A Muslim Scholar-Al Khwarizmi

Al-Khwarizmi

Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi was born sometime before 800 A.D. and died after 847 A.D.. His name indicates that he was "Muhammed, son of Moses, father of Jafar, from Khwarizm," (modern Khiva, south of the Aral Sea in central Asia)(ernie.bgsu.edu). He flourished as a mathematician and astronomer who was a faculty member at the "House of Wisdom" established in Baghdad by Al-Mamun. As a scholar at the House of Wisdom, al-Khwarizmi, together with his noted colleagues the Banu Musa, directed and engaged in intellectual interests ranging from algebra and geometry to astronomy and the translation of Greek scientific manuscripts (lib.virginia.edu).

Al-Khwarizmi wrote numerous books that played important roles in arithematic and algebra. In his work, De numero indorum (Concerning the Hindu Art of Reckoning), it was based presumably on an Arabic translation of Brahmagupta where he gave a full account of the Hindu numerals which was the first to expound the system with its digits 0,1,2,3,....,9 and decimal place value which was a fairly recent arrival from India. Because of this book with the Latin translations made a false inquiry that our system of numeration is arabic in origin. The new notation came to be known as that of al-Khwarizmi, or more carelessly, algorismi; ultimately the scheme of numeration making use of the Hindu numerals came to be called simply algorism or algorithm, a word that, originally derived from the name al-Khwarizmi, now means, more generally, any peculiar rule of procedure or operation. The Hindu numerals like much new mathematics were not welcomed by all. In 1299 there was a law in the commercial center of Florence forbidding their use; to this day this law is respected when we write the amount on a check in longhand (ernie.bgsu.edu).

Video:About Al Khwarizmi

It was at the House of Wisdom that al-Khwarizmi wrote his treatise al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala or "The Compendious Book on Calculation By Completion and Balancing" that was written in 830 B.C.. It dealt with "what is easiest and most useful" (ernie.bgsu.edu). Conceived as an elementary textbook of practical mathematics, the Al-jabr wa'l-muqabala began with a discussion of the algebra of first and second degree equations and moved on in its final two parts to the business of practical applications to questions on mensuration and legacies. This was the most important book al-Khwarizmi was known for.