History Summarized: The Baghdad House of Wisdom

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  • Опубликовано: 27 май 2024
  • The Smarty-Pants Palace, the Giganto Book-Nook, the Thicko Thinkery - all the nicknames I ardently choose to believe locals called the "Baghdad House of Wisdom". 1,000% true, an indisputable claim.
    But what was this House of Wisdom? Let's find out!
    SOURCES & Further Reading:
    “Baghdad’s House of Wisdom” from “The History and Achievements of the Islamic Golden Age” by Eamonn Gearon
    “The Founding of Baghdad - 762” and “Islamic Golden Age Begins - 813” and “Qairouan University - 859” and “The Mongols Sack Baghdad - 1258” from “Turning Points in Middle Eastern History” by Eamonn Gearon
    “Encyclopedia of Space and Astronomy” by Joseph A. Angelo
    Mohadi, Mawloud. (2019). The House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikmah), an Educational Institution during the Time of the Abbasid Dynasty. A Historical Perspective. Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities. 27. 1297 - 1313. www.britannica.com/place/Bayt...
    “Translation Movements in Iran; Sassanian Era to Year 2000, Expansion, Preservation and Modernization” by Massoume Price
    Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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Комментарии • 535

  • @oceanview5110
    @oceanview5110 6 месяцев назад +2990

    “Here’s all the wisdom. In a house! The Baghdad house of wisdom!” - Bill Wurtz

    • @yougosquishnow
      @yougosquishnow 6 месяцев назад +81

      Hahahaha came to the comments to say the same thing.

    • @MultiDonald95
      @MultiDonald95 6 месяцев назад +138

      "Some of it is water. Fuck it, most of it is water"

    • @andrewwilliams8951
      @andrewwilliams8951 6 месяцев назад +26

      Gawd damnit, beat me to the punch.

    • @Mance1680
      @Mance1680 6 месяцев назад +148

      "Just in time for the ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE!"

    • @adelinaiftime3152
      @adelinaiftime3152 6 месяцев назад +89

      "and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power"
      ✨️ *SOCIETY* ✨️

  • @ryanpiotr1929
    @ryanpiotr1929 6 месяцев назад +1126

    Al-Khwarizmi not only invented algebra, his book "Al-Khwarizmi on the Indian number system" was translated and transliterated as "Algoritmi de numero Indorum", introducing decimal numbers and the number zero to Europe and resulting in "algorithm" becoming a word.
    Yes, all algorithms are essentially named after him.

    • @Ami-jc2oo
      @Ami-jc2oo 6 месяцев назад +96

      All algorithm leads back to Al-Khwarizmi.

    • @CharlesUrban
      @CharlesUrban 6 месяцев назад +92

      That's got to be the crowning achievement of a scholar's career...but I'll bet it annoyed him that they kept spelling his name wrong.

    • @abdallahelsharkawy3701
      @abdallahelsharkawy3701 6 месяцев назад +80

      ​@@Ami-jc2oothey're literally called Khwarizmat in arabic

    • @VivaLaDnDLogs
      @VivaLaDnDLogs 6 месяцев назад +6

      Holy shit....

    • @helix2331
      @helix2331 6 месяцев назад +17

      i would kill for my name or something i did to be THAT influential
      actually i need to pick my words better. it would have to be something good.

  • @ALittleWren
    @ALittleWren 6 месяцев назад +451

    Abbasids: If you don't want us to kill you, you must give-
    Byzantines: Yeah yeah, we get it. Here's our gold.
    Abbasids: What- No! we want your books, why would we want your gold?

    • @marynoble9464
      @marynoble9464 6 месяцев назад +118

      "put that shit away, I want you to tell me your thoughts on naturalist philosophy"

    • @Jhaldmer
      @Jhaldmer 6 месяцев назад +53

      And the fact that caliphate was richer than the greeks at that time probably played a role.
      Like: If you don’t have money to pay you pay with your books.(Laughs villainishly) 😂

    • @Ami-jc2oo
      @Ami-jc2oo 6 месяцев назад +14

      ​@@marynoble9464"I'll take your entire stock."

    • @francesleones4973
      @francesleones4973 6 месяцев назад +18

      Knowledge is power. Worth more than gold.

    • @KaiHung-wv3ul
      @KaiHung-wv3ul 6 месяцев назад +4

      "Why not both?"

  • @pridelander06
    @pridelander06 6 месяцев назад +722

    "Houses alone don't create wisdom, people do"
    OSP House of Wisdom always has great codas.

    • @RavenWolffe77
      @RavenWolffe77 6 месяцев назад +11

      "Give readings or get beatings" is also a good one from this episode.

  • @Seagull_House
    @Seagull_House 6 месяцев назад +286

    as a native of the arabic speaking nation of egypt, i must again commend you for putting in the effort to ACTUALLY write the arabic script properly. you'd be surprised how often i'd find it written disjointed, backwards, or even both AT ONCE

    • @OverlySarcasticProductions
      @OverlySarcasticProductions  6 месяцев назад +142

      I've made that very mistake before. When I didn't know what I was looking at, I just hit copy and paste thinking it was fine, but everything was written disjointed and backwards.
      Since then I've learned to screenshot the text, so my Photoshop text processor doesn't have an opportunity to screw it up!
      -B

    • @Seagull_House
      @Seagull_House 6 месяцев назад +30

      @@OverlySarcasticProductions hell yes! i love when ppl learn from their mistakes, and i also love being able to actually read the arabic names written, thank you

    • @giladmachluf3663
      @giladmachluf3663 6 месяцев назад +13

      As a Hebrew speaker, I can say that I have seen a lot of Hebrew text just written backwards and it’s annoying. I imagine being used to how Arabic letters are connected would make it even more annoying to read.

