|
 This
short article is taken from the full article (by Prof. Aydin Sayili)
which is available here as 68 page PDF file
 Abu
Ja`far Muhammad ibn Mûsâ al-Khwârazmî is a truly outstanding
personality and a leading representative of the supremacy of the
Islamic World during the Middle Ages in scientific and intellectual
pursuits. Medieval Islam was largely responsible for the shaping of
the canon of knowledge that dominated medieval European thought.
This was the result of a noteworthy process of multidimensional and
complex transmission of scientific knowledge enriched at most stages
by new contributions and creative activity. Al-Khwârazmî is a symbol
of this historical process and a key figure at its early and
formative stages which were realized in Islam as well as in its
later phases in which the passage of systematic influence from Islam
to Western Europe was involved.
Indeed, Al-Khwârazmî's
fame and sphere of influence overstepped the boundaries of the World
of Islam itself and extended into Western Europe upon the advent of
the "Twelfth Century Renaissance". Though his activity ranged
clearly over much wider spheres, his main title to fame rested upon
his achievements in the fields of arithmetic and algebra, in both of
which he had the reputation of being a trailblazer and an innovator.
The European word algebra was derived from the name of his
book entitled "An Abridged Treatise on the Jabr and Muqâbala
(Type of) Calculation", while the method of calculation with the
so called Hindu-Arabic numerals, or number system, was called
algorism or algorithm and its several other variants, derived from
the name of Al-Khwârazmî, in Western Europe, in the late Middle
Ages, and this was the origin of the modern word algorithm,
signifying the art of computing in a specific or particular manner
or way.
 Al-Khwarizmi's
years of greatest productivity coincided with the reigns of the
seventh Abbasid caliph Al-Ma'mun (813-833 AD) and his two successors
Al-Mu'tasim and Al-Wathiq (842-847). He worked in the Bayt al-Hikma,
or the house of wisdom, which was founded by Al-Ma'mun's father
Harun al-Rashid and the Barmarks, but developed especially during
Al-Ma-mun's reign. This was a kind of academy and centre of
systematic translation of scientific, philosophical, and medical
works especially from Greek and Syriac into Arabic, and Al-Khwarizmi
was associated with it. He was apparently at the head of this
institution, as it may be gathered from certain statements of Ibn
al-Nadim and Ibn al-Qifti.
Al-Khwarizmi is
also known to have been the author of a zij, i.e. a book containing
astronomical tables and material of an auxiliary nature. Only a
version of Al-Khwarizmi's zij, as revised by Maslama al-Majriti (fl.ca.
1000) has come down to us. This book of Al-Khwarizmi contains sine
and tangent tables, but Maslama may have added the latter function.
Sarton
says, "... the history of science is not simply the history of great
scientists. When one investigates carefully the genesis of any, one
finds that it was gradually prepared by a number of smaller ones,
and the deeper one's investigation, the more intermediary stages are
found. ..." These words are rather sharply reminiscent of the
results of scholarly research on Al-Khwârazmî as an innovator in the
field of algebra and a trailblazer in his activity of transmitting
and spreading the method of calculation with the Hindu-Arabic
numerals. But Sarton's words quoted above should at the same time
serve to make us feel sure that such elaborations and developments
of our knowledge of the history of various subjects should be looked
upon as entirely in keeping with the nature of things. Consequently,
any observation of this kind in connection with Al-Khwârazmî's work
should not detract in any way from the greatness of Al-Khwârazmî as
an outstanding scientist and teacher of worldwide scope.
by: FTSC
Limited
Source:
http://www.muslimheritage.com |
