Londoni

Scholar of Bait-ul-Hikmah

From the 9th to 13th century the Islamic empire stretched from the Mediterranean to India and Baghdad was known as the world's richest city. It had a population of over a million, the largest in its time, and became the centre of scientific studies and trade, and many merchants and scientists from as far as China and India travelled to this city, as did Al-Khwārizmī. This was a very fortuitous time for Arabic learning. Caliph Harun al-Rashid and his son Caliph al-Ma'mun of the Abbasid dynasty who were leading this huge empire, founded an academy in Baghdad called the "House of Wisdom" where the learned men collected and translated all the scientific works that they could get hold of.

In the reign of Caliph al-Ma'mun, who reigned from 813-833 CE, observatories were set up, and The House was an unrivalled centre for the study of humanities and for sciences, including mathematics, astronomy, medicine, chemistry, zoology and geography. House of Wisdom had a large library - first famous library established after the library of Alexandria was destroyed. It included translation of Persian, Sanskrit and Greek texts — including those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid, Plotinus, Galen, Sushruta, Charaka, Aryabhata and Brahmagupta. Scholars like Al Khwarizmi who worked there accumulated a great collection of knowledge in the world, and built on it through their own discoveries that eventually led to the revival of learning in Europe.

The House of Wisdom flourished until it was destroyed by the Mongols invasion of Baghdad in 1258, who destroyed all the other libraries in Baghdad also. It was said that the waters of the Tigris ran black for six months with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river.

Founder of algebra & trigonometry

In the twelfth century, Latin translations of his work on the Indian numerals, introduced the decimal positional number system to the Western world.[6] His Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations in Arabic. In Renaissance Europe he was considered the original inventor of algebra, although we now know that his work is based on older Indian or Greek sources.[7] He revised Ptolemy's Geography and wrote on astronomy and astrology. His contributions had a great impact on language. "Algebra" is derived from al-jabr, one of the two operations he used to solve quadratic equations. Algorism and algorithm stem from Algoritmi, the Latin form of his name.[8] His name is the origin of (Spanish) guarismo[9] and of (Portuguese) algarismo, both meaning digit.

Al-Khwārizmī's Zīj al-Sindhind[1] (Arabic: زيج "astronomical tables of Sind and Hind") - contains tables for the movements of the sun, the moon and the five planets known at the time. Al-Khwārizmī's Zīj al-Sindhind also contained tables for the trigonometric functions of sines and cosine,[24]. A related treatise on spherical trigonometry is also attributed to him.

The term algebra is derived from the name of one of the basic operations with equations (al-jabr, meaning completion, or, subtracting a number from both sides of the equation) described in this book.

What do we use algebra for?

Professionally, algebra is used in accounting (e.g. calculating budgets and ordering inventory), measuring for building, and of course science. In our daily life we use algebra in figuring out which is the better deal when shopping, or what is the better route when driving. For a shopping example, algebra is used to decide whether we should buy a half gallon of milk at £2.99 or a full gallon of milk at £3.79.

Other examples are finding the distance, perimeter of an area, volume, determining the cost of something, renting something, time relationships, pricing options for something you want to buy, and more.

Introduced zero '0' to the Western world

Kitāb al-Jamʿ wa-l-tafrīq bi-ḥisāb al-Hind ("The Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation") written about 825, was principally responsible for spreading the Indian system of numeration throughout the Middle East and Europe. It was translated into Latin as Algoritmi de numero Indorum. Al-Khwārizmī, rendered as (Latin) Algoritmi, led to the term "algorithm".

Improved weather calculation

Al-Khwārizmī's third major work is his Kitāb ṣūrat al-Arḍ (Arabic: كتاب صورة الأرض "Book on the appearance of the Earth" or "The image of the Earth" translated as Geography), which was finished in 833. It is a revised and completed version of Ptolemy's Geography, consisting of a list of 2402 coordinates of cities and improved values for the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, and Africa..

Photos of Al-Khwarizmi and his works

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