    • @Seagull_House
      @Seagull_House 6 месяцев назад +11

      @@giladmachluf3663 yea, if the letters are disconnected, it's straight up just gibberish: i've heard hebrew also has distinct forms for letters in different parts of the word (disjointed, at the start of a word, middle of the word, and end of a word), and seeing a jumble of disjointed forms is also not helpful
      i've also seen some using the correct forms, but leaving an unconnected gap between each, which i also don't like very much

    • @hayatbasheer-ox8zf
      @hayatbasheer-ox8zf Месяц назад

      WHAT

  • @nolanhokanson8203
    @nolanhokanson8203 6 месяцев назад +584

    Ah yes, from the legendary studio that brought you the Great Library of Alexandria comes the second lost library of ancient times. If you thought that the Great Library was great, then you'll love watching the House of Wisdom become just as cool, only to fall as well. Truly, you won't want to miss this new iteration in everyone's favorite genre: history repeating itself. The House of Wisdom, coming to ancient theaters near you.

    • @Gailim
      @Gailim 6 месяцев назад +23

      The second?
      *Sad Ashurbanipal noises*

    • @Ami-jc2oo
      @Ami-jc2oo 6 месяцев назад +8

      The third then?

    • @idiot528
      @idiot528 6 месяцев назад +4

      @@Ami-jc2oo Sad my bookshelf getting sold off because we need money noises

    • @Toonrick12
      @Toonrick12 6 месяцев назад

      @@Ami-jc2oo Could be the Library of Congress.

    • @Ami-jc2oo
      @Ami-jc2oo 6 месяцев назад +2

      @@Toonrick12 The should be forth? And third is the house of wisdom?

  • @YoussefDaanBenAmor
    @YoussefDaanBenAmor 6 месяцев назад +593

    How much Muslim scholars and dynasties contributed to modern art philosophy mathematics cartography is insane and fascinating! Unfortunately for much to be lost since the beginning of the early modern age.

    • @aziouss2863
      @aziouss2863 6 месяцев назад +30

      Islam is the last big thing holding the people of that region back.
      So much time and IQ wasted on that...
      I mean it had it's time when the world was much more savage.
      But the fact that i was indoctrinated into a cult in the 20th century is still mind-boggling.

    • @yaboy821
      @yaboy821 6 месяцев назад +33

      @@aziouss2863 you could say the same for Christianity

    • @Robb3636
      @Robb3636 6 месяцев назад +20

      @@yaboy821 They probably would, people often do!

    • @sytritewarum5720
      @sytritewarum5720 6 месяцев назад +4

      ​@@Robb3636 Because it is not inaccurate...

    • @ravengrey6874
      @ravengrey6874 6 месяцев назад +57

      @@aziouss2863 I don’t think that Islam itself is the issue. The turmoil currently afflicting the Middle East is an effect of decisions and events that occurred throughout the 20th century. Many of the “problems” people see in Islam have roots in policies set by the waning Ottoman Empire. Economic woes in the region stem from national economies based on a mix of agarian pastoralism and singular resource extraction, mainly hydrocarbons, rather than the broader manufacturing industrial base and trade economies developed in the west.

  • @razanyoussef8760
    @razanyoussef8760 6 месяцев назад +55

    As an arab the “Habibi, start building shelves!” Caught me off guard lmaooo. I appreciate the details that went into this vid!

  • @lanagomisc.6005
    @lanagomisc.6005 6 месяцев назад +157

    The coolest part of this is the idea that information and knowledge was shared around instead of concentrated in one place like the Library of Alexandria. Having to travel to one place in the world to get a copy of a scroll you wanted is very impractical. Instead, having resources among the mosques and libraries in a city is the smarter move. It's like people saw what happened in Alexandria, and after they were done mourning the great loss, decided that should never happen again at that scale.

    • @thongdo9809
      @thongdo9809 6 месяцев назад +8

      People saw the library become irrelevant as more center of learning started to appear? Because the fires didn't really contribute much to the destruction of the library.

    • @miramosa7768
      @miramosa7768 6 месяцев назад +23

      Unfortunately, at a time of manual by-hand copying, most written knowledge just has to be centralized to some extent because of the immense manhours required to copy them, especially if translations were also needed. That being said, a network even across a single city is much more robust and much less prone to monopolization than a single building.

    • @krankarvolund7771
      @krankarvolund7771 6 месяцев назад +10

      Guess what? What you're describing is exactly the modus operandi of the Great Library of Alexandria XD
      First, we're not even sure it was one building. It probably shifted through the centuries, but we know of several temples (yeah the Libary was a temple ˆˆ) that would have been refered to as the Great Library at the same time.
      Second, Alexandria was far from the only library of the greek-roman world, even if it was the biggest, and didn't aimed to preserve all the knowledge of the world without sharing them, in fact one of the main occupation of the librarians would have been to copy scrolls, to preserve them of course, but most importantly to export them.
      Remember when Caesar burned the Library? He was besieged in the harbour, why would the Library be there? Because he didn't burned the Library itself, he burned a storehouse containting hundreds of scrolls copied and reay to be exported to other center of knowledge ˆˆ
      Oh and people probably didn't mourned the Great Library of Alexandria. Because contrary to Bagdad who went with a catastrophic invasion, the most likely scenario for the end of the Great Library is simply that it had been so forgotten and mismanaged that everyone stopped using it. It just slowly fade out of memory, just as Alexandria itself, which was just a shadow of itself by the end of Antiquity....

