Derivation: The
Arabic phrase
dar al-hikmah means something like "Domain of Wisdom." Some modern Arabic academies or publishers still use the name.
Hikmah is Arabic for wisdom, and closely resembles the Hebrew word, hokhmah. (No big surprise; they're both Semitic languages.)
The Bait al-Hikmah is the most famous of the ancient Islamic libraries, or maktabat. It was founded in Baghdad around the year 820. These libraries also preserved and translated the works of older civilizations, especially the Greeks.