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Baghdad is served by an extensive but chaotic bus network; maps and route information for the network are not available in English. Cycling is not uncommon among locals, but there is next to no infrastructure to support it. While the almost daily bombings and shootings have subsided for the moment, there is always a risk of getting caught in violence when travelling around the city. Overland travel is possible from all neighbouring countries and while major roads are generally in an acceptable condition, travelling by car is strongly discouraged due to violence. Baghdad is in the centre of Iraq's highway network, with Freeway 1 from Basra and continuing towards the Jordanian borde being the major thoroughfare. Adjacent to these commercial districts are older, middle-class residential areas, such as Al-Sulaykh to the north, Al-Wāziriyyah to the west, and Al-Karrādah to the south, now densely settled.
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For this purpose, al-Mansur founded a palace library, modeled after the Sassanian Imperial Library, and provided economic and political support to the intellectuals working there. He also invited delegations of scholars from India and other places to share their knowledge of mathematics and astronomy with the new Abbasid court. The House of Wisdom (بيت الحكمة; Bayt al-Ḥikmah) refers either to 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 is the subject of an active dispute over its functions and existence as a formal academy, an issue complicated by a lack of physical evidence following the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate and a reliance on corroboration of literary sources to construct a narrative. The House of Wisdom came into being as a library, translation institute and academy of scholars from across the empire. Beginning as a project to protect knowledge, including philosophy, astronomy, science, mathematics and literature, it quickly became, and is still considered today, a symbol of the merging and expansion of intellectual traditions from across different cultures and nations.
The World’s First Collectors, Museums And Libraries Of Antiquity
But Baghdad, located near the former Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon, was also in the heart of a predominantly Persian populace. Instead of repressing what remained of Sasanian society, al-Manṣūr absorbed it into the new bureaucratic structure and portrayed Abbasid rule as the revival of the Sasanian empire. Besides their translations of earlier works and their commentaries on them, scholars at the Bayt al-Ḥikma produced important original research. For example, the noted mathematician al-Khwarizmi worked in al-Maʾmun’s House of Wisdom and is famous for his contributions to the development of algebra.
Sphere of learning (8th to 9th centuries)
Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi was also another historical figure that worked at the House of Wisdom. Al-Kindi is the most famous for being the first person to introduce Aristotle’s philosophy to the Arabic people. He fused Aristotle’s philosophy with Islamic theology which created an intellectual platform for philosophers and theologians to debate over 400 years. A fellow expert on Aristotle was an East African descent named Abu Uthman al-Jahith who was born in Basra around 776 but he spent most of his life in Baghdad.
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It also shows the intellectual as well as managerial impacts that Baghdad's House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikmah) had on the spread of new Islamic libraries within the Muslim peninsula. Unlike what some people may believe about the ancient libraries being unable to match the contemporary bookstores, libraries were the meeting place for men of literature, science, cultures, religions, etc. Despite the sundry vicissitudes visited on the city in its history, Baghdad has maintained a mystique and allure equaled by few of the world’s cities.
Astronomical observatories
Beyond the canal, at the eastern edge of the city, is a sprawling low-income district of some two million rural Shiʿi migrants known alternately as Al-Thawrah (“Revolution”) quarter or, between 1982 and 2003, as Saddam City. Note that these works would later become standard textbooks of medicine during the Renaissance. With all other libraries in Baghdad, the House of Wisdom was destroyed by the army of Hulagu during the Siege of Baghdad. The books from Baghdad’s libraries were thrown into the Tigris River in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi rescued about 400,000 manuscripts which he took to Maragheh before the siege.
h and 21st centuries
In 1258, the Mongol army ransacked the city of Baghdad and threw such a great number of manuscripts into the river Tigris that the waters ran black with ink. One popular narrative holds that the impetus behind the translation movement was because of Al-Mamun’s encounter with Aristotle in a dream. But the great humanist also advanced the frontiers of knowledge by commissioning the translation of his trove of literary and scientific works into Arabic. Before that decision, the works were exclusively reserved for court scholars, however now the library could be accessed by general public. In eighth-century Baghdad, the Abbasid Caliphate took a momentous decision to found a library dedicated to preserving knowledge from across the world, known as Bayt al Hikmah, the House of Wisdom. On February 13, 1258, the Mongols entered the city of the caliphs, starting a full week of pillage and destruction.
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Under al-Mamun’s leadership science saw for the first time wide-ranging research projects involving large groups of scholars. In order to check Ptolemy’s observations, the caliph ordered the construction of the first astronomical observatory in Baghdad (see Observatories section below). The data provided by Ptolemy was meticulously checked and revised by a highly capable group of geographers, mathematicians and astronomers. Al-Mamun also organized research on the circumference of the Earth and commissioned a geographic project that would result in one of the most detailed world-maps of the time.
Tradition of Learning
In the summer, from June through August, the average maximum temperature is as high as 44 °C (111 °F) and accompanied by sunshine. Rainfall has been recorded on fewer than half a dozen occasions at this time of year and has never exceeded 1 mm (0.04 in).[98] Even at night, temperatures in summer are seldom below 24 °C (75 °F). This is a list of notable people related to the House of Wisdom and the rise of Arab science. By measuring the position of the sun and stars, they could precisely tell the time of the day or night, or predict the moment when the sun would rise in the morning.
However there was no research that could show the impact of the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikmah) in Baghdad on formation of other new Islamic libraries. The current study analyses the organizational structure of Bayt al-Hikmah al-Baghdad and its divisions and services that it provided for scholars and readers. The paper shall also deal with the funding sources and governmental endowments that were commonly known at the time of the Abbasids.
Its demise as a gathering place was principally the result of its location directly across the river from the main presidential palace, which led to it being placed off-limits to the public because of security concerns. Much of the street became an exclusive residential area for high-ranking officials. Baghdad remained under Ottoman control until World War I, when on 11 March 1917 it was captured by British forces. During the period of British control, the Mandatory administration ordered the construction of several new architectural projects around the city.[21] Iraq was given formal independence by the British in 1932, and increased autonomy in 1946.
Four equidistant gates pierced the outer walls where straight roads led to the center of the city. The Kufa Gate to the southwest and the Basra Gate to the southeast opened onto the Sarat canal – a key part of the network of waterways that drained the waters of the Euphrates into the Tigris. The Sham (Syrian) Gate to the northwest led to the main road on to Anbar, and across the desert to Syria. To the northeast the Khorasan Gate lay close to the Tigris, leading to the bridge of boats across it.
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