House of wisdom

The House of Wisdom

During the Islamic Golden Age, the house of wisdom is considered a major intellectual center. It was based in Baghdad from the 9th to 13th centuries and it was founded by Caliph Harun al-Rashid and was then culminated under his son Al-Ma'mun who got his credit from his formal institution. In addition, Al-Ma'mun was also credited for bringing well-known scholars to the House of Wisdom to share information, ideas, and culture, but aside from translating books into Arabic and preserving them, these scholars also made a number of remarkable original contributions to diverse fields

. These learned scholars, even those from the jewish or christian background were part of the research and educational institute.

Astronomical observations were set up during the reign of Al-Ma'mun. The institution was an unrivaled center for the study of humanities and science in medieval islam, such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, alchemy and chemistry, zoology, geography, and lastly, cartography. Acquiring knowledge from Greek, Indian, and Persian texts, the House of Wisdom scholars accumulated a wide variety of world knowledge, and built on it through their own discoveries.

The House of Wisdom had the largest selection of books in the world by the middle of the Ninth century. However, it was destroyed in the sack of the city following the incident of the Mongol Siege of Baghdad in 1258.