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The House of Wisdom has been accredited and respected throughout Islamic history and was the model for many libraries during and following its time of function. A large number of libraries emerged during and after this time and it was evident that these libraries were based on the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. These libraries had the intention of reproducing the advantageous and beneficial characteristics that are known throughout the world because of the House of Wisdom.
Character of the city
Institutionalized by al-Ma'mun, the academy encouraged the transcription of Greek philosophical and scientific efforts. Al-Sudani’s delegation included representatives of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and his advisor for Yazidi affairs, positive indicators of his attempt to govern inclusively. Throughout his meetings, the prime minister reiterated that he seeks to resolve disputes between the federal Iraqi government and the KRG including over their respective authorities over oil and gas revenue. He said these disputes and barriers in the relationship are institutional and legal, not political, and pledged to continue finding ways to make progress.
The Golden Age of Arab Civilization: How Baghdad Led the World in Learning
People from all over the Muslim civilisation flocked to the House of Wisdom – both male and female of many faiths and ethnicities. The Assyrian scholar Yahya Ibn al-Batriq ( ) translated all the major works of the ancient Greek physicians, including Galen and Hippocrates. He also compiled the universal Kitab Sirr al-Srar, known in the West as the Secretum Secretorum (Secret of Secrets). The doctor Hunayn Ibn Ishaq (1405–68), accompanied by his son Ishaq ibn Hunayn and his nephew Hubaysh, was one of the most important translators of Greek medical and scientific treatises.
Ancient Technology
Like Germany, Japan and Vietnam, Iraq could move beyond the history of war toward a future of strategic partnership with the United States that would work for both nations across various diplomatic, economic, security, technological and people-to-people interests. The threat of ISIS is significantly diminished in Iraq, in major part due to the U.S.-Iraq partnership. The HMC will provide answers for where that threat stands and what Iraq needs to address remaining threats. However, it is clear that returning and reintegrating the remaining nearly 20,000 Iraqis in Al-Hol Camp in northeast Syria back into their communities are imperative for humanitarian reasons as well as U.S. and Iraqi national security interests. Al-Sudani Sudani emerged from Iraq’s nascent democratic process and has the opportunity to advance it. For Iraqis, it resonates that he has not lived outside Iraq and built his credentials working through post-2003 Iraq as governor, then minister, member of parliament and now prime minister.
History as the royal library in Baghdad
Ma'mūn was almost fanatical in his desire to collect all the world's books under one roof, translate them into Arabic and have his scholars study them. The institution he created to realise his dream epitomises more than anything else the blossoming of the scientific golden age. The legacy left by the scholars of the House of Wisdom and those who came after them in the golden age Muslim civilisation is huge.Unfortunately, thousands of the books that were collected and made in Baghdad were lost or destroyed in later centuries.
City site
But it was also al-Maʾmūn’s reign that brought about a change in wind for Bayt al-Hikmah, which had hitherto specialized in Persian knowledge. In the final years of his reign, he undertook a dramatic shift in the imperial ideology. He endorsed an Islamic theology that stressed free will and dialectical reasoning (see kalām; Muʿtazilah).
You are also likely to be refused access to accommodation as Iraqis will fear being targeted for supporting the occupying forces. For US citizens the most obvious is the US Army which still maintains personnel here. Next are the government contractors, such as the construction company KBR[dead link].
Over the past two decades, there has been a multi-front Iraqi struggle for the future of their country. In 2019, Iraqi youth expressed their aspirations for a better life and a country free of Iranian influence through a peaceful protest movement. In 2021, key political Shia, Sunni and Kurdish forces capitalized on early elections that the protest movement, supported by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, ushered in to assert Iraqi agency over the country’s direction. The U.S., the international community and many Iraqis were excited over these developments. However, they were thwarted by competing efforts from Iran-backed groups among others, giving rise to the Coordination Framework — which itself also includes groups supported by Iran — that ultimately formed the al-Sudani government in alliance with Sunnis and Kurds. Planned middle-class neighbourhoods are located between the bund and the Army Canal, which connects the Tigris and Diyālā rivers.
Jim Al-Khalili: Islam's House of Wisdom will rise again - New Scientist
Jim Al-Khalili: Islam's House of Wisdom will rise again.
