Islam Creator of the Modern Age
3. Muslim Contribution to Science
~ 121 ~
could not become widely known, and continued for
a long time to remain hidden in privately owned
books. The new invention did not, therefore, gain
currency: people clung to the old method,
considering it to be holy.
Having learnt that in the recently established
Baghdad empire great appreciation was shown for
new inventions, an Indian traveller went in 771 to
Baghdad, which was then under the rule of the
Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mansur. The Indian pandit
introduced into Baghdad a treatise on astronomy, a
siddhanta
(the Arabs called it
sind hind)
and a treatise
on mathematics. By order of Al-Mansur these books
were translated into Arabic by Muhammad Ibn-
Ibrahim al-Fazari, between 796 and 806. The famous
Arab mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi (780-850) went
through this translation into which the digit zero
had been introduced. He found that with the nine
Indian figures, I-9, and the zero sign, any number
could be written. Calling these the ‘Indian’
numerals, Al Khwarizmi pronounced them the
most satisfactory, and advocated their general
adoption.
