Part IV
One of the main reasons for the confusion related to the nature of the court library, called Bayt al-Hikma, was due to its name, which had no precedence in the classic Arabic language. To clarify the misunderstandings about this institution which was called by different names in different contexts, it is essential to examine the development of the Arabic term or terms for “library” which were not known by the Arabs in their pre-Islamic life; then we can determine how the compound name of “Bayt al-Hikma” developed.
The question here is to find out how the Arabic wording for a library came about. The information at hand shows that there was no specific term for such an institution in pre-Islamic Arabic languages. The first examples for book collections or what would be “libraries” in the early centuries of Islam are reported by different appellations; there was no standard terminology.1
One of the first references to a place where books were kept was made by al-Balazuri (d. 279/892) in his report on the assassination of the third Caliph Osman (d. 35/636). He narrated that Marwan Ibn al-Hakam’s (d. 685) nursemaid Fatma bint Sharik al-Ansariyya had ordered that Marwan, who had received a blow on the head during the assault, be carried into the “house (bayt) where the books were placed”.2 A second reference relates to the collection of books that belonged to Mohammed bin Jubayr bin Mut’am (died before 99/718), who was the son of one of the Prophet’s companions and a narrator of Quraishi traditions. Ibn ‘Asakir (d. 571/1175) reports that Mohammed bin Jubayr bin Mut’am kept books in a locked bayt and the key was in the safekeeping of his slave girl. He had ordered her: “When someone requests anything from this house give him the key but do not lose any of the books”.3 In the years heralding the end of the first Hijra century, there were places in Mecca where books were kept and where friends and acquaintances socialized. Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (d. 967) and Ibn Hazım al-Andalusi (d. 1064) relate that Abd al-Hakem Ibn Amr bin Abid Allah Ibn Safwan al-Jamhî’s house near the holy Ka’ba was the place where his friends met and played chess and backgammon, while others spent their time reading the books on various sciences placed here for their pleasure and the children played a game called “qirqat”. In two sources, the word used for this house that resembled a private club was bayt.4
As seen from the above examples, the historical narratives are not explicit about the existence of libraries in the conventional sense but rather about the existence of collections of some books and notebooks kept in certain places called bayt (house), without using a special term for a library. However, there is a surviving account about Caliph Mu’awiyya (r. 41–60/661–680) that was recorded in the third/ninth century where the appellation Bayt al-Hikma is mentioned. This account is about a debate between Osman bin Said al-Darimi (815–893) and Bishr al-Marisi (d. 833) where it is reported that there was a place called “Bayt al-Hikma” where Mu’awiyya kept the written texts of hadiths belonging to Prophet Muhammad.5 A century later, when giving an account of Mu’awiyya’s daily life, al-Masudi (d. 345/956) talks about the existence of a library without an explicit appellation. This was where Mu’awiyya had kept the defatir (notebooks) containing histories and biographies of the past kings, which were read to him at night.6 The usage of Bayt al-Hikma in the above-mentioned text does not necessarily mean that this term was used in Muawiya’s time as Eche suggested.7 Notwithstanding the authenticity of the author’s account, this appellation attributed by Bishr al-Marisi, who died during the reign of al-Ma’mun, corresponds to the time when the compound name Bayt al-Hikma was used as a term denoting the prestigious caliphal library that had a prominent place in the cultural life of Baghdad. It is obvious that this appellation was already established and commonly used during the Abbasid period. One of the early accounts which refers to the existence of libraries in the Umayyad epoch is mentioned by Ibn Juljul. In his account of the translations made by Masarjawaih during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Marwan I (r. 684–5), he uses the appellation Khazain al-Kutub (repositories of books).8
The socio-economic development and the emergence of urban society in Baghdad in the early Abbasid period gave rise to a growing interest in learning. As explained in the introductory remarks on Baghdad and the rise of interest in the foreign sciences, the cosmopolitan elite’s interest in pursuing and patronizing the cultural activities and emulating their caliphs led to the emergence of both private book collections and libraries due to the availability and accessibility of paper as a cheap writing material. Hence the words khizane, repository and Bayt (house) that denoted a place for keeping and safeguarding these books made their appearance in the literature that described this period.9 Sources usually use the word khizana for the libraries owned by scholars and bibliophiles associated with the Abbasid Caliphs. Here the words “khizana” and “bayt” refer to the library as a building and (books) “kutub” or (wisdom) “hikma” as the contents of the library. “Khizana” comes from the root “khazana” and its literal meaning is to reposit, store, etc., hence khizana means repository, storeroom or a small chamber within a large chamber.10 The second word “bayt” has a similar meaning though originally it signifies a tent made up of several poles that was commonly used as a house, a chamber or an apartment. At later stages in the history of the development of institutions of learning in Islam, the word dar would be used for bigger places than a bayt, comprises a court or a set of apartments.11 The above-mentioned two words khizana and bayt were used interchangeably by al-Nadim to denote the palace library where the books (kutub) that were mainly related to wisdom (hikma) were kept. The palace library was the repository (khizana) or the house (bayt) of books of wisdom, a word, which in this context denotes that the subjects of these books were related primarily to the foreign sciences and philosophy, that is, nonreligious sciences introduced from Indian, Sassanian, Syriac, and Greek sources, which were mainly known as hikma.
A careful examination of al-Nadim’s few references clearly shows that he refers to the palace library of the two caliphs with different combinations of the above-mentioned words. It seems that some scholars took these variants as expressions of different institutions and presumed that the compound name “Bayt al-Hikma” was the appellation for a different institution which they thought was more than a palace library.
