Talk:House of Wisdom

'cherished tradition of eastern Christianity'

the first sentence of the history section is 'The preservation and development of human knowledge was a cherished tradition of the Eastern Christianity.[4]'. I dont think that the citation given for this sentence actually says this. The citation says: “It was in the Near and Middle East and North Africa that the old traditions of teaching and learning continued, and where Muslim scholars were carefully preserving ancient texts and knowledge of the ancient Greek language.”

So the citation refers to the continuation of 'old traditions of teaching and learning' without explicitly identifying those traditions with eastern Christianity. In fact the citation refers to 'ancient texts and knowledge of the ancient Greek language' and the citation is from a book on Pythagoras and his legacy (Pythagoras: His Lives and the Legacy of a Rational Universe by Kitty Ferguson) so I don't really get how someone got Eastern Christianity from this.

I think this first sentence should either be removed or changed to more accurately reflect the citation eg 'The preservation and development of human knowledge was a cherished tradition of the Greek thinking', because otherwise this sentence is just shifting credit for the House of Wisdom, a major intellectual centre of the Islamic golden age, to Christianity - which feels like POV pushing to me.

I'm gonna remove the sentence in the meantime because I think its misleading but feel free to replace/improve it if it can be more accurately reflect the reference as I think having a more general sentence before getting into the denser history makes the section read well. Best 212.56.121.8 (talk) 23:27, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Untitled

Could anyone expand on this, or point me to good sources for this sort of thing? Thanks!

ManicParroT 19:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I could maybe add something to the article concerning the history of mathematics and the role of the House of Wisdom in transcribing Greek texts into Arabic that were later translated into Latin. Without the House of Wisdom many texts such as Euclid's Elements and some of Plato's work would not have been preserved. I will study my notes and post something soon - basically it will be a brief history. Aindriú Conroy 13:57, 01 August 2006 (UTC)

possible sources

Article] by Owen Gingerich --ragesoss 18:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Removed bit on Uzbek house of wisdom

I removed this:

• The "'Bite ul-'Khikma" in Mawarannahr (Uzbekistan): In the 8th century the armies of the Arab caliph invaded Mawarannahr ('The Land Beyond River') south of the Amudarrya river and brought in Islam from Saudi Arabia (see Uzbekistan History). The House of Wisdom called Bite ul-Khikma, founded by an order of the caliphate ruler Mahmud, engaged in the great task to translate the books of Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes and other ancient Greek scientists and philosophers from classical Greek into Arabic. The Mawarannanahr's brilliant young scientists, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, Achmad Al-Fergani, Al-Marvazi, Javkhari, Marvarudi and others performed with distinction. This time in history is known as the Oriental Renaissance. At Khorezm a new research center was opened dedicated later to Khorezm-Shakh and it became the first Academy in Central Asia.

... because obviously, most of the text is referring to the Bayt al-Hikmah in Baghdad. I googled for something in Mawarannahr, but only founds info from copies of the wikipedia article. So I'll take it out until someone comes up with a better source for this. In the meanwhile, no info is better than wrong info. flammifer^talk 03:46, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Abode or House? (or Adobe?)

A recent edit by user oneeyedboxer changed "house" to "adobe" throughout the article. I think that "abode" was the intended change.

While "House of Wisdom" seems the correct translation to me, we'll need a person with a thorough knowledge of Arabic to translate or make changes. Since the semantic difference between "House" and "Abode" is very slight, I think it ought to stay "House" until an expert deems otherwise.

"House of Wisdom" also sounds better. It's less pompous, more eloquent, easier to understand, and sounds grander. "Abode" is a vaguer term for "a place of residence," but it can also mean "a sojourn."

My two cents, Auranor (talk) 19:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

how many volumes?

The article mentions 'enormous quantities' of books in the House of Wisdom. Have any scholars provided a figure or an estimate of the actual number? This would be a nice addition to the article. KBurchfiel (talk) 03:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

A place to start would be to track down data about Ibn al-Nadim's Fihrist which was an index of Arabic language books. It's likely that all of these plus Greek, Persian, and Hindu books were in the House of Wisdom library. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:27, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

legends

There was NO such "Bait al Hikma" - those are alllll legends here.

Dimitri Gutas (an Arabist and Graekist scholar, Yale University) meticuously researched that - only to point out that there are only 2 mentions (!) of such a "bait" and one is only very, very brief.

My friends - go and read literature first before writing legends as facts - a problem that haunts Wikipedia in this area espacially.

Try D. Gutas "Greek Thought, Arabic Culture" for a starter ...

Udix — Preceding unsigned comment added by Udix2 (talk • contribs) 10:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you: the position of Dimitri Gutas is not represented in the article and it should, but it's not so easy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia made of non-original material and with a neutral point of view and in my opinion in this particular case it's very hard to balance different sources. I would like to contribute personally, but since I am not enough expert about the other argumentations about bayt al-hikma and I don't know which are the current academic positions, I will abstain. I hope somebody else, more informed than me, will do it. Nedanfor (talk) 12:58, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thousands of sales per day?

Can we have a source for this claim?

These shops doubled as bookshops, the largest of which, al-Nakim, sold thousands of books every day

It sounds very dubious, given that they would all need to have been copied by hand. Wardog (talk) 20:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Claim without citation

Hello, I am trying to improve this article. As it was asked before, does anyone know of a source for the claim that "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"?

I wasn't able to find references to this. If no one knows where this comes from, I guess I will remove the sentence. Thanks! Maxisi (talk) 07:49, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

House of Wisdom of Ottoman times

The same institution was also found in Ottoman times for a similar purpose. I don't know much about it and don't have time for that know, but somebody can research and include it here. Thanks. rinduzahid^(talk) 23:01, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

stop saying "the first"

the first 'algorithm' could be argued to be Euclid's method of finding factors, or it could be alot of other things. the first mechanical calculating device... atinkythera, or maybe some old chinese stuff,, who knows. and on and on. its all open to debate and hangs on the definitions of phrases. most secondary sources in history books would not use phrases like 'the first'. but they realize that new old texts are found all the time and our view of the past changes over time. it would be far, far more encyclopedic to just leave the word 'first' out of these articles. just because something wasnt first doesnt mean it wasnt important or valuable. its basically POVism Decora (talk) 01:15, 22 July 2013 (UTC)