House of Wisdom

« L'encre du savant est préférable au sang du martyr »
« Demandez la science du berceau jusqu'à la tombe. »
« Cherchez le savoir serait-ce jusqu'en Chine, s'il le faut. »

(Paroles généralement attribuées au Prophète)

Nous vivons une époque d'une stupidité cruelle. Alors que l'histoire de la civilisation se caractérise par des apports culturels multiples permettant un infini et magnifique enrichissement mutuel, tout est fait pour nous déshumaniser. A force de médiatiser les dérives les plus extrêmes, notamment en prétendant que tel ou tel acte abject ou barbare a été commis « au nom de » telle ou telle croyance ou religion, tout est fait pour nous monter les uns contre les autres.

Sans réaction de notre part, le fameux « choc des civilisations », conçu par l'islamologue britannique Bernard Lewis (le maître à penser d'Henry Kissinger, de Zbigniew Brzezinski et de Samuel Huntington) comme un outil maléfique de manipulation géopolitique, deviendra alors une prophétie auto-réalisatrice.

Abstract: Translation Movement once initiated in the second century after Hijrah (AH) is one of the most important turning points in Islam's history. The study examines the importance of this scientific institute which contributed to the s cientific advancement and growth of Muslim world. Its precious effects influenced Eastern and Western world for many years and the most eminent universities throughout the world took the advantages of its blessings. Through this vast movement, the findings of sciences were transferred to the Muslim world ...

Wir leben in einer Zeit grausamer Ignoranz. Die Geschichte der Zivilisation kennt zwar vielfältige kulturelle Errungenschaften, die uns unendlich bereichert haben, doch heute wird vor allem im Westen alles getan,
uns unsere Menschlichkeit zu nehmen. Berichte in den Medien über brutalste Verbrechen, vor allem durch die Behauptung, diese oder jene abscheuliche oder barbarische Tat sei „im Namen“ dieser oder jener Weltanschauung oder Religion begangen worden, haben den Effekt,
uns gegeneinander aufzuhetzen. Wenn wir das nicht abstellen, wird die berühmte These vom „Kampf der Kulturen“, die der britische Islamwissenschaftler Bernard Lewis (ein Mentor von Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzeziński und Samuel Huntington) als Instrument der geopolitischen Manipulation ersonnen hat, zu einer sich selbst erfüllenden Prophezeiung.

Ihsanoğlu, Ekmeleddin. (2023). The Abbasid House of Wisdom between Myth and Reality. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-032-34745-5 (hbk).

Reviewed by
Dana Zaben
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha/ Toledo School of Translators
[email protected]

We live in a time of cruel stupidity. While the history of civilization is characterized by multiple cultural contributions allowing an infinite and magnificent mutual enrichment, everything is done to dehumanize us. By dint of media coverage of the most extreme crimes, notably by claiming that such and such an abject or barbaric act has been committed « in the name » of such and such a belief or religion, everything is done to set us against each other. If we do not react, the famous thesis of a "Clash of Civilizations", concocted by the British Islamologist Bernard Lewis (Henry Kissinger's, Zbigniew Brzezinski's and Samuel Huntington's mentor) as an evil tool of geopolitical manipulation, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Abstract: Translation Movement once initiated in the second century after Hijrah (AH) is one of the most important turning points in Islam's history. The study examines the importance of this scientific institute which contributed to the s cientific advancement and growth of Muslim world. Its precious effects influenced Eastern and Western world for many years and the most eminent universities throughout the world took the advantages of its blessings. Through this vast movement, the findings of sciences were transferred to the Muslim world ...

Critical thinking competency is a transversal competency determined by the fact that it relates to all areas of human activity (economy, science, culture, education …). The "active element" in this competency entails transfer, that is, transferring competency from one area to another. Key competency Critical thinking competency is a key competency determined by the fact that it is of crucial importance in certain contexts. Core competency Critical thinking competency is a core competency determined by the fact that its development provides an individual with a competitive advantage in different contexts. Life competency Critical thinking competency is a life competency determined by the fact that it responds effectively to the demands and challenges of everyday life. Global competency Critical thinking competency is a global competency determined by the fact that it is necessary to consider different phenomena through the prism of the local-global and multiculturalintercultural. After determining the concept of critical thinking, we go on to identify and describe its core-the argument.

