Concept

House of Wisdom

Overview

The House of Wisdom (Arabic: بَيْت الْحِكْمَة Bayt al-Ḥikmah), also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad, was a major Abbasid-era public academy and intellectual center in Baghdad. In popular reference, it acted as one of the world's largest public libraries during the Islamic Golden Age, and was founded either as a library for the collections of the fifth Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) in the late 8th century or as a private collection of the second Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775) to house rare books and collections in the Arabic language. During the reign of the seventh Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813 – 833 AD), it was turned into a public academy and a library.

It was destroyed in 1258 during the Mongol siege of Baghdad. The primary sources behind the House of Wisdom narrative date between the late eighth century and the thirteenth century, and most importantly include the references in Ibn al-Nadim's (d. 995) al-Fihrist.

More recently, the narrative of the Abbasid House of Wisdom as a major academic institution akin to a university, with specialised departments and organised scholarly debate, has been challenged by some historians, who argue this image was constructed over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Orientalist scholars through translation errors and retrospective projection, and propagated into later scholarship and nationally oriented works until more recent re-examination of the primary sources.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some…
Plato, Phaedrus
States what House of Wisdom is; the author is tied to House of Wisdom in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
And they say—mark, now, and see whether their words are true—they say that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time has an end, which is termed dying, and at another time is born again, but is never destroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to live always in perfect holiness. ‘_For in the ninth year Persephone sends the souls of those from whom she has received the penalty of ancient crime back again from…
Plato, The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2
States what House of Wisdom is; the author is tied to House of Wisdom in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
The Archon lived in the Prytaneum, the Polemarch in the Epilyceum. The latter building was formerly called the Polemarcheum, but after Epilycus, during his term of office as Polemarch, had rebuilt it and fitted it up, it was called the Epilyceum. The Thesmothetae occupied the Thesmotheteum. In the time of Solon, however, they all came together into the Thesmotheteum.
Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution
The author is tied to House of Wisdom in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

House of Wisdom

Overview

Possible passages

Philosophers who discussed House of Wisdom

Related ideas

Place in the tradition