Science Institutionalization in Early Islam: “Bayt al-Hikma of Baghdad as a Model of an Academy of Sciences”

This study aims to introduce academy-type institutions of the pre-Islamic era. To illustrate the ascendance of theIslamic tradition of science institutionalisation, founding and patronage of academies, the example of Baghdad’sBayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) which flourished in the ninth century AD is examined closely in the light ofprimary Arabic sources on the subject as well as recent contemporary international literature. The study will thengo beyond the existing narrative on Bayt al-Hikma to argue that it was an ‘academy of sciences’ that preceded bycenturies the Academia dei Lincei of Rome, considered by many scholars as the world’s first academy ofsciences established in 1603.