    • @Agarwaen00
      @Agarwaen00 6 месяцев назад +2

      And we must add the contribution of the free movement of people around the large Muslim world, from what ius now Portugal to India scholars could move and share and debate their ideas. No wonder so many advancements were made in that era.

  • @VivaLaDnDLogs
    @VivaLaDnDLogs 6 месяцев назад +79

    Blue has such infectious energy, you can't help but get sucked into whatever topic he covers.
    I've never even heard of the House of Wisdom, and yet now I'm *_fascinated_* by it.

  • @abthedragon4921
    @abthedragon4921 6 месяцев назад +31

    6:55 "Mongol smackdown of unexistification" is one of my new favorite OSP terms XD

  • @thatkidwiththehoodie
    @thatkidwiththehoodie 6 месяцев назад +197

    Ah man, I’ve been working on the same idea of “study as a form of worship” for a while now! Raised Catholic, so it felt right to me! I never understood why God would give us such a wide, wild, DENSE world to live in and not want us to explore it. What greater worship of the Big Guy Upstairs than dedicating one’s life to admiring His craft?

    • @Gilamath.
      @Gilamath. 6 месяцев назад +33

      There are a whole lot of Catholic priests who agree with you. I got to talk with some folks doing really fascinating astronomical research in Italy and Vatican City some years ago, and it's fascinating to see just how much emphasis there is on cross-cultural scientific study. Jesuits are lovers of knowledge

    • @krankarvolund7771
      @krankarvolund7771 6 месяцев назад +36

      The man who first discovered the Big Bang was a catholic priest, and I know that one jesuit priest often came up in french anthropology ˆˆ
      The vision of a Church being profundly anti-science is a modern one, people often point to Galileo, but his main patron was the Pope itself XD

    • @francesleones4973
      @francesleones4973 6 месяцев назад +4

      Well said!

    • @Ilikecatsismychannelname
      @Ilikecatsismychannelname 6 месяцев назад

      My Lutheran parents who are both retired pastors would agree with you. I am a hyper-curious, insatiable, mega bookworm for a reason thanks to them. I also learned far more from just parking by bum in a library and reading obsessively than I ever have in a classroom. Mostly because grew up in small towns with teachers who knew the bare minimum about the subject they taught at best. If I wanted to answer the eternally burning questions of 'Why, Where, When, and How' bursting from the core of my soul then I had only the library - usually the bit with the encyclopedias - to turn to for satisfaction. Because internet search engines were in their infancy back then and Google wasn't an option. On the one hand, learning new things is so much easier these days because all I need is a question, a search bar, and the patience to sort through the junk to find the gold. On the other, the aforementioned junk clutters up the results so much that misinformation has more of an influence than it did when I was growing up. So there are both pros and cons to how information sharing has progressed on the interwebs. Neither side is really significant enough for me to take a stance as to whether it is a good or bad thing, so I regarded merely as something that is. It exists. I can say no more about it because it defies classification much like many things in this universe. It cares not for humanity's love of convenient little boxes for things to be sorted into. Perhaps this is intentional and is meant to teach us a lesson. Perhaps it isn't. I don't know. I can't know. Puny mortal brain is mortal and cannot comprehend the infinite or the nature of the divine in its entirety. All I can do is poke things, observe what happens when I poke the thing, and try to draw conclusions based on that result as my ancestors did all the way back until the time that predates conscious cognition. Whenever that is.

    • @berilsevvalbekret772
      @berilsevvalbekret772 6 месяцев назад

      ​@@krankarvolund7771it was less thry were anti-science...its just that the science that agreed with them or if discovered something that DIDN'T keep it a tight tight secret. And the those were the minority too I am afraid. Most priests were dogmatic as hell.

  • @DomyTheMad420
    @DomyTheMad420 6 месяцев назад +41

    i love every single time a historian goes "You know about the lost library already but WHAT IF I TOLD YOU there was another library that may have been even better?!"
    and i'm ALL for it. every single time.
    GIVE ME MORE AWESOME HISTORICAL LIBRARIES
    they're usually shining beacons of positivity throughout history and i love every single one of them

  • @pagenotfound7248
    @pagenotfound7248 6 месяцев назад +132

    Its always fasinating to see how humans of history recorded their knowledge and carried it through generations

  • @zatderpscout6017
    @zatderpscout6017 6 месяцев назад +86

    The thing I liked most about AC Mirage is how it brought so much back to light that was lost, seeing everything about the lost portions of Baghdad astounded me. Seeing the library was excellent, loved going through it

  • @chowyee5049
    @chowyee5049 6 месяцев назад +201

    I'm glad you gave Hunayn ibn Ishaq a mention. I really wish more people were aware of the Church of the East's accomplishments. Most people don't even know they existed! Their missionaries planted seeds of Christianity as far as China and invented alphabets for translating the Bible centuries before Catholic and Protestant missionaries would do the same in Asia and Africa. It's sad to see how far they have fallen.

