Posted on 08/11/2013 4:38:30 PM PDT by Enza Ferreri
Continuing on the theme of what Muslims did - or more likely did not do - for the world, there is a widespread misconception that they "invented algebra". Maybe this fallacy is due to the fact that "algebra" is a word of Arabic origin, but historical questions are not solved by etymological answers.
Yes, the English word "algebra" derives from the Arabic. So does "sugar" (from the Arabic "sukkar") but that doesn't mean that Muslims invented sugar.
The word "algebra" stems from the Arabic word "al-jabr", from the name of the treatise Book on Addition and Subtraction after the Method of the Indians written by the 9th-century Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, who translated, formalized and commented on ancient Indian and Greek works.
It is even doubtful whether al-Khwārizmī was really a Muslim. The Wikipedia entry on him says:
Regarding al-Khwārizmī's religion, Toomer writes:In all likelihood he was a Zoroastrian who was forced to convert (or die) by Muslim rulers because Persia had been conquered by the Islamic armies and that was what Muslims did (and still do wherever they can). That could easily explain the "pious preface to al-Khwārizmī's Algebra"."Another epithet given to him by al-Ṭabarī, "al-Majūsī," would seem to indicate that he was an adherent of the old Zoroastrian religion. This would still have been possible at that time for a man of Iranian origin, but the pious preface to al-Khwārizmī's Algebra shows that he was an orthodox Muslim, so al-Ṭabarī's epithet could mean no more than that his forebears, and perhaps he in his youth, had been Zoroastrians."
Wikipedia also says:
In Renaissance Europe, he [al-Khwārizmī] was considered the original inventor of algebra, although it is now known that his work is based on older Indian or Greek sources.There is archaeological evidence that the roots of algebra date back to the ancient Babylonians, then developed in Egypt and Greece. The Chinese and even more the Indians also advanced algebra and wrote important works on the subject.
The Alexandrian Greek mathematician Diophantus (3rd century AD), sometimes called "the father of algebra", wrote a series of books, called Arithmetica, dealing with solving algebraic equations. Another Hellenistic mathematician who contributed to the progress of algebra was Hero of Alexandria, as did the Indian Brahmagupta in his book Brahmasphutasiddhanta.
With the Italian Leonardo Pisano (known as Leonardo Fibonacci, as he was the son of Bonacci) in the 13th century, another Italian mathematician, Girolamo Cardano, author in 1545 of the 40-chapter masterpiece Ars magna ("The great art"), and the late-16th-century French mathematician François Viète, we move from the prehistory of algebra to the beginning of the classical discipline of algebra.
Even Bertrand Russell, who in no way is a critic of the Islamic world, writes in the Second Volume of The History of Western Philosophy:
Arabic philosophy is not important as original thought. Men like Avicenna and Averroes are essentially commentators. Speaking generally, the views of the more scientific philosophers come from Aristotle and the Neoplatonists in logic and metaphysics, from Galen in medicine, from Greek and Indian sources in mathematics and astronomy, and among mystics religious philosophy has also an admixture of old Persian beliefs. Writers in Arabic showed some originality in mathematics and in chemistry--in the latter case, as an incidental result of alchemical researches.You can see that to say that Muslims invented or pioneered algebra is a gross misrepresentation.Mohammedan civilization in its great days was admirable in the arts and in many technical ways, but it showed no capacity for independent speculation in theoretical matters. Its importance, which must not be underrated, is as a transmitter. Between ancient and modern European civilization, the dark ages intervened. The Mohammedans and the Byzantines, while lacking the intellectual energy required for innovation, preserved the apparatus of civilization--education, books, and learned leisure. Both stimulated the West when it emerged from barbarism--the Mohammedans chiefly in the thirteenth century, the Byzantines chiefly in the fifteenth. In each case the stimulus produced new thought better than any produced by the transmitters--in the one case scholasticism, in the other the Renaissance (which however had other causes also).
