Islam Creator of the Modern Age
3. Muslim Contribution to Science
~ 127 ~
The writer of
Lailawati
tells us that “the Indian
numbers first entered Spain, then Italy, France,
England and Germany ... Indian numbers were
accepted completely .... Their adoption turned out
to be the turning point in the history of mathematics
and science.”
59
It is true that the concept of zero originated in India,
but it is not true that it reached the western world
directly from India: it was through the Arabs that it
reached the West. That is why the West calls these
numerals Arabic rather than Indian. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica
says:
Arabic
numerals—the
numbers,
0,
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 they may have originated in
India, but were introduced to the western
world from Arabia.
60
The
Encyclopaedia
tells us, moreover, that these
numbers became known to western intellectuals in
the ninth century through the writings of the Arab
mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi, whose explanations
of numbers in Arabic reached Europe through Latin
translations.
61