    • @kingofcards9516
      @kingofcards9516 6 месяцев назад +2

      Can you elaborate on the "fallen" part?

    • @aletheuo475
      @aletheuo475 6 месяцев назад +12

      Yeah, that's really interesting. I've been doing a lot of research into specifically the Chinese mission, or the Luminous Religion and it's absolutely fascinating to see how these Persian missionaries tried to translate Christian concepts into Tang Dynasty Chinese using concepts from Buddhism and Taoism to make them comprehensible. It's just a pity (from the point of view of a believer) that it got so Buddhist/Taoist it sort of lost its Christian-ness. Still, to see a cross on an 8th Century Chinese monument, or to hear a Trinitarian sutra in a Buddhist style is mind bending. I must try and find out about the Indian Church; that looks equally enthralling.

    • @krankarvolund7771
      @krankarvolund7771 6 месяцев назад +12

      According to certain estimations, the Eastern church was a bigger church than the Catholic one in the middle-ages. That means that during that time, there were more christians in the Mddle-East and Asia than in Europe ˆˆ'

    • @chowyee5049
      @chowyee5049 6 месяцев назад +9

      @@kingofcards9516 They were decimated by Tamerlane and reduced back to the Middle East and India. Those communities were then split by Catholic infiltration.

    • @kingofcards9516
      @kingofcards9516 6 месяцев назад +1

      @@chowyee5049 seems like they were simply replaced by other churches.

  • @NathanSimonGottemer
    @NathanSimonGottemer 6 месяцев назад +60

    Fun fact: the word “algorithm” comes from “algoritmi” which was what (either the Italians, Spanish, or Portuguese, I forget) called Al-Khawrizmi

  • @shademonki13
    @shademonki13 6 месяцев назад +107

    thanks for uploading this immediately as I finish an article on Islamic architecture for a history class, immaculate timing

    • @ravenpotter3
      @ravenpotter3 6 месяцев назад +2

      I just learned about this last week in my early medieval art History class! And I was wanting to learn more

  • @AnaxErik4ever
    @AnaxErik4ever 6 месяцев назад +18

    Being a librarian, and having to take a course on the history and practice of librarianship during grad school, one of the most important phrases I try to impress on people (regarding any fandom or subject they choose to study) is "Know thy history. It prevents you from repeating mistakes and enables you to make smart decisions for the future."

  • @elizaripper
    @elizaripper 6 месяцев назад +49

    Okay so we know Blue stole the Library of Alexandria. Are we just going to pretend Blue didn’t pull the same heist with House of Wisdom?😏

    • @melonsaway3929
      @melonsaway3929 6 месяцев назад +8

      No, this was clearly Red. Red sank Atlantis, blue stole the Library of Alexandria braniac style, so Red stole the House of Wisdom

    • @isapu1948
      @isapu1948 6 месяцев назад +3

      Are we sure it's one of them?
      Couldn't it be Yellow or one of the Greens?

    • @francesleones4973
      @francesleones4973 6 месяцев назад +4

      Or maybe Cyan?

    • @RussanoGreenstripe
      @RussanoGreenstripe 6 месяцев назад +4

      @@francesleones4973 Cyan is my bet as well. She figured it would make a good anniversary present for Blue.

    • @lettuceman9439
      @lettuceman9439 6 месяцев назад

      and your gonna tell me that he caused the Sack of Constantinople and disguised himself as a venetian merchants to "preserve" those books?
      Or
      He conspired with the Holy roman Emperor to invade Italy and to simply Redecorate the Vatican?

  • @tibakhalid5328
    @tibakhalid5328 6 месяцев назад +7

    I am a baghdadi and i got so so happy when i saw my fav channel on youtube posting about baghdad and its culture and history. my parents always talk about the old glory days of how baghdad was the "new york city" or "london" of the world and, even now, with everything, it still has traces of that incredibly rich heritage. i have a love hate rlshp w that city, but there is no denying it was a treasure of the old world. thank you so much for sharing that

  • @peggyliepmann5248
    @peggyliepmann5248 6 месяцев назад +19

    As someone whose local library is under renovation for structural integrity reasons, hearing about this super cool ancient library is especially fun.

  • @Ami-jc2oo
    @Ami-jc2oo 6 месяцев назад +56

    The Abbasid Cailaphate is the guy who reminds the teacher there's homework, the teacher's pet, and the guy who loves/gets excited over tests and exams.

    • @Rukdug
      @Rukdug 6 месяцев назад +9

      Does that make the Seljuks the bully who makes the Abbasids do his homework for him?

    • @Ami-jc2oo
      @Ami-jc2oo 6 месяцев назад +5

      Probably. :(

    • @nathanielmartins5930
      @nathanielmartins5930 6 месяцев назад +4

      It is also the one who holds get together study groups and helps everyone else ace the test.

  • @liruenth
    @liruenth 6 месяцев назад +70

    4:38 I love hearing about how other religions believe that studying the world does not and should not detract from religion. After all it's really hard to properly worship and follow someone/something you don't understand.

