Bayt al-Hikmah, the House of Wisdom

Baghdad’s great academy translates the sciences of Greece, Persia and India and builds new knowledge upon them.

Under al Mamun the House of Wisdom drew translators, astronomers and mathematicians of every faith to render Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy and the medicine of Galen into Arabic. Scholars were said to be paid in gold for their manuscripts. From translation grew original science: observatories, hospitals, and instruments the world had not seen.