House of Knowledge
ancient university in Egypt
The House of Knowledge (Egyptian Arabic: دار العلم, romanized: Dār al-ʿIlm) was a medieval Egyptian university built in Cairo, Egypt in 1004 CE. Originally a library, the House of Knowledge was converted to a state university by the Fatimid Imam-Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in the same year.
In keeping with the Islamic tradition of knowledge, the Egyptians collected books on a variety of subjects and their libraries attracted the attention of scholars from around the world. Al-Hakim was a great patron of learning and provided paper, pens, ink and inkstands without charge to all those who wished to study at the House of Knowledge.
The public source identifies “House of Knowledge” as ancient university in Egypt. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around House, Knowledge and ancient.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1590853. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1004.
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This entry incorporates text from “House of Knowledge” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.