There is a unique period of evolution of medical evolution from Aghbids (800-909) to Hafsids dynasty (1229-1574), that is the most sensitive stage of history of medicine in world, end of Middle Ages in empire of ifriquyah. Medicine in this region was formed from combination of traditional Berber and Arab schools of Qiravan and Andalusian, Iranian and Roman medicine, Ifriqiyah is main way of transferring medical knowledge to Europe and final stage of Islamic medicine, investigated last stage of theoretical and clinical achievements in pharmaceuticals, description and diagnosis of diseases, nutrition science, health and treatment with hot water and air, there are reports of diseases and epidemics, including Frankish disease in Mediterranean in Middle Ages. Fourhundred-year period of Hafsids rule is era of final evolution of Islamic medicine that rule in Ifriqyah, which had scientific, political, and jurisprudential works. Research is rewriting of medical section of book "Islamic culture and civilization in Hafsids era (2003)", article on history of Tunisian medicine in 2004, abstract of article is indexed in 43rd International Congress of History of Medicine in Italy. Medical knowledge reached its maximum growth in this part of world and capital of Tunisia Hafsids became a center for Islamic medicine and production of its medical works, interpretation of Avicenna's medical works was a textbook for centuries, and Zaitouneh University became a bridge for transfer of medicine to Salerno Italy. Research showed that Islamic medicine was physical stage of development of medicine from Middle Ages to Renaissance. Finally Islamic medicine after centuries of progress and Reaching peak of evolution, fell down in decadence and research investigated causes of decline of Islamic medicine because medicine became exclusive in meeting sexual needs and lost its balance, and its natural progress was stopped.

Throughout the 4th to 7th centuries, scholarly work in the Arabic languages was either newly initiated or carried on from the Hellenistic period. Centers of learning and of transmission of classical wisdom included colleges such as the School of Nisibis and later the School of Edessa, and the renowned hospital and medical academy of Jundishapur; libraries included the Library of Alexandria and the Imperial Library of Constantinople; and other centers of translation and learning functioned at Merv, Salonika, Nishapur and Ctesiphon, situated just south of what was later to become Baghdad.
During the Umayyad era, Muawiyah I started to gather a collection of books in Damascus. He then formed a library that was referred to as "Bayt al-Hikma". Books written in Greek, Latin, and Persian in the fields of medicine, alchemy, physics, mathematics, astrology and other disciplines were also collected and translated by Muslim scholars at that time. These were fundamental elements that contributed directly to the flourishing of scholarship in the Arab world giving rise to the Golden age of Islam.
The House of Wisdom  also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad, refers to either a major Abbasid public academy and intellectual center in Baghdad or to a large private library belonging to the Abbasid Caliphs during the Islamic Golden Age. The House of Wisdom was founded either as a library for the collections of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid in the late 8th century (then later turned into a public academy during the reign of Al-Ma'mun) or was a private collection created by Al-Mansur (reign 754–775) to house rare books and collections of poetry in Arabic.
The House of Wisdom and its contents were destroyed in the Siege of Baghdad in 1258, leaving relatively limited archaeological evidence for the House of Wisdom.
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the world's largest city by then, where Muslim scholars and polymaths from various parts of the world with different cultural backgrounds were mandated to gather and translate all of the known world's classical knowledge into Aramaic and Arabic.
The period is traditionally said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to Mongol invasions and the Siege of Baghdad in 1258. A few scholars date the end of the golden age around 1350 linking with the Timurid Renaissance while several modern historians and scholars place the end of the Islamic Golden Age as late as the end of 15th to 16th centuries meeting with the Islamic gunpowder empires. The medieval period of Islam drew over a similar if not identical period, with one source defining it as 900–1300 CE. "Bayt al-Hikma" is an important component of the jigsaw puzzle that crystallized the ancient  Golden Age of Islam, this book is a humble attempt to add to the scholarship nurturing that era.

Abstract: Translation Movement once initiated in the second century after Hijrah (AH) is one of the most important turning points in Islam's history. The study examines the importance of this scientific institute which contributed to the s cientific advancement and growth of Muslim world. Its precious effects influenced Eastern and Western world for many years and the most eminent universities throughout the world took the advantages of its blessings. Through this vast movement, the findings of sciences were transferred to the Muslim world ...

After the spread of Islamic faith, peoples were very attentive to gain knowledge and to participate in the life of thoughts, as a result libraries had emerged to reflect the loftiness of the intellectual life during the second, third until the seventh century AH (after hijrah) when libraries started to vanish. Libraries represented new reality for Muslims and new passion towards the human knowledge and education (Mohammad Ali, 1980).

Abstract: Translation Movement once initiated in the second century after Hijrah (AH) is one of the most important turning points in Islam's history. The study examines the importance of this scientific institute which contributed to the s cientific advancement and growth of Muslim world. Its precious effects influenced Eastern and Western world for many years and the most eminent universities throughout the world took the advantages of its blessings.

