In Iraq House of Wisdom Lost to time

The House of Wisdom was a library and translation institute in Abbassid-era Baghdad, Iraq. It was a key institution in the Translation Movement, and considered to have been a major intellectual center of the Islamic Golden Age. The House was an unrivaled center for the study of humanities and for Islamic science, including Islamic mathematics, Islamic astronomy, Islamic medicine, Islamic alchemy and chemistry, zoology and Islamic geography. Drawing on Persian, Indian and Greek texts—including those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid, Plotinus, Galen, Sushruta, Charaka, Aryabhata and Brahmagupta—the scholars accumulated a great collection of world knowledge, and built on it through their own discoveries.

Along with all other libraries in Baghdad, the House of Wisdom was destroyed during the Mongol invasion of Baghdad, in 1258. It was said that the waters of the Tigris ran black for six months with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river. The amount of knowledge lost that year is indescribable. It is even more surprising that while most people are familiar with the destruction of the library of Alexandria, few know about the loss of the House of Wisdom.

Works Cited
Sandler, Martin. Lost to Time. New York: Sterling Publishing Co, 2010. 55.