In the city of Baghdad there was a big library called the House of Wisdom. The caliph al-Rashid gathered books there, and then his son al-Ma'mun added more. Translators worked there, turning old books into Arabic, and scribes copied them by hand. It was a house for books and for learning.
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Bayt al-Hikma — the House of Wisdom
A grown-up reads you the short text; the longer one you read yourself.
The House of Wisdom was a famous library in Baghdad in the time of the Abbasid caliphs, more than twelve hundred years ago. Some books call it the Treasury of Wisdom. The caliph Harun al-Rashid began it, and his son al-Ma'mun made it bigger and stronger. A doctor named Yuhanna ibn Masawayh worked there translating old medical books that came from the lands of the Byzantines, with skilled scribes writing down what he translated. A man named al-Fadl ibn Nawbakht turned books of wisdom from Persian into Arabic. Al-Ma'mun sent messengers to the Byzantine emperor to ask for books of the ancient sciences, and they brought them to Baghdad. Historians say it was the largest library we know of from that time, but today we do not know exactly where it stood or how it was arranged.
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The leveled texts are written from the same record in the big museum at three levels and follow the kids' content rules; the Scholars level does not appear here.