The Islamic Golden Age—from the 8th to the mid-13th century—was one of the greatest periods of human flourishment in knowledge and progress, with Baghdad as its focal point. A truly global repository of human knowledge, this Arab-Muslim imperial capital also welcomed—indeed encouraged—scholars from across the known world. As its wealth and fame grew, more and more scholars and engineers were drawn to the city from all over civilization. But in January 1258, a vast Mongol army reached the city’s perimeter and demanded that the caliph—al-Musta’sim, the nominal spiritual authority of the Islamic world—surrender.

This article presents Al-Kindi as the first Arab intercultural curriculum theorizer, rather than the first Arab philosopher as often argued. He envisioned an intercultural and interdisciplinary curriculum within the Arabic intellectual tradition. This article proposes Al-Kindism as a conceptual framework for education that revisits interdisciplinary and intercultural possibilities geared toward conflict resolution and synthesis. It also explores how Al-Kindi was arguably the first in the Arabic intellectual tradition to initiate a move from Majlis to Minhaj, that is from Masjid learning practices centered on theological studies to schooling. In other words, in the absence of actual schooling, his educational vision offered a possibility of a conceptualized curriculum to be taught. Al-Kindi’s scholarly eagerness was driven not necessarily by, as generally perceived, the desire to promote philosophy, but more importantly, by the need to develop an intellectually responsive educational tradition to accommodate emerging intercultural encounters. In his attempt to eliminate the tension between Greek thought and the Islamic culture, he believed that the acquisition of true knowledge could only be achieved through intercultural competence. Thus, as a curriculum theorizer, Al-Kindi initiated a Minhaj marked by indebtedness to intercultural encounters, by a shift away from Majlis, and by the implementation of interdisciplinarity.

The early Muslim society took much of the scientific treasures from other civilizations, especially from ancient Greek. One of the scientific traditions taken from Greek is Hellenism. Using a historical approach, this article tries to assess the contiguity of Islam with the Hellenism. There are three points will be discussed: When has Islam met to the Hellenism in first time? What are the factors that support the scientific contact between both of the civilizations? To what extent Hellenism influenced the development of scientific tradition in early Muslim community? Our study shows that the Muslims have known the Hellenistic tradition since the 7 th century in Ummayyad era, not the 8 th century as some scholars claim. Second, there are three factors underlying early Muslim studied Hellenism (1) Support from Qur'anic teachings, (2) The need to argue with both of other Muslim groups and Non-Muslims community, (3) The need of the Caliphs to legitimize their power. Third, when Muslims have known the Hellenism, they did not only adopt the Hellenism ideas, but also provide reviews, critical notes, and further more developed its own scientific tradition combined with the qur'anic teachings. [Tradisi keilmuan Islam klasik sebagian besar dari Yunani, khususnya Hellenisme. Dengan pendekatan historis, tulisan ini akan membahas masa persentuhan Islam dengan tradisi keilmuan Yunani, faktor-faktor yang mendukung tumbuh-berkembangnya kontak intelektualisme antar keduanya, serta tingkat pengaruh Hellenisme terhadap tradisi filsafat Islam. Dari kajian yang ada penulis menyimpulkan bahwa pertama, kontak awal antara Islam dengan Hellenisme terjadi sejak akhir abad ke 7 M pada zaman Dinasti Ummayyah, bukan abad ke 8 M sebagaimana yang dikemukakan sebagian sarjana. Kedua, dorongan awal untuk mempelajari filsafat Yunani disebabkan tiga faktor: a) dorongan dari kandungan al-Quran; b) kebutuhan umat Islam untuk berdebat baik antar Muslim maupun dengan Non Muslim; dan c) kebutuhan penguasa khalifah dalam urusan pemerintahan dan legitimasi politiknya. Ketiga, kontak dengan Hellenisme tidak hanya meninggalkan karya-karya saduran belaka. Namun juga ikhtisar, interpretasi, dan kemudian melahirkan generasi ilmuwan Muslim orisinal. Mereka tidak lagi menerjemahkan, membuat ikhtisiar, komentar atau sekadar mengutip, tetapi juga telah mengembangkannya dengan melakukan perenungan, pengamatan ilmiah, dan memadukan dengan ajaran-ajaran Islam.]