    • @abdallahelsharkawy3701
      @abdallahelsharkawy3701 6 месяцев назад +22

      That's the neat part in Islam, we are obliged to seek out most sorts of knowledge ("most" because of course becoming an expert in black magic isn't the most Islamic thing ever)
      And you're right. I learned how some electrical measurements devices work on a physical level (eng school) and just looking at some of them makes me smile nowadays. They're just pieces of art where the brush is literally the physics of the universe.
      Absolutely blows my mind every time

    • @wes00chin
      @wes00chin 6 месяцев назад +18

      Studying science as a form of studying God and his creation is very much a Christian idea too. The idea that science and religion are opposing was an enlightenment era invention

    • @zaxxo2808
      @zaxxo2808 6 месяцев назад

      ​@@wes00chin That's rough buddy 😢

    • @lettuceman9439
      @lettuceman9439 6 месяцев назад

      Scholastic theology was a major part of Catholicism and later passed down to the Protestant Denomination via the Early Reformation. The Orthodox Church was not scholastic but that was more that the East was more educated and was largely untouched by social and Technological decline after the Fall of the Western Empire and Orthodox Theologians being ahead of the Latin West during the golden ages of ERE even during the Times Eastern Europe and the Balkans were having a multiple civil war or being invaded by nomadic horse Archers.
      The Enlightenment is generally scarred with propaganda and attained many insecurities against "Eastern" Culture and the Achievements of past Eras and the Church.

  • @luigiboi4244
    @luigiboi4244 6 месяцев назад +50

    Can we go without losing an important Library... for 1 CENTURY??!!!

  • @laurencoyle8696
    @laurencoyle8696 6 месяцев назад +12

    "Habibi, start building shelves!" tickled me. Awesome video. Would honestly love to hear more about Baghdad and aspects of other Islamic cities that were inspired by it or helped inspire aspects of it in turn.

  • @timelordomega5914
    @timelordomega5914 6 месяцев назад +26

    There’s an alternate timeline where the Hagia Sofia became the New House of Wisdom after it was taken by the Ottoman Empire, and I’m only a little sad that it wasn’t our timeline.

    • @berilsevvalbekret772
      @berilsevvalbekret772 6 месяцев назад +9

      To be fair Mehmet the Conqueror was a rabid scholar and both invited many scholars from around the world and built a LOT of libraries in Istanbul...its just that he was the only scholarly Padişah....yeahhh

  • @112steinway
    @112steinway 6 месяцев назад +26

    I've heard that when the Mongolians sacked Baghdad they threw all the books and scrolls into the Tigris, which caused the river to turn black with the ink.

    • @ferretyluv
      @ferretyluv 6 месяцев назад

      I heard that same story.

    • @blacksage2375
      @blacksage2375 6 месяцев назад

      There are a lot of stories like this about the Mongols, most need to be taken well salted. Like there are stories of them killing a million people in one day yet given the likely forces available this requires like several hundred kills per Mongol.

    • @berilsevvalbekret772
      @berilsevvalbekret772 6 месяцев назад +4

      Me too. If even has a fraction of truth in this...its such a sad story.

    • @thenablade858
      @thenablade858 4 месяца назад +1

      The Mongolians were the ultimate jocks. They hated reading SO much.

    • @thatweirdguywithamask264
      @thatweirdguywithamask264 4 месяца назад +1

      ​@@thenablade858
      They hated every single part of you if you didn't want to surrender.
      Except your religion, Genghis was a very progressive man for the 1300s apparently.

  • @a.h.s.3006
    @a.h.s.3006 5 месяцев назад +5

    3:49
    "Thank you Habibi"
    You just couldn't help yourself couldn't you?

  • @phoenixperson8296
    @phoenixperson8296 6 месяцев назад +7

    I love that they saw studying science as a form for worship, more religious people today could benefit from a worldview like that.

  • @Heartless-Sage
    @Heartless-Sage 6 месяцев назад +30

    I was really looking forward to this one. To say the importance of the Islamic world in our modern age is downplayed if not outright ignored is something of an understatement. So to highlight the scholars, historians, scientists etc without whom we would lack much of our modern concepts of maths, algebray, astrology, and whom preserved the works of the Ancient Greek Philosophers we so adore...
    Okay I am rambling, thats for the vid Blue, fascinating that its possibly not one specific place but a metaphour for the collective wisdom of an entire people.

  • @crown4212
    @crown4212 6 месяцев назад +32

    As a history nerd who loves to learn more about different cultures, i love this (also I'm a genshin player, who is a history and mythology nerd and i always like learning more about what inspired things in the game)

  • @herohades2230
    @herohades2230 6 месяцев назад +29

    That wonderful moment when an OSP video perfectly lines up not only with a relevent assassin's creed release but also a ck3 dlc release. Nothing quite like watching one of these videos and then being able to go "Okay, Imma do that now too"

    • @herohades2230
      @herohades2230 6 месяцев назад

      Also with a jack rackam video, which in all fairness was produced due to the ck release.

  • @nicholasmaddocks7545
    @nicholasmaddocks7545 6 месяцев назад +10

    I love this topic
    I love this part of Arabic history
    This was my favorite paper to write about in the university.
    The Baghdad house of wisdom was one of the most unique libraries in our world history and it's a shame that not many people know about it. I had to compare it with the library of Alexandria and I found that I liked the house of wisdom more.

