INEAS Anniversary -- Arabic & INDIAN Numerals

INEAS: A Worthy Organization!

The essay below is quite interesting, for it explains an issue in numerical representation that has bothered me for a long time.

The current forms of Western Hindu-Arabic numbers look very much like aleph through teth of a form of Ibero-Berber Hebrew script commonly used in Islamic Spain. These letters were used in a Hebrew numerical representation, which was neither positional nor decimal but rather more like Roman numerals (and still used by Jews but with different letter-number shapes). In addition, the Hebrew number system had no zero.

It seems unlikely for the Ibero-Berber numeric representation to have evolved into modern Western Hindu-Arabic numerals. Yet, if the Ibero-Berber Hebrew numbers combined or merged with the number representation designed by Mohammad ebne Mūsā Khwārazmī (محمد بن موسی خوارزمی) and described below, the result would probably have exactly the shapes that we use today in the Christian/post-Christian West.

According to Al-Khwārizmī's Wikipedia entry:

His book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825, was principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle-East and then Europe. This book also translated into Latin in the twelfth century, as Algoritmi de numero Indorum.

Al-Khwārizmī's first Latin translator was an Ibero-Berber Jew, who probably created the current forms of Western numerals in his manuscript.

Wikipedia adds, "From the name of the author, rendered in Latin as algoritmi, originated the term algorithm," but fails to note that the modern English word algorithm develops from an earlier form algorism, which is the obvious derivative of Al-Khwārizmī.

Within the Islamic context, Al-Khwārazmī is an extremely multicultural figure if I permit myself an anachronistic usage.

He was born in Khwārazm, which was in the Persian Empire of his time period and which is now Khiva in Turkic Uzbekistan.

Al-Khwārazmī spent most of his scholarly career at Baghdad's House of Wisdom.

Wikipedia also notes:

Al-Khwārizmī wrote several other works including a treatise on the Hebrew calendar (Risāla fi istikhrāj taʾrīkh al-yahūd "Extraction of the Jewish Era"). It describes the 19-year intercalation cycle, the rules for determining on what day of the week the first day of the month Tishrī shall fall; calculates the interval between the Jewish era (creation of Adam) and the Seleucid era; and gives rules for determining the mean longitude of the sun and the moon using the Jewish calendar.

We celebrate our 14th anniversary

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INEAS (1994-2008)

[please continue below in Arabic and English]

أصل الأرقام العربية

The Origin of Arabic Numerals

وجدت الأرقام الهندية عند العرب نتيجة الكتب الهندية في الفلك والرياضيات التي تُرجمت إلى اللغة العربية .. وقد أستخدم الخوارزمي الأرقام الهندية في أحد كتبه حتى انتشرت وذاع صيتها عند العرب ، وهي أفضل من حساب الأحرف الأبجدية التي كانوا يستخدمونها للتعبير عن الأرقام

The Indian numerals were used by Arabs due to the translation of Indian mathematics and astronomy books by Iraqi Moslems. Famous scientist, Al-Khawarizmi (who lived most of his life and died in Baghdad) used Indian numerals in one of his books until they became popularly used, which were better than the letters of alphabet used in calculation

الأرقام الهندية

The Indian Numerals

لكن الخوارزمي قام بتأليف أرقام أخرى تُعرف اليوم بإسم الأرقام العربية ، لكنها لم تحظ بإنتشار واسع .. وإنتشرت فيما بعد في الأندلس والمغرب العربي .. ومن هناك إنتشرت في أوربا وفي جميع أنحاء العالم

قام الخوارزمي بتصميم الأرقام العربية حسب أعداد الزوايا لكل رقم .. وهي تتمثل بالأشكال التالية

But then Al-Khawarizmi created a different system of numerals known today as Arabic numbers, which they didn't become as popular until later in Andalusian Spain and North Africa. From Andalusia, they spread to Europe and all over the world.

He designed the Arabic numerals according to the number of angles for each digit as follows:

الرقم واحد .. زاوية واحدة
One Angle for number one

الرقم إثنان .. زاويتان
Two Angles for number two

الرقم ثلاثة .. ثلاث زوايا
Three Angles ....

الرقم أربعة .. أربع زوايا
Four Angles ....

الرقم خمسة .. خمسة زوايا .. وهكذا إلى الرقم التاسع
Five angles,
and so on and so forth

وأخيرا .. الرقم صفر .. لا توجد أي زاوية
Finally ... Zero without angles.


ثم دخلت بعض التعديلات على هذه الأشكال .. حتى صارت بالأشكال المعروفة حاليا

Then few changes were made on the above numerals and finally took the modern shapes of 1 2 3 4 5 ...

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