The socio-political rise or fall of a culture necessarily goes with its moral rise or fall. But, the case seems to be different with intellectual development. A nation may decline in the socio-political sphere and yet its decline may under suitable circumstances itself become a stimulus for its intellectual advance. The political and moral decline of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad began in about the middle of the ninth century but the deep rooted tradition of the patronage of learning in the Muslim world kept its intellectual achievements rising from peak to peak right up to the time of Mongol Devastation. During the period of Abbasid's, the Persian, Indian, Greek and Arab civilizations had chance to make representation in one or other way in the Islamic world. There is no doubt that the Arabs were acquainted with the Greek thought before translation work started, but that was by way of interaction with the foreigners, this acquaintance was deepened with coming of the period of translation. This paper will seek to find out how the Muslims get interacted with the Greek Philosophy.

This study challenges present-day dualisms and divisions, which are reflected in socio-political and intercultural dialogue. The aim of this study is to connect the philosophical discourse of the ninth-century House of Wisdom to modern conceptions of Islam by extending the dialogical rhetoric of that discourse. This study revisits the House of Wisdom, first, to invoke an inclusive, intercultural Islamic tradition that negates the circumscription of Islam by radical views. Second, it reintroduces the liberal arts as pedagogical tools that are central to the Islamic wisdom tradition. Third, it explores the notions of Aql and Fitrah and how they prescribe Hikmah.

Over de Mu'tazila, het Huis der Wijsheid en het hoe en wat om radicalisering tegen te werken bij jongeren. Originele tekst uit 2007 met kleine aanpassingen. Rudi Roth.

Etienne Vermeersch schreef hierover:
Ik vind dit een boeiende tekst en een uitstekend uitgangspunt voor de discussie.
Voor degenen die de (enigszins overdreven) lof zingen van de Islam-invloed op het Westen, is het nuttig de belangrijke rol van de Mutazila daarin te beklemtonen.

In Islamic history, library was an inevitable element. Islamic library evolved from study circles, which prophet (pbuh) was used to give lectures for his companions. First library in his Islamic history is mosque and first book to enter this is Holy Quran. Books were created on lectures, which was given by scholars in study circles.
In Muslim rule under Umayyad, Abbasids and other dynasties, there many libraries and study centres were established.
Translation movement, under Islamic libraries, helped to spread the knowledge, which was restricted in Greek and Persian language.

As the social life has been changing with the pass of the years the needs have been changing to. As a teacher, I can’t teach as I used to do fifteen years ago even now, the adolescents’ interests and needs are evolving as the new version of a cellphone or a new music style.

Teaching to Independent Learners in the Digital Classroom prompted the tailoring of it to invigorate thinking for the lacking of it in this domain.  Investigating pedagogy led to steering student behaviour and attitudes into independent learning by requiring consideration of significance, digital formats to reflect on relevance, oral discussion and visual mood setting to transform passive into participatory engagement, lesson scaffolding to wise up by explicit instruction in thinking methods to seek evidence and refine this into wisdom so as to provide the self-control required for independent learning.

Teaching to Independent Learners in the Digital Classroom prompted the tailoring of it to invigorate thinking for the lacking of it in this domain.  Investigating pedagogy led to steering student behaviour and attitudes into independent learning by requiring consideration of significance, digital formats to reflect on relevance, oral discussion and visual mood setting to transform passive into participatory engagement, lesson scaffolding to wise up by explicit instruction in thinking methods to seek evidence and refine this into wisdom so as to provide the self-control required for independent learning.

Abstract: Translation Movement once initiated in the second century after Hijrah (AH) is one of the most important turning points in Islam's history. The study examines the importance of this scientific institute which contributed to the s cientific advancement and growth of Muslim world. Its precious effects influenced Eastern and Western world for many years and the most eminent universities throughout the world took the advantages of its blessings. Through this vast movement, the findings of sciences were transferred to the Muslim world ...

Much of The Iliad is explicable as Homer creating an epic calling for the male elite of the city states and diaspora of Greece to unite so as to become a major power to rival and surpass those of Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Egypt in the Near East by expressing superior gods, war goddesses, demigods, heroes, military might and implying that Greeks hold the power to rule life by governing death and whose men can match the gods themselves. 
13-10-2015

The digital classroom can impede the cognition necessary for independent learning according to belief and behaviour undermining engagement, health, delivery, participation and curriculum.  Surveys of adolescents, students, teachers and successful users of the digital domain together with neuroscience show that teaching digital literacy and control, through a range of digital, printed and oral cognitive tasks can set the emotions and mood to overcome these impediments to produce the higher order thinking of successful learners.  Transforming successful learners into independent ones in the digital domain is possible by heeding the lessons of moving from oral to printed learning, cognizant of the risks, so as to provide balanced learning that challenges the student’s inhibiting metaphors and teaches how to test information, scaffold the critical thinking skills needed and use self-control strategies.