It will be noted below that there are two ways of expressing the attributes of the word khizana. The first and most often used word that has become a standard term for libraries is Khizanat al-Kutub literally meaning Repository of Books. The second term is Khizanat al-Hikma and refers to certain types of books kept in the library. The following examples may be self-explanatory. Ali b. Yahya al-Munajjim (d. 275/888), who was the court companion (nedim) of both al-Mutawakkil and al-Mu’tamid (r. 870–892), owned a library. The extant historic accounts about this library state that, “There was a great library (Khizanat Kutub/repository of books) in his palace which he used to call Khizanat al-Hikma”.12 Al-Nadim, in referring to the library of Ali bin Ahmed al-Imrani (d. 955/956) where he saw and used its books during his visits, simply uses the term khizane. Meanwhile, as for the library that was founded by Fath Ibn Khaqan (d. 247/861), one of the closest associates of Mutawakkil, he alternatively uses Khizanat al-Hikma (I, 160; II 442)13 or briefly Khizane (I, 130).14
From these examples and many more, which are in the relevant literature, it may be concluded that in the early Abbasid period and probably soon before it, the term khizanat al-kutub (repository of books) was established as an Arabic term for library with its short form being khizana. It seems that at the Western end of the Abbasid Caliphate in al-Andalus, this term and its plural form Khazain al-Kutub was the only term used for libraries, whether its book collection was Islamic or pre-Islamic and its status private or royal. Ibn Juljul, when referring to both Greek and Umayyad libraries, used the same appellation.15 Obviously, the attribute hikma/wisdom was used to designate the nature of the books that comprised the library collection. The compound name of the Khizanat Kutub al-Hikma meaning the Repository of Wisdom Books was later abbreviated to Khizanat al-Hikma, that is, the repository of wisdom.16 This then became qualified as the Bayt al-Hikma, that is to say the House of Wisdom, when it grows larger and its content were mainly composed of books of the pre-Islamic heritage (hikma) during the reign of both al-Rashid and al-Ma’mun.
It should be noted here that there is a clear resemblance between the newly coined Arabic name for library Khizanat al-Kutub and the well-established Greek word bibliothêkê. Both terms are compound nouns denoting books and where they are enclosed or kept. In Greek, biblio means book and thêkê means case where the books were kept.17 So it is very obvious that the Arabic appellation for library is similar to the Greek one. However, despite such resemblance, it is not so easy to claim that the Arabic term was a translation of the Greek one in the absence of textual evidence. On the contrary it seems from Manfred Ullmann’s Dictionary of ninth-century Greek-Arabic Translations that the word bibliothêkê was not among the Greek words translated to Arabic in the ninth century whereas there are certain compound nouns formed with thêkê.18
Notes
1. Y. Eche (pp. 63, 64) was the first to assemble and study examples. It is clear from the newer publications related to the same subject that he had almost exhausted the sources. See also Majid b. ‘Abbud b. Sa’id Badahdah, “Books and Bookmaking during the Time of Prophet Mohammed (Peace be Upon Him) and Khula fa’al al-Rashideen; Effects and Initiatives”, Master’s Thesis, King Abdul Aziz University, 1999, pp. 529–532.
2. Al-Balazuri, Kitab Jumal min Ansab al-Ashraf, edited by Suhayl Zakkar, Riyad Zirikli, Vol. 6, Beirut, Dar al-Fikr, 1996, p. 198.
3. Ibn Asakir, Tarikh Madinat Dimashq, Vol. 52, edited by Omar Ibn Gharamah al-’Amrawi, Beirut, Dar al-Fikr, 1997, p. 187.
4. Abu al-Faradj al-Isfahani, Al-Aghani, Vol. 4, Cairo, Wizarat al-Thaqafa wa al-Irshad al Qawmi, n.d., p. 253; Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi, Djamharat Ansab al-Arab, edited by Levi Provençal, Cairo, Dar al-Maarif, 1948, p. 150 and Abd al-Salam Mohammad Harun, 5th Edition, Cairo, Dar al-Maarif, 1982, p. 160.
5. Al-Darimi, Rad al-Imam al-Darimi ‘Osman b. Sa’id ‘ala Bash al-Marisi al ‘Anid, edited by Muhammad Hamid al-Faqi, Beirut, Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiyya, n.d., p. 15; Y. Eche, Les Bibliothéque Arab 11, Fn. 2.
6. Al-Masudi, Muruj al-Zahab,Cairo, 1249 (2/27); Y. Eche, Les Bibliothéque Arab, 12, Fn. 1.
7. Y. Eche, Les Bibliothéque Arab, p. 11.
8. Ibn Juljul, p. 61.
9. For new survey on Umayyad and Abbasid libraries, see, İsmail E. Erünsal, Ortaçağ İslam Dünyasında Kitap ve Kütüphane, İstanbul, Timaş Yayınları, 2018, pp. 326–339.
10. E.W. Lane, p. 734.
11. E.W. Lane, pp. 280, 931.
12. Yaqut al-Hamawi, Mu’jam al-Udaba, Vol. 15, Cairo, Dar al-Ma’mun, n.d., p. 157.
13. AN, p. 160, Vol. 2, p. 442 (New Edition).
14. AN, p. 130.
15. Ibn Juljul, Tabaqat al-’Atibba, pp. 39, 61.
16. Al-Nadim (AN II, p. 234), calls the place where Abu Sahl al-Fadl ibn Naubakht worked Khizanat al-Hikma, in its abbreviated form, while Al-Qifti (p 255) writes it as Khizanat Kutub al-Hikma.
17. A Greek-English Lexicon, compiled by Henry George Liddel and Robert Schott, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1968, p. 315.
18. Manfred Ullmann, Wörterbuch Zu den Grichisch-Arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts, Harrowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2002, pp. 120, 666.