  • @mattturner6017
    @mattturner6017 6 месяцев назад +5

    Host: "'It was revealed to me in a dream' is *not* the way we conduct our scholarship around here."
    Dmitri Mendeleev: *Looks around nervously*

  • @ahmedbenchikha9737
    @ahmedbenchikha9737 6 месяцев назад +3

    As a proud Tunisian with roots deeply embedded in Kairouan, the joy I feel is immeasurable. There's a profound resonance when history, once learned as a child, is eloquently echoed by someone from a distant land. It adds a layer of significance that words can scarcely capture

  • @acady4460
    @acady4460 6 месяцев назад +37

    My grandad thought we were descendants of the Umayyads and he made up our last name to sound like it
    My dad likes to make tshirts and drinking glasses and other stuff with our last name printed on them. He is really proud of his dad and his name and I think its really cute
    Idk if we really do descend from the Umayyads but my grandad was Pakistani

    • @nestorjuansavinonportorreal
      @nestorjuansavinonportorreal 6 месяцев назад +5

      After the fallout of the omeyans, many princes of that household fled to different points of the Umma. So, perhaps your relatives are right.

    • @merothehero6359
      @merothehero6359 6 месяцев назад +2

      Doubtful. I think the best way would be to take a DNA test. The Umayyads were mass slaughtered by the Abbasids when they took over. The only remaining member was the Hawk of Quraysh who fled to Iberia. Seeing as they are from the opposite end of the globe, I don’t think Umayyad progeny would be in Pakistan

    • @ibrahimmohammedibrahim9273
      @ibrahimmohammedibrahim9273 2 месяца назад

      They are descended of Umayyed in spain and south America

  • @orange6259
    @orange6259 6 месяцев назад +8

    BAGHDAD MY ONE TRUE LOVE.
    Sorry lost my composure for a bit, I'm glad you're making a video on it this is one of my favorite places.

  • @jinxcat90
    @jinxcat90 6 месяцев назад +9

    I can't get over studying history, science, philosophy, and more was thought of as a form of worship! I'd live in this Golden Age in a heartbeat!! ❤❤❤

    • @isapu1948
      @isapu1948 6 месяцев назад +6

      This is how I was told Islam worked when I was a little kid in school
      We're all so proud if that period of history, even if we don't fully know it
      Which is why it breaks my heart when I see the way modern Muslims act towards science theses day
      "We're aaaall for it. We have a surrat in the quoran named after it"
      Right until science says something they don't agree with, suddenly they start acting like they work in a Catholic school

    • @Gilamath.
      @Gilamath. 6 месяцев назад +3

      I feel the exact same way. And it's also heartbreaking to see Catholics in some cases so resistant to scientific consensus. Like, these religious traditions laid down the structure that built the base for current scientific achievement! You should be willing to trust that you can accept the results of that achievement and that it will further your religious understanding, not detract from it

  • @raiden8919
    @raiden8919 6 месяцев назад +7

    I'm not normally one for history, but Blue's die-hard enthusiasum for the topic always makes it entertaining to watch.

  • @hanna-liminal
    @hanna-liminal 6 месяцев назад +8

    To get properly into the Arabic connections between governance and wisdom - the word "Hikma" (حكمة) that is used in the 'Bait Al-Hikma' name has the same root (h-k-m / حكم) as the word for leader/ruler, 'Haakim' (حاكم). The versatility of the Arabic language is almost definitely our proudest accomplishment ❤
    Amazing video as usual!!

  • @thaddeushamlet
    @thaddeushamlet 6 месяцев назад +6

    Imagine our world today if more religions were/stayed as scholarly as this.

  • @jetstreamsnake5466
    @jetstreamsnake5466 6 месяцев назад +29

    You wrote it perfectly in Arabic
    Thank you

    • @isapu1948
      @isapu1948 6 месяцев назад +5

      He learned from last time!
      God, computers cannot be fully trusted with our language 😅

  • @theradioactiveplayer3461
    @theradioactiveplayer3461 6 месяцев назад +7

    4:50
    _Well,_ actually, there was some pretty sick beef between the Greek Philosophy-leaning 'Falsafa'-ists (Neoplatonic philosophers of the Islamic world) and the more orthodox Islamic theologians (Mutakallimun) - of particular note was the somewhat hilarious treatise exchange between Abu Ali Ibn Sina (known to the West as Avicenna) and a guy called Al-Ghazali (his real name is very long and I'll put it at the bottom). Ibn Sina was strongly influenced by Neoplatonic ideas about a thing called "the One"; now, I'm not gonna up and explain 800 years of philosophical convention, so I'm just gonna say: if you've seen FMAB, you've got a reasonable idea of what it is. For the rest of you, it's basically a Spiritual person's conception of divinity. So, Sina applied these ideas to the Abrahamic Creator, also describing the idea of "cogito ergo sum" a good 1000 years before Descartes learned how to write.
    Then, al-Ghazali wrote the equivalent of a diss-track, in "The Incoherence of the Philosophers", where he basically just cracked down on every point Ibn Sina made and showed how it didn't fit in with Qur'anic teachings

  • @cometmoon4485
    @cometmoon4485 6 месяцев назад +11

    The Abassid Golden Age has got to be my favourite era or history! Amazing video.

  • @themannerchannel784
    @themannerchannel784 6 месяцев назад +8

    Just started playing AC Mirage yesterday. I’m currently on an Abbasid history kick. Couldn’t have come at a better time, Blue!

