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Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to visit cities like Baghdad or Antioch. There, philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of knowledge, as well as keeping alive the works of Plato and Aristotle. When the best libraries in Europe held several dozen books, Baghdad’s great library, The House of Wisdom, housed four hundred thousand.
The Scholars
Adept at the sciences since his early childhood, he had extensions built for each of the house’s different branches of knowledge, where scholars from around the world came to exchange knowledge. Bayt al-Hikmah, like Baghdad itself, was greatly enriched under the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809). The caliph and his court were flush with wealth from tributes paid across the empire. The splendour of Baghdad at that time was immortalized in The Thousand and One Nights.
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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.
What was the Golden Age of Islam?
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.
The original House of Wisdom was a shining center of knowledge, translation, and scholarship during the Golden Age of Islam. The successful knowledge transfer and the creation of a centre of learning in Baghdad was echoed in many other cities across Muslim Civilisation. In Cairo a Dar al-Hikma was built in 1005 by Caliph Al-Hakim and lasted for 165 years. Other cities in the eastern provinces of the Muslim world also established House of Science (Dar al-‘Ilm), or more accurately Houses of Knowledge, in the 9th and 10th centuries to emulate that of Baghdad. Here, teachers and students worked together to translate Greek, Persian, Syriac and Indian manuscripts.
March 26: Join House of Wisdom for Ramadan community gathering at Edmonds Waterfront Center - My Edmonds News
March 26: Join House of Wisdom for Ramadan community gathering at Edmonds Waterfront Center.
Posted: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
They began translating ancient Greek into Arabic after quickly mastering the language, as well as paying large sums to obtain manuscripts from the Byzantine Empire for translation. Mohammad Musa might have been the first person in history to point to the universality of the laws of physics. In the 10th century, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) performed several physical experiments, mainly in optics, achievements still celebrated today. Later, al-Mamun added numerous other study center and an observatory in 829 CE to allow more scholars to pursue their research. Translators, scientists, scribes, authors, copyists and others met every day in the House of Wisdom to ply their trade and to contribute to discourse, dialogue and discussion. As a result, the academy incubated the translation of various scientific books and manuscripts and the exchange of philosophical concepts and ideas.
It became one of the greatest centers of medieval wisdom and contributed greatly to the scientific movement which had started in the earlier centuries. Hulagu has ruined almost all books that have been translated or authored by distinguished scholars and scientists, the works that were used to spread culture and knowledge and wisdom among the Muslims and non-Muslims were gone into dust. As a result the world witnessed the fall of one the preserving libraries of human intellect and human civilization of that time which has had a calamitous impact on the Islamic civilizational heritage. The Muslim libraries have played a major role in translating and transmitting works of Greek, Persian, Indian and Assyrian physicians and philosophers, works that later became the basic textbooks in European schools of Bologna, Naples and Paris. It is likely that without the Muslim libraries, modern Europe's scientific and intellectual progress would have been remarkably inhibited.
In a Baghdad where there were frequent public debates between Christians, Muslims, and Jews, Hunayn not only wrote about his faith, but was active in defending it, remaining faithful until the end. Having built Baghdad in 762, Caliph al-Mansur (ruled 754–775 CE) moved the capital of the Abbasid dynasty there from Damascus, soon making it the richest and largest city in the world. Muslim historian al-Tabari reported that Christian monks once prophesied that a lord named Miklas would one day build a spectacular city around the area of Baghdad. The caliph was delighted upon hearing this ancient prophecy—after all, as legend has it, al-Mansur was called Miklas as a child.
As well as collecting books from East and West, they brought together scholars from the corners of the Muslim land to create one of the greatest intellectual academies in history. Throughout the 4th to 7th centuries, scholarly work in the Arabic languages was either newly initiated, or carried on from the Hellenistic period. Through interactive activities, students will explore the remarkable contributions of these scholars to fields such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and philosophy. They will come to appreciate how the House of Wisdom served as a gathering place for scholars from diverse backgrounds, fostering a spirit of collaboration and knowledge exchange. Ultimately, students will gain appreciation for the enduring legacy of the Arab world's scientific achievements. For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict.
The House of Wisdom also housed an observatory which facilitated astronomical advancements, leading to refinements of such scientific tools as the astrolabe. The Assyrian scholar Yahya Ibn al-Batriq ( ) translated all the major works of the ancient Greek physicians, including Galen and Hippocrates. He also compiled the universal Kitab Sirr al-Srar, known in the West as the Secretum Secretorum (Secret of Secrets). The doctor Hunayn Ibn Ishaq (1405–68), accompanied by his son Ishaq ibn Hunayn and his nephew Hubaysh, was one of the most important translators of Greek medical and scientific treatises. 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. One popular narrative holds that the impetus behind the translation movement was because of Al-Mamun’s encounter with Aristotle in a dream.
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Besides their translations of earlier works and their commentaries on them, scholars at the Bayt al-Ḥikma produced important original research. For example, the noted mathematician al-Khwarizmi worked in al-Maʾmun’s House of Wisdom and is famous for his contributions to the development of algebra. On February 13, 1258, the Mongols entered the city of the caliphs, starting a full week of pillage and destruction. Use our state-of-the-art property search, including an interactive map search, to find homes for sale in Los Angeles, CA. It’s amazing to think that when the Word of Wisdom was revealed in 1833, the world didn’t understand the science behind the effects of things like diet, alcohol, and tobacco.
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