Bayt al-Hikma — the House of Wisdom

In the city of Baghdad there was a big library called the House of Wisdom. The caliph al-Rashid gathered books there, and then his son al-Ma'mun added more. Translators worked there, turning old books into Arabic, and scribes copied them by hand. It was a house for books and for learning.

The House of Wisdom was a famous library in Baghdad in the time of the Abbasid caliphs, more than twelve hundred years ago. Some books call it the Treasury of Wisdom. The caliph Harun al-Rashid began it, and his son al-Ma'mun made it bigger and stronger. A doctor named Yuhanna ibn Masawayh worked there translating old medical books that came from the lands of the Byzantines, with skilled scribes writing down what he translated. A man named al-Fadl ibn Nawbakht turned books of wisdom from Persian into Arabic. Al-Ma'mun sent messengers to the Byzantine emperor to ask for books of the ancient sciences, and they brought them to Baghdad. Historians say it was the largest library we know of from that time, but today we do not know exactly where it stood or how it was arranged.

The House of Wisdom, also called the Treasury of Wisdom, was a library in Baghdad of the first Abbasid age. Ahmad Amin, in his book Duha al-Islam, counts it the largest library whose report survives from that age, drawing on the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim. Harun al-Rashid laid its nucleus, and al-Ma'mun enlarged and strengthened it. Under al-Rashid the caliph put the physician Yuhanna ibn Masawayh in charge of translating the ancient medical books found in Byzantine lands and set skilled scribes to write before him; Abu Sahl al-Fadl ibn Nawbakht rendered books of wisdom from Persian into Arabic in its treasury, and Allan al-Shu'ubi copied for al-Rashid, al-Ma'mun and the Barmakids. Al-Ma'mun then widened it: he sent to the Byzantine emperor asking leave to bring the books of the ancient sciences he chose, dispatched al-Hajjaj ibn Matar, Ibn al-Bitriq and Salm, the master of the House of Wisdom, to fetch them, and made Sahl ibn Harun keeper of its treasuries. For all the fame of the name, the source notes that the organisation of the House of Wisdom and its exact site remain wrapped in obscurity, so the museum presents what the sources transmit without adding to it. The House of Wisdom is remembered together with the translation movement that carried the sciences of the ancients into Arabic, and with Baghdad in its golden century.