Baghdad's House of Wisdom

The Abassid Caliphs in Baghdad developed a liberal attitude towards science and philosophy under the form of the 'House of Wisdom,' a learning center. That culture was based upon science as tha Hanbalite school of though in Islam already asserted that sole the science of the Qur'an and Sunna was allowed. Due to the embassies exchanged between the Carolingians and the Abassids, or that Baghdad was a port for the Rhadanites large-scale traders, it is likely that knowledge journeyed into the Carolingin empire. The Islamic Caliphate was asserting itself like a more legitimate successor to the ancient Roman empire than the Byzantines

A Icon of Islamic Liberalism

The great quarrel of free will began under the Umayyads as it originated from the Christian converts who helped developing Muslim theology. The House of Wisdom, or Bait al-Hikma, in Arabic, was the learning center in the Abbasid Empire as located in Baghdad. At a time when Charlemagne was developing the Carolingian Renaissance, the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid and his son al-Ma'mun (reigning 813–833) created that library, and a center of scholars in their empire. The Abbasid caliphs themselves, with a strong Persian bent, had adopted many practices from the previous Sassanid empire, among them that many foreign works were translated. Sassinid Persians were in a tight contact with China and they thus passed a part of that heritage to the Arabs. The Sassanian Empire, by Late Antiquity, is considered the peak of the ancient Iranian civilization as they considerably influenced Roman culture at that time and reached altogether to Africa, India and China. Much of Islamic culture also found its roots there. As since 529 A.D. Byzantine emperor Justinian had had Athens' philosophical schools closed, Neo-platonicist scholars of the time took refuge in Sassanid lands, in the city of Gundishapur, with a academy where they intensively developed astronomy, medicine, philosophy and other science as that attracted other scholars further. The Arabic world inherited of that as Al-Mansur thus founded a palace library, modeled after the Sassanid Imperial Library. That House of Wisdom was originally concerned with translating and preserving Persian works, a draw which extended to works in Syriac, Greek and India's Sanskrit. Other large libraries were constructed in the Abassid lands, as scholars persecuted by the Byzantine Empire were welcomed. Al-Ma'mun brought most of the well known scholars from around the globe to share information ideas and culture in the House of Wisdom as it lasted from the 9th to 13th centuries with many of the most learned Muslim scholars were part that research and educational institute. The earliest scientific manuscripts originated in the the Abbasid Era as observatories were set up. The House of Wisdom became a unrivalled center for the study of humanities and for Islamic science, including mathematics, astronomy, medicine, alchemy or chemistry, zoology and geography. Scholars of the House draw on Persian, Indian and Greek texts—including those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid, Plotinus, Galen, Sushruta, Charaka, Aryabhata and Brahmagupta. Arabs called the Greek and Hellenistic philosophy the 'philosophy of the ancients.' The Arabic scholars thus had a their disposal a great collection of world knowledge as they further built upon that with their own discoveries. Baghdad, generally, was the world's richest city and center of intellectual endeavour at the time, as merchants and scientists from as far as China and India traveled to this city. The House of Wisdom also benefited from the use of paper, instead of the fragile papyrus or the expensive parchment. That invention, taken from Chinese prisoners at the Battle of Talas by 751 A.D. in Central Asia -which had delineated the respective areas of influence between the Arabs and Chinese- allowed for the numerous works issued from the House. At that time, there was a vast amount of information in Greek language pertaining to philosophy, mathematics, natural science, and medicine as this valuable information was at that time accessible only to a very small minority of Middle Eastern scholars who knew the Greek language. Barely later, the Arabic world's cosmopolitism, with scholars with miscellaneous origins and religions (of those Sabeans or Zoroastrians, for example) made that, as soon as the Carolingien era, Arabic became the science language, or the equivalent that English became nowadays. Arabs thus are at the origin of the first concept of 'international' science community as scholars between them did not matter the origin of a colleague but appreciated -or criticized- his works!

