Trying to write more but in shorter bursts so I actually finish things. Let’s try this.

I’ve been fascinated by the House of Wisdom as a formative moment in creating and canonizing human knowledge for quite some time. While many people attribute leadership and progress in the sciences and the arts to the European Renaissance, much of our modern knowledge and methods actually come from the Islamic Golden Age. The House of Wisdom, also known as Bayt al-Hikmah, was created in the late eighth century in Baghdad by the Abbasid Caliphate. There is much debate over what the House of Wisdom actually was, whether it was a library, a gathering place, or a concept rather than a specific place with form and function.

The ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr

the prophet Muhammad

While Europe was stuck in the Dark Ages, a new intellectual center was built in Baghdad after the Fall of Rome. There are many great books and podcasts that cover the history of the Abbasid Caliphate, the House of Wisdom, and the influence of Baghdad as a knowledge center in the ancient world, so I won’t delve into the details here.

What is important to know is that the House of Wisdom and the emergence of this nexus of human knowledge was fueled by a few key factors:

• A new medium - paper - learned from the Chinese, paper-making greatly lowered the cost of transmission of information while improving its preservation and fidelity over long periods of time.

• A new writing system - particularly Arabic numerals (0 -9) which greatly improved numeracy and scientific record keeping.

• The Translation movement - a massive, well-funded, multi-century effort to translate ancient texts, especially Greek, Persian, and Indian texts, into Arabic and other regional languages, which enabled the preservation and proliferation of information on paper instead of papyrus and other more fragile mediums.

• A permissive, open-minded, and collaborative approach to knowledge, which emphasized gathering empirical evidence over perpetuating religious dogma.

Underpinning all of this was an acute awareness by the leaders of the Caliphate that knowledge and intellect was an incredibly powerful tool to elevate and export their culture and the strength of their empire. The Abbasid Caliphate spent vast sums of money on patronage, not only of local scientists and philosophers, but also in hosting scholars from other parts of the world. Some historians claim that salaries for scholars were akin to the salaries enjoyed by professional athletes today. This strong and reliable political and financial support were absolutely vital to creating the conditions that would allow the House of Wisdom to thrive.

The end result was the largest library in the world, and a vast body of knowledge encompassing a wide range of emerging disciplines that was easy to access, store, replicate, and preserve. While the House of Wisdom only lasted a few hundred years, its legacy and spirit has shaped the arc of human history in innumerable ways.

Building a Digital House of Wisdom

In my obsession with the House of Wisdom, I have often asked myself - "What would a modern day House of Wisdom look like?” While Wikipedia has effectively become the world’s library, there is so much more knowledge being created than we could ever realistically capture or hope to canonize through formal means.

While the institutionalization of knowledge in the 20th century has produced incredible outcomes, it is becoming abundantly clear that this approach to knowledge discovery (knowledge is not created, it is discovered) and knowledge dissemination is no longer working as intended. Knowledge has become deeply politicized and captive to political and financial interests, and the events of the last three years have exposed this systemic oppression of knowledge that contradicts the political, social, and cultural goals of powerful institutions.

Our academic institutions themselves no longer serve knowledge, but have become centers for directing and controlling capital and allocation of resources in order to influence how we think and what we believe. The world’s brightest minds no longer seek the formal recognition of academia, but can now flourish in more informal environments where they have more freedom to explore controversial ideas that alter our understanding of our universe and how it functions. A new generation of leaders and philanthropists are funding these efforts, whether directly through grants and fellowships, or indirectly, by funding ambitious startups that produce mind-bending breakthroughs in knowledge through application rather than academic study.

The act of discovery is also becoming democratized thanks to social media and other transmission mediums that allow for self-publishing outside the confines of traditional knowledge distribution platforms,

Perhaps we will rediscover an age of wisdom, fueled by new digital tools and infrastructure, that leads us to another golden age for human creativity and intellectual exploration.

thanks to ida josepfina from Sane for challenging me to write this