Posted: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Later, he added numerous other study centres to allow more scholars to pursue their research, and an observatory in 829. The father of Arabic prose, he translated and adapted a wealth of works from Persian, including his renowned Kalila wa Dimna, an adaptation of the ancient Indian collection of tales and fables Panchatantra, which would inspire the 17th-century French poet Jean de La Fontaine centuries later. Additionally, each of the translations was annotated by scholars from the field in an effort to explain the sciences to the general public. It was even said that translators were awarded the weight of each successfully completed book in gold. The Abbasid caliphs’ appetite for knowledge was such that an entire body of classical scientific literature - including works by Aristotle, the Greek physician Galen and the Indian surgeon Sushruta - was translated into Arabic, thanks to the House of Wisdom.
It still gives us a problem in this age as we try to deal with the kooks who want to blow up everyone who won’t just follow their professed ‘God’ ! Islam has it’s terrible followers too, and we cannot afford to be blind to the writings they follow !!! People from all over the Muslim world flocked to the House of Wisdom – both male and female of many faiths and ethnicities. Among the academy’s leading lights were Al-Kindi, who commissioned the transition of Aristotle, and Hunyan ibn Ishaq, who translated Hippocrates. Caliph Al-Ma’mun is said to have encouraged translators and scholars to add to the library in the House of Wisdom by paying them the weight of each completed book in gold.
Works translated at the House of Wisdom include Aristotle’s books Rhetoric, Poetics, Metaphysics, Categories and On the Soul, as well as Plato’s Republic, Laws and Timaeus. The philosopher apparently urged the caliph to preserve the knowledge of ancient civilisations by gathering classical literature and sponsoring translation. The eighth-century mathematician al-Khwarizmi (who introduced what later came to be known as Arabic numerals), the astronomer Yahya ibn Abi Mansurh, the philosopher al-Kindi, and the mystic al-Hallaj, were all regular patrons of the library. Inspired by the ancient Museum of Alexandria (Mouseion), the project was envisaged during the reign of the Caliph Al Mansur ( ) as a simple repository of books, the Khizanat al-Hikmah (Library of Wisdom), but it would expand, under the rule of Harun al-Rashid ( ), into a flourishing academic centre. Bayt al-Hikmah, royal library maintained by the Abbasid caliphs during their reign in Baghdad.
The caliph was not interested in science and moved away from rationalism, seeing the spread of Greek philosophy as anti-Islamic. At the core of Hunayn’s activities was his commitment to his Christian faith, which informed and motivated his scholarship. Rejecting the advice of an acquaintance that he convert to Islam, Hunayn instead authored an apology for Christianity (How to Perceive the Truth of Religion).
Curated by al-Rashid’s father and grandfather, the collection spanned various subjects in the arts and sciences. Three decades later, the collection had grown so large that al-Rashid’s son, Caliph Al-Mamun (ruled 813–833 CE), built extensions to the original building and turned it into a large academy named Bayt al-Hikma (the House of Wisdom). The House of Wisdom was the largest repository of books in the world by the middle of the ninth century and became the leading center for various branches of study, including mathematics, astronomy, medicine, alchemy, chemistry, zoology, geography, and cartography. There has been different opinions on the identity of the founder of the Abbasids' House of Wisdom. He was the first caliph who motivated Muslims to study sciences and develop them, he also advised them to translate books from Persian, Greek, and Indian languages.
Historically, the city has been inundated by periodic floods from the Tigris’s tributaries to the north and east. These ended in 1956 with the completion of a dam on the Tigris at the town of Sāmarrāʾ, north of Baghdad, and the ending of the floods has permitted extensive expansion of the city to the east and west. To the north, urban expansion has absorbed the old townships of Al-Aʿẓamiyyah on the east bank and Al-Kāẓimiyyah on the west bank. Traditionally on weekends the city’s restaurants, cafés, and public parks have been filled with people. Restaurants serve the local delicacy masgūf, Tigris fish roasted over an open fire.
Another giant of Ma'mūn's Baghdad was mathematician Muhammad ibn Mūsa al-Khwārizmi. The most famous of all the Baghdad translators, Hunayn ibn Ishāq, was born in the ancient Christian city of Hira and never converted to Islam. He would spend many years travelling around the world in his search for Greek manuscripts.
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