A other main aspect of that intellectual movement under the Abassids until 847 A.D. is that it represents one of the most liberal stand of Islamic stand along centuries. Caliph al-Ma'mun was following the Islamic philosophy of Mu'tazili which had become the official theology of the Abassid empire since 827 A.D. under caliph al-Ma'mun as its schools were to be found in Baghdad and Basra'. Mu'tazilism had been born in Basra' (currently southern Iraq) by the 8th century A.D. Islamic world among others was using a legal method called 'ijtihad' which allowed to interpret some obscure aspect of the revelation of Muhammad. Exegetics of Quran turned a king of religious philosophy. Research about contradictions in the text ended into the Mu'talizists considered heretics. They both reinforced the unicity of Allah -by denying him any attribute- and they claimed man's free will -like a way to reconcile the idea of predestination and that of punishment and reward in a future. To build their reasoning, they used the philosophy of Greeks of Alexandria and gave a allegoric sense to the text. By reaction, the Mu'tazilists' views caused reactions from the orthodox Muslims. The Anthropomorphic School, for example, took the Quran literally as it deduced the physical aspect of Allah from some passages. Mu'tazilism went far, until to skepticism. Like Abou-l-Ala, a early 10th century poet, who asserted that Muslims, Jews and Christians were wrong because only two kinds of men exist, some who are intelligent but unbelieving and the others believing but lacking of intelligence. Caliph al-Mutawakkil, after 847 A.D., began to brake such efforts as he followed orthodox Islam. Mu'tazilists, as they reached a apogee by the 12th century, eventually lost their influence to orthodoxy as the ijtihad effort too closed due to the Mongol invasions, or the Crusades. During the Mongol invasion of Baghdad by 1258, it was said that the waters of Tigris river ran black for six months with ink from the books flung into the river as the House of Wisdom burnt. The first decline of the House of Wisdom, under caliph al-Mutawakkil, might have been due to his militant orthodoxy and violent persecution of unorthodox Muslims and non-Muslims as well, as scholarly rivalries at the House of Wisdom might have helped too

As for the Shias, at last, the divine character of Quran leads to that the text is of a infinite nature and thus features a infinity of meanings and interpretation, a consequency was that that fraction of Islam became more prone to cultivate science and researches about the world, as that tendency further is not found among the orthodox Muslims, or Sunnis. The Sunnis think the Quran has to be understood in Arabic only and that it is, mostly, closed to any interpretation. That also is likely explaining why the House of Wisdom blossomed at the court of those first Abassid Caliphs, in Bagdad, when and where a strong Iranian influence was extant

Content

The House of Wisdom introduced other, practical concepts. The concept of the library catalog was used along in other medieval Islamic libraries too as books were organized into specific genres and categories. The activities of the library was supported by a large number of stationery shops. These shops doubled as bookshops, the largest of which, al-Nakim, sold thousands of books every day. It's mainly under al-Ma'mun that the House of Wisdom turned to maths and astrology and that its focus also shifted from Persian to Greek texts. Although universities like institutional frame for teaching did not exist at the time, some institutes called 'maktabs' soon began to develop in the city from the 9th century with the first real university founded by the 11th century, the al-Nizamiyya, the largest of the medieval world

At that time of the Abbassids, the House of Wisdom was directed by the poet and astrologer Sahl ibn Haroun (d. 830) as Nestorian Christian scholar Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873) had been placed in charge of the translation work. As the emphasis on translation work declined, the House of Wisdom kept flourishing under al-Ma'mun's successors until 847 A.D. Translations of the Abbassid era were superior to earlier ones. By the 8th and 9th centuries, Baghdad was incontestably the sole center of learning in the Arabic world, considered from Spain and Morocco to Central Asia. During the 10th century however, that unbalanced supremacy vanished, likely is the same time that the Abbassid rule was waning. Other centers of learning and scholars had surfaced then in the same area, like -from West to East- Cordoba (current Spain), Kairouan (current Tunisia), Cairo (current Egypt), Alep and Damas (current Syria), Mossul and Al Raqqa (current Iraq), Rayy and Chiraz (current Iran), Khwaazm and Bukhara (Central Asia), the Arabic world becoming multi-centered at the time with both most representative areas the Arabic Spain and North Africa, and the Middle East. In Bukhara, under the Samanids, Al-Kharezmi (787-850) was a notable mathematician, as Ibn Sina (980-1037), the founder to western medecine until in the 17th century A.D. or Al Biruni (973-1046), a astronomer who had assessed the distance between Moon and the Earth as he claimed that the Earth rotated about itself and about the Sun, were also luminaries of the city. Despite the ambassies tracted between the Carolingian empire and the caliphs, it is still ill-known what kind of influence such intellectual works might have had in the West. It looks likely that some Arabic knowledge in astronomy made their way until the Carolingian court. As far as that later point is concerned, one may see from the 'Book of Fixed Stars,' in the 10th century A.D. by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi), that the Arabic constellations at the time had turned into shapes taken from the tradition of the desert's caravans, instead of the Greek ones.

