist approach of his predecessors, the House of Wisdom remains a symbol of the golden age of Arab and Islamic learning. The House of Wisdom, also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad, was a prominent Abbasid-era public academy and intellectual center in Baghdad, pivotal during the Islamic Golden Age.
Extraordinary Women of the Golden Age
Precipitation is sparse (6 inches [150 mm] annually) and occurs mainly between December and April. In spring and early summer the prevailing northwesterly winds (shamāl) bring sandstorms that frequently bathe the city in a dusty mist. Baghdad was heavily damaged by aerial bombardment during the Persian Gulf War (1990–91) and again by air and ground operations during the Iraq War (2003–11). During the interwar period the city’s services and infrastructure deteriorated badly because of inattention and fiscal constraints resulting from economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations (UN).
Ancient Technology
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During debate, scholars would discuss their fundamental Islamic beliefs and doctrines in an open intellectual atmosphere. Furthermore, he would often organize groups of sages from the Bayt al-Hikma into major research projects to satisfy his own intellectual needs. For example, he commissioned the mapping of the world, the confirmation of data from the Almagest and the deduction of the real size of the Earth (see section on the main activities of the House).
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Iraq’s Golden Age: The Rise and Fall of the House of Wisdom
Further, it was also linked to astronomical observations and other major experimental endeavors. From a built-up area of about 4 square miles (10 square km) at the beginning of the 20th century, Baghdad has expanded into a bustling metropolis with suburbs spreading north and south along the river and east and west onto the surrounding plains. Baghdad remained under Ottoman control until World War I, when on 11 March 1917 it was captured by British forces.
Some scholars, like the Banu Musa brothers, were famous for sponsoring translation works too and seeking to obtain precious ancient manuscripts. Here, teachers and students worked together to translate Greek, Persian, Syriac and Indian manuscripts. They studied the works of Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Euclid, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, Brahmagupta and many others. Then, they began building on and testing the knowledge of the greatest ancient scholars, resulting in the development of the scientific method of observation and experimentation.
Modern era
Among the famous translators was Youhanna bin Al-Batriq Al-Turjuman (the Translator Jonah son of the Patriarch), who translated the Book of Animals (Kitab Al-Haywan) by Aristotle. Three decades later, the collection had grown so large that his son, Caliph Al-Ma’mun, built extensions to the original building turning it into a large academy named Bayt al-Hikma (the House of Wisdom) that housed different branches of knowledge. Later, he added numerous other study centres to allow more scholars to pursue their research, and an observatory in 829. The town was founded in 1883 when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line between Barstow and Needles was built. At this time, Bagdad provided services to the Orange Blossom Mine several miles to the north, and to the War Eagle Mine several miles to the south.
From the 7th century onwards, men and women of different faiths and cultures built on knowledge from ancient civilisations making breakthroughs that have left their mark on our world. The heyday of Baghdad was 1,200 years ago when it was the thriving capital of the Muslim civilisation. For about 500 years the city boasted the cream of intellectuals and culture, a reputation gained during the reigns of some of its most famous Caliphs (Al-Rashid, Al-Ma’mun, Al-Mu’tadhid and Al-Muktafi).
These baths increased public hygiene and served as a way for the religious to perform ablutions as prescribed by Islam. Moreover, entry fees were usually so low that almost everyone could afford them.[39] In the center of the city lay the mosque, as well as headquarters for guards. The circular design of the city was a direct reflection of the traditional Persian Sasanian urban design. The Sasanian city of Gur in Fars, built 500 years before Baghdad, is nearly identical in its general circular design, radiating avenues, and the government buildings and temples at the center of the city. This style of urban planning contrasted with Ancient Greek and Roman urban planning, in which cities are designed as squares or rectangles with streets intersecting each other at right angles.
Bayt al-Hikmah served as an arm of the caliphal bureaucracy and appears to have been modeled on an earlier Sasanian practice. Persians in the early Islamic era, writing in Arabic, indicated that buyūt al-ḥikmah (literally “houses of wisdom”) followed in the fashion of Sasanian nobility. Middle Persian literature also refers directly to the storage of books pertaining to Zoroastrian religion, Sasanian dynastic history, and scientific knowledge for medical and administrative purposes. The storage space was called a ganj (“treasury”), a term equivalent to the Arabic khizānah.
Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi was also another historical figure that worked at the House of Wisdom. Al-Kindi is the most famous for being the first person to introduce Aristotle’s philosophy to the Arabic people. He fused Aristotle’s philosophy with Islamic theology which created an intellectual platform for philosophers and theologians to debate over 400 years. A fellow expert on Aristotle was an East African descent named Abu Uthman al-Jahith who was born in Basra around 776 but he spent most of his life in Baghdad. Al-Ma’mun employed al-Jahith as a personal tutor for his children, but he had to dismiss him because al-Jahith was “Goggled-Eyed”, i.e., he had wide, staring eyes which made him frightening to look at. He wrote Book of Animals, which discusses the way animals adapt to their surroundings, similarly to Aristotle’s History of Animals.
Al-Rashid's library, the direct predecessor to the House of Wisdom, was also known as Bayt al-Hikma or, as the historian Al-Qifti called it, Khizanat Kutub al-Hikma (Arabic for "Storehouse of the Books of Wisdom"). Its location, on the Tigris River about 330 miles (530 km) from the headwaters of the Persian Gulf, is in the heart of ancient Mesopotamia. Baghdad is Iraq’s largest city and one of the most populous urban agglomerations of the Middle East. The city was founded in 762 as the capital of the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, and for the next 500 years it was the most significant cultural centre of Arab and Islamic civilization and one of the greatest cities of the world. A provincial capital under the Ottoman Empire, Baghdad regained prominence only when it became the capital of Iraq in 1920; over the next half century, the city grew prodigiously and took on all the characteristics of a modern metropolis. The existence of the House of Wisdom is presently disputed, as is its form and function.
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