The House of Wisdom in Baghdad
Greek, Indian and Persian knowledge gathered and extended
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The Abbasid translation movement preserved and extended Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid and Galen. Al-Khwarizmi gave his name to both the algorithm and algebra; Ibn al-Haytham founded optics and formulated an early experimental ideal of science; Ibn Sina wrote medical works used in Europe for 600 years. When those texts were later translated from Arabic into Latin in Toledo and Sicily, they laid the ground for the European medieval renaissance and the universities.
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In Baghdad the caliphs collected books from around the world and paid scholars to translate them into Arabic. Algebra was invented here, and the digits 0–9 we use today were passed on. Without this library, much of Greek science would have been lost forever.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org