Posted on 10/08/2001 6:42:13 PM PDT by Brian_Baldwin
Of late, I have heard several educators and politicians tell us that Islamic culture invented the numeric zero. In fact, this is not correct. One of the world's first universities was over 2,700 years ago located in Takshshila in North-western India where the zero was used. The historian Al Biruni, himself a Muslim, who wrote histories during the era of about 1030 AD including histories of India, acknowledged that the Arabs learned the use of zero from Brahmanic and Jain scholars of India. The basis of Arabic numerals, including their use of 'zero', originated in India and then about the 6th century the use of zero went to the Arab world for the first time, eventually this knowledge followed trade routes to the Arab and Islamic world and the shape of zero changed to a more familiar modern form which was commonly introduced into Europe for use in tallies and trade around the 10th century by the Moores in Spain. However, there is some evidence that zero was also introduced into Europe by other cultures as well, such as from Russia steppes, and also was indigenous to Celtic and Norse cultures, and Doric cultures. Who actually "invented" the numeric zero is actually a dilemma, it very well was likely "invented" indigenously multiple times by multiple cultures even though it was not in common use by the general population. However there is no question that historically the Islamic culture took the common use of zero from India and the Hindus, Buddhists and Jains of the Indian subcontinent. While some Arabs were using the Indian zero as early as the 6th Century, in fact it wasn't used commonly in the Islamic world until Muslims "rediscovered" its use first in the 1200's AD and successive centuries after that as Afghanis and others from Ghazni and other regions repeatedly invaded and plundered India over hundreds of years. They tore down the Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian temples and sanctuaries, many of which stood hundreds or thousands of years before the arrival of Islam into India, and used the columns and stone of these non-Muslim sanctuaries to build palaces and mosques. In fact, the common practice of the invading Muslims would be to find what would be the holiest sites, tear down the ancient monuments of that site, and to build a mosque on that spot. In this way, the Islamic mullahs thought that the natives would then come to the mosque, the mosque being located on a sacred site - a middle-ages version of propaganda wars. Tens of thousands of such ancient monuments have been torn down by Islamic invaders, in the same manner that ancient monumental Buddhist statues were recently smashed by the Taliban as idols. While the architecture which is considered Islamic had many elements from Afghani culture, in fact when the Afghani's invaded parts of what is today Pakistan and made slaves of the peoples there and forced conversion, they borrowed heavily from Indian architects and the style which is considered "Islamic" is in fact heavily borrowed from India by the ruling Islamic despots who controlled Northern Indian for centuries. The most classic example of what is thought of as Islamic architecture is the Taj Mahal, but in fact when most people think of the Taj, they think of India and not Afghanistan. And there is a reason - not only local Indian architects helped build it and influenced it's design, some do not know that also Italians who were brought in by the Moghul emperor also helped in the design, especially the marble work, as well as Jewish intellectuals. Many also do not know, that in fact where the Taj stands, this was property taken from the family of the Maharaja of Jaipur India, and was the site of what was originally the sacred temple of Tajo Maha or a Shiva temple. Some of the structure of the Taj is in fact remnants of this ancient temple, and the crescent moon of the Taj which also became a symbol of Islam is in fact a Hindu iconic symbol, the crescent moon is worn in the dread locks of Shiva the Hindu God of Destruction. The original idols are to this day under the basement of the Taj Mahal. I am not a scholar in any sense, but a lot of this is common knowledge, and the only reason I mention it at this time is that I think ever since the events of late involving culture-clashes and the Islamic terrorist acts, some out of endeavors to flatter or appease some Islamic elements are saying things which are not correct for whatever purpose or to aspire to appear unbiased or academic.Islamic culture did not "invent zero"
The only explanation I can think of is that they haven't invented a damned thing since then.
Their leaders stole EVERYTHING!!! They were nomads and FAR less than SMART...but "talented" with terror and a sword.
My, my they apparently haven't changed much.
Read this in my set of The World of Methmatics about 1960. I don't think the Arabs ever invented anything.
And Assassins.
But they are still crowing about it today?
That tells me they haven't invented too much since then.
That's why the concept of division by zero is arithmetically meaningless. Dividing by null, nil, nothing, means in effect that you're writing an expression that does nothing, alters no numbers in any way.
So even if this claim is true, which seem highly dubious, the "invention of zero" simply means that now you have a symbol for nothing to put in the place of nothing.
Sort of a metaphor for all of Arab "civilization," eh?
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