Scholars Related to The House of Wisdom

Here are following some notices about scholars related to the House of Wisdom under the Abbassids

• Hunayn ibn Ishaq (Abu Zayd ?unayn ibn ’Is?aq al-‘Ibadi; known in Latin as Johannitius) (809-873). A Nestorian scholar, physician, and scientist, he was instrumental into translations of Greek works into Arabic and Syriac at the House of Wisdom. He is known too to have laid out the foundations of Islamic medicine. Ishaq, with the help of his son and his nephew, translated 116 writings, the Old Testament included as he produced 36 of his own books. He became known among the Arabs as the 'Sheikh of the translators.' He had been born in southern Iraq, had studied like a physician in Baghdad, and he had learned Greek when traveling in Alexandria and Byzantium to master Greek language as he mastered too Syriac and Persian. He translated Plato and Aristotle, writings on agriculture, stones, and religion, and many medicinal texts and summaries, those of Galen mainly, working too about Arabic grammar and lexicography. Unlike other translators of the past, Hunayn opposed translating texts word for word as he would attempt instead to attain the meaning of the subject and the sentences. Such works eventually turned into treatises of their own, with knowledge added from other source about a same subject. Hunayn’s method was widely followed by later translators. He later became the personal physician to caliph al-Mutawakil. His translation of 'De Materia Medica,' a pharmaceutical handbook, and his most popular selection, 'Questions on Medicine' was extremely beneficial to medical students because it was a good beginner's guide. One field of medicine Hunayn ibn Ishaq enriched and contributed to was ophthalmology, medicine of the eye
• Thabit ibn Qurra (known as Thebit in Latin) (836-Feb. 18th, 901). Born in Carrhae, North of Baghdad, he succeded to Hunayn ibn Ishaq like the major translator in the House of Wisdom where he came to work at the invitation of Muhammad bin Musa bin Shakir, one of the Banu Musa brothers. He either belonged to the sect of the Sabians, which were Hermeticists, or of the Mandaeans. Both had a great interest in astronomy, astrology, and mathematics (especially in the case of Mandaeans). One of those had their center become a center for philosophical, esoteric, and medical learning around the time of caliph al-Mutawakkil. They had been joined by descendants of pagan Greek scholars who had fled the Byzantine Empire. A Mandean physician, Thabit occupied himself with mathematics, astronomy, astrology, magic, mechanics, medicine, and philosophy. His native language was Syriac, which was the eastern Aramaic dialect from Edessa, and he knew Greek well too. He translated Apollonius, Archimedes, Euclid, and Ptolemy (of that Ptolemy's Geography) as he revised the translation of Euclid's Elements of Hunayn ibn Ishaq or rewrote his translation of Ptolemy's Almagest. Later in his life, he became caliph al-Mu'tadid (reigned 892–902)'s personal friend and courtier. Thabit died in Baghdad. Thabit studied the curves needed for making sundials as he made important steps in numerous fields, like the trepidation of the equinoxes, the length of the sidereal year in astronomy, or a equation for determining the amicable numbers, the extension of numbers to their use to describe the ratios between geometrical quantities, a step which the Greeks never took, or generalization of the Pythagorean theorem from right triangles to all triangles in maths. In physics too, Thabit made major advancements, as he rejected the Peripatetic and Aristotelian notions of a natural place for each element proposing a theory of motion governed by weight causing both upward and downward motions, with too a approximating theory of gravity
• The Banu Musa brothers, or 'Sons of Musa'.There are three 9th century Persian scholars, in Baghdad, who were active in the House of Wisdom. Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa ibn Shakir (before 803-873) worked in astronomy, engineering, geometry and physics. Ahmad ibn Musa ibn Shakir (803-873) did in engineering and mechanics. Al-Hasan ibn Musa ibn Shakir (810-873) worked specialised in engineering and geometry. Entrusted by the caliph to the former governor of Baghdad after the death of their father, who had been a highwayman and later a astrologer to caliph al-Ma'mun, they were trained by Yahya bin Abu Mansur who worked at the House of Wisdom. The Banu Musa brothers built a number of automata, or automatic machines, and mechanical devices, and they described a hundred such devices in their 'Book of Ingenious Devices'. Most of these devices were already known to ancient Greeks and Romans like a automatic flute player, the differential pressure or varied engineering systems. The earliest known mechanical musical instrument is also due to them, a hydropowered organ which played interchangeable raised pin-cylinders automatically. The Banu Musa's most famous mathematical treatise is 'The Book of the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures', which considered similar problems as Archimedes. In physics and astronomy, Muhammad ibn Musa was a pioneer of astrophysics and celestial mechanics. In his 'Book on the Motion of the Orbs', he was the first to discover that the heavenly bodies and celestial spheres were subject to the same laws of physics as Earth, unlike the ancients who believed that the celestial spheres followed their own set of physical laws. On mechanics Ahmad specialised in mechanics and wrote a work on pneumatic devices. The youngest brother, al-Hasan a work on the ellipse
• Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (c. 780, Khwarizm-c. 850). The foundator of algebra, al-Khwarizmi had been born a Persian in the city of Chorasmia (Khwarizm in Persian). He accomplished most of his work in the period between 813 and 833, working like the head of the House of Wisdom and dealing with sciences and mathematics, including translation of Greek and Sanskrit science manuscripts. Mostly his endeavour to solving linear and quadratic equations up to the second degree, with the method of cancelling like terms on opposite side of a equation, led to algebra. That word is taken from title of his 830 book, 'al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala', or 'The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing' and hinting to 'al-jabr', one of the two operations he used to solve quadratic equations. Another of his major contribution to science was that al-Khwarizmi, with his 'Calculation with Hindu Numerals', about 825, spread the Indian system of numeration throughout the Middle East and Europe. His maths techniques were used in trade, surveying and legal inheritance. That has to be considered like the foundation of modern maths and a revolutionary move away from the Greek concept of mathematics which was essentially geometry. He worked too in trigonometry. In astronomy, he systematized and corrected Ptolemy's data for Africa and the Middle East, improved coordinate values for the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, and Africa. al-Khwarizmi almost correctly estimated the width of the Mediterranean and he also depicted the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as open bodies of water instead of landlocked seas like Ptolemy had done. A project was to determine the circumference of the Earth and in making a world map for caliph al-Ma'mun, overseeing 70 geographers. He also produced the 'Zij al-Sindhind' or 'Astronomical Tables of Sind and Hind', the first of many Arabic astronomical tables, based on the Indian astronomical methods known as the sindhind, containing calendrical, astronomical and astrological data. That work marks the turning point in Islamic astronomy, replacing the hitherto approach of relying upon translated work. He improved too the construction of sundials, making them useable worldwide and giving them their current form with a shadow square and alidade. His Quadrans Vetus, or universal horary quadrant, became the second most widely used astronomical instrument during the Middle Ages after the astrolabe. Part of his work was based on Persian and Babylonian astronomy, Indian numbers, and Greek mathematics. The name of al-Khwarizmi at last yieled the world 'algorithm', from 'algoritmi', the Latin form of his name. Spanish guarismo and Portuguese algarismo, both meaning digit also come from there
• Sind ibn Ali (died after 864). From a noble family, in the southern Pakistanese region of Sindh, and converted tO Islam he was trained in Baghdad. A astronomer, translator, mathematician and engineer, he translated and modified the Zij al-Sindhind, the first astronomical table ever introduced in the Muslim world. As a mathematician Sind ibn Ali was a colleague of al-Khwarizmi, whom the proved the works, and worked closely with another mathematician too, together calculating the diameter of the Earth and other astronomical bodies. Another important step was the introduction of the decimal point notation to the Arabic numerals. He might have endured the professional jealousy of the Banu Musa brothers, who kept him away from caliph al-Mutawakkil at his new capital Samarra, North of Baghdad, or entrusted the digging of a canal to Al-Farghani instead of Sind ibn Ali, the better engineer of the time
• Abu-Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ishaq ibn as-sabbah ibn 'Omran ibn Isma'il al-Kindi (al-Kindi, Alkindus in Latin) (c. 801–873). A polymath, with interest, in Islamic philosophy, science, astrology, astronomy, cosmology, logics, maths, music, physics, medicine, psychology or meteorology, he also is one of the fathers of cryptography. Al-Kindi was a descendant of the aristocratic Arabic Kinda tribe as his father was the governor of Kufa. He trained in Baghdad and became a prominent figure in the House of Wisdom. Several caliphs appointed him to oversee the work of translation there. Appointed by caliph al-Ma'mun, then al-Mu'tasim his brother (the tutor of the son he became), he was well known for his beautiful calligraphy, and at one point was employed as a calligrapher by caliph al-Mutawakkil albeit the reign of the latter meant the waning of al-Kindi influence. He likely wrote at least 260 books, contributing heavily to geometry, medicine and philosophy, logic, and physics. Al-Kindi work largely is influenced by his connection to philosophy. Called the 'Philosopher of The Arabs' or the 'Arab Philosopher', al-Kindi had his intellectual development profoundly impacted with the Greek and Hellenistic philosophy, which he contributed to introduce to the Arab world. Considered a Aristotelician -or better unwittingly re-interpreting Aristotelician texts in a Plotinus, or other schools of thought-related, neo-Platonistic framework- he was too a writer in Islamic theology, basing upon his theories of the compatibility between philosophy and natural theology and