Historically, the House of Wisdom is a story of many successes. In 750 AD, the Abbasid's overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate, becoming the ruling power in the Islamic world. In 762 AD, Abu Jaʿfar Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur, the second Abbasid Caliph, decided to move the capital of the empire to his newly built city of Baghdad in Iraq from Damascus, which was in Syria. Al-Mansur was very cognizant of the need to cultivate intellect and wanted to advance and magnify the status of the Islamic people and their culture. As a result, he established a library, the House of Wisdom, in Baghdad where scholars and students could study new material, formulate new ideas, transcribe literature of their own, and translate various works from around the world into the Arabic language. Al-Mansur's descendants were also active in the cultivation of intellect, especially in the area of translation. Under the rule of Abu al-Abbas Abdallah ibn Harun al-Rashid (better known as al-Maʿmun) the House of Wisdom thrived, acquiring a large amount of support and recognition. Al-Maʿmun would send scholars all over the civilized world to retrieve various scientific and literary works to be translated. The head translator at the time, Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi, who was a Christian Arab of al-Hira, is believed to have translated over one hundred books, including the work On Anatomy of the Veins and Arteries by Galen. Due to the translation movement under al-Maʿmun, the House of Wisdom was one of the largest repositories of scientific and literary books in the world at the time and remained that way until the Siege of Baghdad in 1258 AD. The destruction and pillaging of Baghdad by the Mongols also included the destruction of the House of Wisdom, however, the books and other works inside were taken to Maragha by Hulagu Khan and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.
