Indian influence on Islamic science
The Golden Age of Islam, which saw a flourishing of science, notably mathematics and astronomy, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries, had a notable Indian influence.
Quotes
[edit]- Much of the Hindu attitude and approach to mathematics was certainly conveyed to Western Europe through the Arabs. The algebraic methods formerly considered to have been invented by Al-Khowarizmi can now be seen to stem from Hindu sources.
- Baron:Baron, M. E. The Origins of the Infinitesimal Calculus. New York: Dover Publications, 1987.**quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this History was Erased, Garuda Prakashan Private Limited, 2022 ISBN 9798885750189
- I have decided first to consider the majority of the authors who up to now have written about [algebra], so that I can fill in what they have missed out. They are very many, and among them Mohammed ibn Musa [Al-Khwarizmi], an Arab, is believed to be the first [...] I believe that the word “algebra” came from him, because some years ago, Brother Luca [Pacioli] of Borgo San Sepolcro of the Minorite order, having set himself the task of writing on this science, as much in Latin as in Italian, said that the word “algebra” was Arabic [...] and that the science came from the Arabs. Many who have written after him have believed and said likewise, but in recent years, a Greek work on this discipline has been discovered in the Library of our Lord in the Vatican, composed by a certain Diophantus of Alexandria, a Greek author [...] Antonio Maria Pazzi and I have translated five books (of the seven) [...] In this work we have found that he cites the Indian authors many times, and thus I have been made aware that this discipline belonged to the Indians before the Arabs.
- The 16th century Italian mathematician Rafael Bombelli, L’Algebra, published in 1572.
- quoted in Fauvel, J. and J. Gray. The History of Mathematics: A Reader. Macmillan, 1987. quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this History was Erased, Garuda Prakashan Private Limited, 2022 ISBN 9798885750189
- As in the rest of mathematical science, so in trigonometry, were the Arabs pupils of the Hindus […]
- Karl Fink:Fink, Karl. A Brief History of Mathematics. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1900.
- quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this History was Erased, Garuda Prakashan Private Limited, 2022 ISBN 9798885750189
- That he [Al-Khwarizmi] should have borrowed from Diophantus is not at all probable; … It is far more probable that the Arabs received their first knowledge of algebra from the Hindus, who furnished them with the decimal notation of numerals, and with various important points of mathematical and astronomical information.
- Rosen, Frederic. The Algebra of Mohammed Ben Musa. London: 1831. quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this History was Erased, Garuda Prakashan Private Limited, 2022 ISBN 9798885750189
- However, it is not unlikely that the Arabs, who received from the Indians the numeral figures (which the Greeks knew not), did from them also receive the use of them, and many profound speculations concerning them, which neither Latins nor Greeks know, till that now of late we have learned them from thence. From the Indians also they might learn their algebra, rather than from Diophantus.
- John Wallis, in 1685 quoted in :Heeffer, Albrecht. ‘The Reception of Ancient Indian Mathematics by Western Historians’. In Ancient Indian Leaps into Mathematics, edited by B. S. Yadav and Man Mohan, pp. 135-152. Birkhäuser, 2011. quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this History was Erased, Garuda Prakashan Private Limited, 2022 ISBN 9798885750189
- By comparison, the Sanskrit and Greek traditions were absorbed in a rather piecemeal fashion. In the one case there was a fragmentary rendering of Hindu literature and scientific works (channeled through Sind, until the Abbasids lost their grip on the province). Indian numerals, arithmetic, mathematics, philosophy and logic, mysticism, ethics, statecraft, military science, medicine, pharmacology, toxicology (works on snakes (sarpavidya) and poison (visavidya)), veterinary science, eroticism, astronomy, astrology and palmistry were transmit ted. Chess and chausar games were brought from India. We have a reference by an Arabic author from Andalusia to an Indian book on tunes and melodies. Indian fables and literary works are reflected in the Thousand and One Nights. Al-Biruni, before he came to India, had some Indian works in his library which were translated into Arabic under the early Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur (754-775) and the Barmakid vazirs of Harun ar-Rashid; amongst these were the Brahmasiddhanta or Sindhind and the Pahcatantra. When, in 1020, Al-Biruni began his study of Indian astronomy from the Sanskrit originals he was to find that the early works were still held in the same high esteem.13 To an appreciable extent, Sanskrit philosophy had already come to the attention of the Sasanid Persians and its influence in the Islamic world was sometimes mediated by Sasanid schools. ‘It was recognized among the Khusros (Akasira) of Persia that wisdom (hikma) originally came from al-Hind’.14 In Islam however Indian influences submerged under the tide of Greek and Hellenistic learning, falsafa and science, from the ninth century onwards.
- A Wink, Al-Hind, The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Volume 1