orthodox Islamic sciences and theology. He was intrumental into making philosophy accessible to Muslim intellectuals, while Muslim intellectuals were already acquainted with Greek philosophy, especially logic, until then. In philosophy his importance is due to that, through the translation into Arabic of many important texts, he laid the foundations for the ensuing works of later famed Arab philosophers like al-Farabi or Avicenna. Arab theologians until now were dispising philosophy not because of its methods but because of the theologically erroneous conclusions it led to. His philosophical tournure brought him to specific view in astronomy, with the idea of a obedience to and worship of Allah, or the celestial bodies acting as instruments for the divine providence. Many of his works are bent this way, mixing science and religious aspects together. In terms of science, with a strong emphasis on experimentation and quantification, and performing himself numerous experiments and direct observation, he surpassed his Greek reference, criticizing those for lack of any empirical proof or demonstration. A other aspect of his method was confronting two Greek explanations for a one phenomenon and retaining the sole pertaining to a fact. As he worked by the House of Wisdom under the reigns of caliphs favourable to intellectual liberalism, al-Kindi however did not belong to the Mutazilite school of theology and he attacked their belief in atoms. That framework favourable to learning and scholarship was thus also favourable to al-Kindi endeavours. In terms of Islamic theology, al-Kindi views entail a very rigorous negative theology as any description which can be predicated to anything else, cannot be said about God for cause of the absolute oneness of him. He also found compatible the Aristotelician concept of first cause and unmoved mover with the concept of God according to Islamic revelation. Al-Kindi also deems against Aristotle that the Universe has a finite past with a beginning, inserting himself into a creation doctrine shared by the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, judging against a actual infinite. A original thought is that a separate, incorporeal and universal intellect, or 'First Intellect was God's first creation and a intermediary through which all other things came into creation as that concept too is related to the question of the nominalism, as al-Kindi refers to the Platonic realism. A concept of detachment of material things, contemplation or superiority of the spiritual above the material, is also extant by al-Kindi as that might reveal a potential, subjacent buddhist, or Stoician influence. As far as his science achievements are concerned, al-Kindi performed the following. As an advanced chemist, he was the first to oppose the practice of alchemy, debunking for example the myth that base metals could be transformed into gold or silver as he first isolated ethanol, or distilled alcohol from wine. Al-Kindi is also consider the father of the perfume industry. His 'Ketab fi Isti'mal al-'Adad al-Hindi' ('On the Use of the Indian Numerals') contributed greatly to diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle East and the West. In geometry, among other works, he wrote on the theory of parallels. Also related to geometry were two works on optics. In meteorology he performed a laboratory experiment in order to prove that the air turns into water. He applied mathematics and quantification to medicine, particularly in the field of pharmacology. Al-Kindi was the first great theoretician of music in the Islamic world and using the word 'musiqia'for the first time in Arabic. In terms of psychology, he, for example, wrote upon sorrow, which is a spiritual grief caused by loss of loved ones or personal belongings, or by failure in obtaining what one lusts after. Al-Kindi might well be after all a kind of a Arab world's John Scotus Eriugena as, despite his precautionous approach to theology and religion, he eventually reaches a very naturalistic conception of those, as, for example, he goes up to explain visions and prophecies through biological mechanisms

A Reason for The Desertion of Ijtihad?

For the first lawyers of Islam, and the first interpretators of tradition, concrete situations played a role. Despite a obvious tendency to artifice, and a intelligence apt to move inside a formalism -- albeit not being well apt to think about a accurate point -- they took into account the changes brought by the conquest which had made pass the Muslims orb from Arabia to a vaster world. Such a dynamism kept allowing adaptation and assimilation. Those scholars, on a other hand, did, through their works, by a instinct of protection or due to a custom deeply anchored in them, avoided to frankly state that they advocated their evolutions because they refered to reality, and they better evoked traditions or they refered to the verses of the Qur'an. The -- important -- consequence was that their successors, when they came to use those works, only saw that link to tradition and not the innovative spirit of their masters. Thus, to content themselves in turn with commenting previous works, looked like justified as they did not keep nor develop methods which would have allowed a development of tradition. There likely is the origine of how the ijtihad was so easily closed, without any protests nor misdemeanor. The successors to Muslim scholars eventually had fallen into giving up any initiative