In conclusion, there are various attempts at historical revisionism as far as Islamic contributions to the world are concerned. These attempts are more political propaganda than academic scholarship. After all, taqiyya, lying to the infidels to advance Allah's cause, is permitted, and even prescribed, to Muslims, and jihad does not just consist in violent aggression or terror attacks: it can be gradual, by stealth, through indoctrination and false reassurance.
“Arabic” numbers, primarily the concept of zero, are of Indian origin.
Just great...now counting on my fingers is going to be much harder.
Actually, Arabic numbers were invented in India, about a century before Muhammad.
I prefer the Greek and Roman names, but no one other than astronomers really care.
We should also remember the lasting contribution of J.R.R. Tolkien to the field, whose names I personally think should have pride of place over both the Greeks and the Muslims. That way we could all go out and watch Menelvagor as he rises in the sky. :-)
That is true. I have said since they formed OPEC that we needed to bring in our own oil and let them go back to herding goats. They had no money to be terrorists before U.S. companies put them in the oil business, it is past time to take them out of it. Of course now they have many customers so if we stopped buying it would not put them out of business but I can dream.
Let’s not forget Pythagoras.
Arab does not necessarily equal Muslim.
The Arabic numerals actually came from India.
Let them have algebra, I couldn’t stand it, it’s fitting!
Actually, fragments of the Greek works were known inthe West, particularly in Spain, where Isidore of Seville included them in his compendium of all human knowledge (for the time), written about 75 years before the Islamic invasion of Spain and actually before the invention of Islam.
The Muslims conquered and destroyed numerous Christian and pagan Middle Eastern cultures that still possessed more complete copies of the Greek works, and some of these were preserved by scholars from those countries. While the countries were then islamicized, this was early enough for Islam not to have consolidated its full anti-intellectual impact, which has always resulted in the destruction of all art, music, literature and philosophy in any place that has remained under Islam for more than about 100 years.
Both the Syrians and the Persians, two of the dynasties that ruled Spain at various points, even ended up being considered near heretical by the the guardians of Islamic orthodoxy, the North African Muslims (the Arabs, from whom Mohammed originated), because they were influenced by the Jews and Christians of Spain and because they themselves had had strong intellectual traditions before their conquest by Mohammed and his Arab hordes.
Arabs had no intellectual culture and were nomadic raiders who lived in tents while the Syrians, Baghdadis and Persians lived in elaborate stone cities with gardens and fountains.
Islam is profoundly anti-intellectual. There’s nothing wrong with Arabs intellectually, but Islam stifles them.
Hmm, come to think of it. The only thing that islamist ever invented that actually worked are suicide belts and vests. And even that technology was probably stolen.
Don’t go by Fbonacci. He traveled through northern Africa and brought math concepts back.
The Indians are our enemies? Who knew? :))
The Crusaders weren't the only people who went on the crusades. There were thousands of "support personnel" - for lack of a better term - who trailed along. All sorts of civilians went and certainly the literate clergy were very interested in written works. The Imperial Library of Constantinople was the "last of the great libraries of the ancient world" with works that went back 1,000 years. Furthermore, the Byzantines didn't need any help translating the Greek language, since they spoke it. In fact, the "Franks" called the Byzantines "Greeks."
Constantinople (one of the largest cities in the world at that time) was the jumping off point for all the Crusades. We know there was an almost immediate Byzantine influence on Europe following the First Crusade; architecture in Europe started to change. Castle architecture was greatly influenced - square towers started to get replaced by round towers, for example. And maybe it was just a giant coincidence, but Gothic architecture first rose and rapidly spread across Europe in the 11th century following the First Crusade.
In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, the East and the West had a bit of a falling out and the crusaders sacked Constantinople for three days - they dragged all kinds of crap home. There's no need to look to Spain for the source of ancient Greek literature.
“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” - Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos.
the decimal system and the Hindu numeric systems (see post above) come from India
Algebra etc. also from India with Zoroastrian thought
the ancient Babylonians, Harappans etc. had mapped the heavens at least as early as 3000 BC.
Then, as the ummah spread to Iraq, it co-opted many of the Jewish rabbi schools. Which is why, for instance, in the Koran, the punishment for adultery is whipping, but in the Hadiths it is like in the old testament -- death.
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