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Concept
House of Wisdom
Summary
The House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Ḥikmah), also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad, was a major Abbasid public academy and intellectual center in Baghdad and one of the world's largest public libraries during the Islamic Golden Age. The House of Wisdom was founded either as a library for the collections of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid in the late 8th century or was a private collection created by al-Mansur (r. 754–775) to house rare books and collections of poetry in Arabic. During the reign of the Caliph al-Ma'mun, it was turned into a public academy and a library.
The House of Wisdom and its contents were destroyed in the Siege of Baghdad in 1258, leaving relatively limited archaeological evidence, such that most knowledge about it is derived from the works of contemporary scholars of the era such as al-Tabari and Ibn al-Nadim.
The House of Wisdom existed as a part of the major Translation Movement taking place during the Abbasid Era, translating works from Greek and Syriac to Arabic, but it is unlikely that the House of Wisdom existed as the sole center of such work, as major translation efforts arose in Cairo and Damascus even earlier than the proposed establishment of the House of Wisdom. This translation movement lent momentum to a great deal of original research occurring in the Islamic world, which had access to texts from Greek, Persian and Indian sources. The early existence of Muslims throughout time has always had a connection with the institution of libraries that came to not only be a mechanism of pursuit, but relatively a storehouse of intelligence and mental heritage for all humanity. The rise of advanced searches in mathematics, organized studies, astronomy, philosophy, and medicine began the pursuit for Arab science. This scientific leap established a demand for more and updated translations.
The House of Wisdom was made possible by the consistent flow of Arab, Persian, and other scholars of the Islamic world to Baghdad, owing to the city's position as capital of the Abbasid Caliphate.
Official source
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