House of Wisdom and the translation movement
Casa de la Sabiduría y movimiento de traducción
- Date
- c. 830 · confidence medium
- Place
- Baghdad, Iraq
- Credited to
- Caliphs Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun; Hunayn ibn Ishaq and other translators
- People
- 👤 al-Mamún786–833👤 Hunayn ibn Ishaq808–873
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Library and palace centre from which Greek, Persian and Indian works of philosophy, medicine, mathematics and astronomy were systematically translated into Arabic. It preserved and expanded much of ancient science.
Dimitri Gutas and others argue that the Bayt al-Hikma was above all a library and that the translation movement was funded by many private patrons rather than a single academy.
What it led to
- Arabic scientific corpus later passed into Latin at Toledo
- Abbasid mathematics and astronomy
- Arabic scientific terminology