    • @paulm.8660
      @paulm.8660 6 месяцев назад

      Assassin's Creed doing the Lord's work again 😂

  • @abdoaboueid8151
    @abdoaboueid8151 6 месяцев назад +3

    Didn't expect a habibi in an OSP video but you won't see me complain. Feels right at home

  • @onebrownmeece
    @onebrownmeece 6 месяцев назад +6

    Fantastic episode. Minor fact check, though. Al Qarawayyin is the world's oldest university in continuous operation, but the *first* university (defined as a multi-disciplinary learning institution) is arguably Taxila (Takshashila) in the Indian subcontinent, dating back to around 300-500 BCE.

    • @theguyver4934
      @theguyver4934 6 месяцев назад +1

      I'm a muslim from pakistan and i agree with you

    • @_jpg
      @_jpg 5 месяцев назад

      Hate to disappoint, because while today's University of al-Qarawiyyin is indeed the oldest continually operating higher learning institution in the world, it was considered a madrasa until 1957, when it actually adapted to be called a university. That last point is also why the University of Bologna is generally named as the first of it's kind, since it uses the Latin term "universitas", making it effectively a distinct European concept and also part of the definition.

    • @thenablade858
      @thenablade858 4 месяца назад +2

      @@_jpgThis is why it should be called the oldest continuous higher education institution, rather than simply a university. While universities were influenced by madrasas, they differ in a few ways.

    • @onebrownmeece
      @onebrownmeece 2 месяца назад

      ​@@_jpg sure, but Bologna is still younger than Taxila? I'm not sure what you believe my disappointment here is, but I'm simply pointing out that multi-disciplinary "higher" - what an odd term, I hope you can see - education didn't have it's first start in Europe. This doesn't take away from the accomplishments of Bologna! It doesn't confer secularity on al -Qarawayyin! But if you think there's some sort of adversarial conversation to be had here that's all you, mate.

  • @brittanywetherill472
    @brittanywetherill472 6 месяцев назад +4

    Thanks for talking about this 🙏 I had heard the name in passing, and knew prosper talked about it in the same breath as The Library of Alexandria, but I was shaky on the details. This was a wonderful sum up! 📚😁

  • @99goosebumps16
    @99goosebumps16 6 месяцев назад +5

    I'd love to see videos continuing about the intellectual traditions of medieval religous traditions. You have a video on Maimonodes. I hope you'll make videos on Averroes and Thomas Aquinas.

  • @ravenpotter3
    @ravenpotter3 6 месяцев назад +3

    I just learned about that in my early medieval art history class last week! Also your Byzantine video before just came in time for a exam on that

  • @studogable
    @studogable 6 месяцев назад +2

    Great little video! I loved the emphasis on the Mongol impact. Too easy for North Atlantic folk to forget.
    Humble suggestion: you would really enjoy looking into the culture of "medieval" Timbuktu. That would make one hell of a video.

  • @seanpoore2428
    @seanpoore2428 6 месяцев назад +3

    "Habibi! Start building shelves!!"

  • @danielsantiagourtado3430
    @danielsantiagourtado3430 6 месяцев назад +4

    Love your content 😊😊😊❤❤❤

  • @hak12288
    @hak12288 6 месяцев назад +1

    Thanks for making this video dude. I absolutely love your content

  • @benbayne-davies2397
    @benbayne-davies2397 6 месяцев назад +2

    Wow, this is seriously amazing. Just incredible.

  • @christopherg2347
    @christopherg2347 6 месяцев назад +2

    Slaps on roof
    "This baby can fit so much wisdom!"

  • @lindafreeman7030
    @lindafreeman7030 6 месяцев назад +1

    "Habibi, start building shelves!" is my love language.

  • @tk-zay5073
    @tk-zay5073 6 месяцев назад

    Blue your posts help keep my love of history as strong as it is! Soooo cool

  • @Big007Boss
    @Big007Boss 5 месяцев назад +1

    I applaud the people who worked on this videos Arabic translations, all accurate, and good pronunciation.
    Fun fact: the Abbasids made it a rule to collect books from other nations or traders as a tax, then to be translated, ten copies made, then sent a copy to the next house of wisdom, madrasah or minaret, each in turn had to make ten copies to be distributed to the next faculty.

  • @thetalamhclisteach1848
    @thetalamhclisteach1848 6 месяцев назад +10

    Always a fan of further interest in the Islamic Golden Age

  • @goodnewsgeek42
    @goodnewsgeek42 6 месяцев назад +5

    The real House of Wisdom was the scholars we made along the way

  • @nicoletaylor933
    @nicoletaylor933 6 месяцев назад

    This was awesome! I love language related content. It is so fun.

  • @Uzair_Of_Babylon465
    @Uzair_Of_Babylon465 6 месяцев назад +1

    Great video keep it up you're doing amazing things 😁👍

  • @tippydippy6529
    @tippydippy6529 6 месяцев назад

    This is such a great history video, I enjoy every one

  • @CrustyCheapster
    @CrustyCheapster 6 месяцев назад +3

    Literally just came back from a lecture about this stuff in a West and the World Course. OSP is psychic.

  • @yayab4771
    @yayab4771 6 месяцев назад

    Timely subject. I appreciate it.

  • @TVandManga
    @TVandManga 6 месяцев назад

    Brilliant video!

