House of Wisdom
Medieval Islamic academy
The House of Wisdom was a major intellectual center in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age, roughly the 8th to 13th centuries.
Scholars there translated Greek, Persian, and Indian texts into Arabic, preserving classical knowledge and advancing mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.
The institution helped transmit ancient learning to medieval Europe.
- BaghdadIraqi seat of government
- Islamic Golden AgeMedieval era of Arab scholarship
- algebraMath using symbols
- opticsScience of illumination
- philosophyStudy of fundamental truths
Arabic numerals · medicine · cross-cultural dialogue · geometry · medieval universities · preservation · ancient manuscripts · astronomy · star charts · library · book · chemistry · cartography · astrolabe · Silk Road · Tigris · Renaissance · scribes
- Islamic historycaliphates, Quran, Umayyad Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate, caliphate
- ancient mathalgebra, arithmetic, geometry, fractions, addition
- Ancient SchoolsLyceum, Plato's Academy, academies, Confucian academies, agoge
- historical librariesLibrary of Congress, British Library, medieval libraries, ancient libraries, national libraries
- Abbasid CaliphateBaghdad, Harun al-Rashid, caliph, caliphate, caliphs
- Abbasid literaturecourt poets, panegyric, literary salons
House of Wisdombook burning
Incinerating texts as censorship
Nazi book burnings · anti-intellectualism · obscurantism · Inquisition · Ministry of Truth
House of Wisdomdogmatism
Unyielding adherence to doctrine
thought police · echo chamber · ideological purity · anti-intellectualism · obscurantism