History
Baghdad and the House of Wisdom
The Umayyads, the Abbasids, and an age of learning
5 min, Intro
The Umayyads ruled from Damascus (661 to 750). Then the Abbasids ruled from Baghdad (750 to 1258). Under the Abbasids, Baghdad became a centre of learning. Greek, Persian and Indian knowledge was translated there, and built on.
Draft written with AI help: awaiting scholar review
The thread
Mu'awiyah's family, the Umayyads, turn the caliphate into a hereditary monarchy. In 750 a revolt overthrows them. The Abbasids build Baghdad, and cheap paper and a great translation centre make it a home of learning. In 1258 the Mongols sack it. The learning moves on.
The Umayyads in Damascus: caliphs who became kings
The story starts in Damascus. Mu'awiyah's family, the Umayyads, ruled from there for about ninety years. Their empire reached from Spain to the edge of India.
They made Arabic the language of government and of coinage. They built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Damascus.
But many Muslims resented them. The Umayyads had turned the caliphate into a hereditary monarchy. Non-Arab converts were treated as second-class. In 750 a revolt from Khurasan overthrew them.
Mu'awiyah named his son as heir, and the caliphate became hereditary.
The Abbasids build a round city
After the Umayyads came the Abbasids. They claimed descent from al-'Abbas, the Prophet's uncle. In 762 the caliph al-Mansur founded Baghdad, a round city on the Tigris. Within decades it was among the largest cities on earth.
Then there was paper. Papermaking, learned from China, spread from Baghdad. It made books far cheaper. The city also had hospitals, observatories and huge markets.
Cheap paper made cheap books, and books spread ideas.
The House of Wisdom
Picture a library that was also a workshop. The Bayt al-Hikmah, the House of Wisdom, was a library and translation centre. Under caliphs like al-Ma'mun (ruled 813 to 833), works of Aristotle, Galen, Ptolemy and Indian mathematics were translated into Arabic. The translators were often Christian and Jewish scholars.
Translation was only the start. Muslim thinkers built on those works. Al-Khwarizmi wrote the book that named algebra, and his own name gave us "algorithm". Ibn al-Haytham studied light and vision by experiment. Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine was taught in European universities until the 1600s.
Why study nature at all? Many saw it as reading God's signs.
إِنَّ فِي خَلۡقِ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَٱخۡتِلَٰفِ ٱلَّيۡلِ وَٱلنَّهَارِ لَأٓيَٰتࣲ لِّأُوْلِي ٱلۡأَلۡبَٰبِ ١٩٠
190 Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and earth and the alternation of the night and day are signs for people of understanding,
Algebra and algorithm both come from one Baghdad scholar, al-Khwarizmi.
The fall of Baghdad, 1258
Over the centuries the Abbasid caliphs became figureheads. Local rulers held power.
Then, in 1258, the Mongol leader Hulagu sacked Baghdad and killed the caliph. Accounts say the Tigris ran dark with the ink of books thrown into it.
Yet the tradition of learning did not die. It went on in Cairo, Damascus, Persia, India and Central Asia. And the Mongols themselves later became Muslim.
Baghdad fell in 1258, but its learning moved on.