  • @mirjanbouma
    @mirjanbouma 6 месяцев назад +3

    I especially love qhen Blue covers stuff i have never heard of before ❤

  • @jordinagel1184
    @jordinagel1184 6 месяцев назад +2

    “The almighty Mongol smackdown of unexistification” needs to be put on a shirt

  • @Artur_M.
    @Artur_M. 6 месяцев назад +2

    8:16 Pope Sylvester II (before becoming pontiff known as Gerbert of Aurillac) is my favorite Medieval pope. Absolutely fascinating guy. You could make a video about him, or make a video about the "Ottonian Renaissance" and include Sylvester in it, alongside other interesting people, like Emperor Otto II.

  • @adisura9904
    @adisura9904 6 месяцев назад +4

    Now that you've made a video on Alexandria and Baghdad, I'm hoping to see one on Taxila or Nalanda

    • @Ami-jc2oo
      @Ami-jc2oo 6 месяцев назад +3

      Or that Assyrian library?

  • @droolhd
    @droolhd 6 месяцев назад

    I appreciate the reference to the portal space core at 6:29!

  • @user-ll3md6oq5u
    @user-ll3md6oq5u 6 месяцев назад

    Really good video blue

  • @leonriley6396
    @leonriley6396 6 месяцев назад +3

    The last time i was this early Rome still had a single emperor

  • @16tonw8
    @16tonw8 6 месяцев назад +5

    Hey Blue, there's a typo in your arabic for "al-Ma'mun" at 5:18. It should be "المأمون". You typed "aaamun" (or maybe "al-amun" with the connecting line between the first two letters missing)

    • @annjowolfe1561
      @annjowolfe1561 5 месяцев назад +1

      Actually, the little tail on the right of the letter lam is the letter mim ('m'), it's just a different way of writing it

  • @user-wd8jc7mr5q
    @user-wd8jc7mr5q 6 месяцев назад

    Oh man this video is so cool and chill

  • @bookfanatic8329
    @bookfanatic8329 6 месяцев назад +1

    Yes, yes, more history videos!

  • @Alterios14
    @Alterios14 6 месяцев назад +3

    "Habibi start building shelves "😂😂😂😂

  • @Figue-
    @Figue- 6 месяцев назад +2

    I was waiting for a video on medieval mesopotamia for such a long time !

  • @josephperez2004
    @josephperez2004 6 месяцев назад +1

    "Give readings, or get beatings," is all the more threatening just by how comical it sounds at first.

  • @ToroHarfang
    @ToroHarfang 6 месяцев назад +1

    This is the nerdiest I've heard Blue be in a while. 💜

  • @alitem3364
    @alitem3364 6 месяцев назад +2

    Citizen from the eastern side of Baghdad here to represent 🙏

  • @VictoriaStarratt
    @VictoriaStarratt 6 месяцев назад

    I’m glad that you sorted out your tech issues

  • @eddthehead123
    @eddthehead123 6 месяцев назад +2

    Habibi is older than any of us realized...serving great minds since whenever

  • @willhibbard6903
    @willhibbard6903 6 месяцев назад

    Videos like this make me wish there was a multi-like button just to clap for the quality on display here

  • @thanetothefalseking332
    @thanetothefalseking332 6 месяцев назад +1

    Just engagin’ with the content here, Barnes.

  • @purplepedantry
    @purplepedantry 6 месяцев назад +3

    'Give Readings or Get Beatings'. - Al-Mamun, 813.

  • @qahari4307
    @qahari4307 6 месяцев назад +5

    It’s amazing looking at this from a slightly different lense. As a muslim, I’ve gone through all of this for religious regions, but going over it again from this side is nice.
    Alhamdulillah, I was brought up with study of all kind still being a part of piety.
    (Surah Fussilat, Verse 53: “We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth”)

  • @vazak11
    @vazak11 6 месяцев назад

    Cool!

  • @jannecoolen2816
    @jannecoolen2816 3 месяца назад

    5:24 "give readings or get beatings" made me laugh out loud

  • @thetribunaloftheimaginatio5247
    @thetribunaloftheimaginatio5247 6 месяцев назад +3

    Heh... this is useful information for one of my D&D characters, who ended up in the greater multiverse thanks to hiding in the House Of Wisdom... and accidentally winding up in L-Space, Discworld's dimension of absolute knowledge.

  • @grapeshot
    @grapeshot 6 месяцев назад +4

    Yeah there was a very large influential library at Timbuktu.

  • @zariaalhajmoustafa2573
    @zariaalhajmoustafa2573 6 месяцев назад +4

    Finally you write Arabic in the right way thank you very much

  • @raulperez375
    @raulperez375 6 месяцев назад

    Huh, now that you bring it up, I know vanishingly few examples of great libraries that *haven't* been lost to the sands of time. Would love to know about those

  • @bjornk14
    @bjornk14 6 месяцев назад +1

    nice timing, just after The Legacy of Persia flavourpack for Crusader Kings 3 ;)

  • @andresbarrigasanchez-dehes3929
    @andresbarrigasanchez-dehes3929 6 месяцев назад

    Hey Blue, can you make a video about the "Escuela de Traductores de Toledo". Seems like you going to like it

  • @keepperspective
    @keepperspective 5 месяцев назад

    Just finished reading The Book that Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence and this fantasy meditation on libraries has left me with very complicated feelings

  • @word6344
    @word6344 6 месяцев назад

    6:31
    Hi, Red!

  • @a.cunningham4974
    @a.cunningham4974 6 месяцев назад +2

    The river was said not to run red with blood, but black with ink.