Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999)

www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 107 posts

Re: Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999)

#31

Post by dingoegret »

acqq wrote: post #20
zwaps wrote: post #4

Let's not forget that the Islamic world was key (though not alone) in preserving our scientific and cultural knowledge. At that time, Islamic society was quite modern and tolerant - and even often the destination for persecuted religious groups such as the Jews in Spain. It is absolutely clear that modern Islam is, in fact, much more "conservative" than it used to be in the beginning. Indeed, the very beginning of Is…

> It freed slaves Only if they converted. Otherwise the slavery never stopped to be OK for that religion (those paying the "protection" are also not allowed to be enslaved). See the (currently insulting) word used for slaves in South Africa, where the slaves from the northern African areas were sold by the adherents to the said religion. Also in the other parts of the world: http://www.lankalibrary.com/cul/kaffirs.ht…

Muslims inherited a great number if slaves from the empires they conquered. The most responsible political course of action was to introduce gradual manumission with incentives that would benefit the people of the Caliphate. So yes, they did free slaves. It wasn't some fairy tale day 1 everyone is free now, let society burn in disorder, do whatever you want, but it was the correct thing to do.

Re: Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999)

#32

Post by csomar »

namirez wrote: post #10

Title is slightly misleading! Most of them are Islamic but not Arabic. Khawrazmi [1], Karaji [2], Khayyam [3], and Tusi [4] were all Persian. Ibn Haytham wrote only in Arabic though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Karaji [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharaf_al-D%C4%ABn_al-%E1%B9%A...

Arab refers to the people living in the Arabic world. If you were to bind it by an ethnicity, most of the people living in the Arab world "Today" would not be Arabs.

From Wikipedia: Arabs are a population inhabiting the Arab world.

Re: Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999)

#36

Post by kragen »

codesushi42 wrote: post #22
thepete2 wrote: post #5

The word Algorithm comes from a mathematician named al-Khwarizmi. Many words that begin with Al (Arabic definite article) are of Arabic origin. Alcohol is another one :)

Chemistry is derived from alchemy, which is also Arabic in origin. Yes, Arab alchemists preceded European alchemists.

Pseudo-Geber was a European alchemist who pretended to be an earlier Arabic-speaking alchemist, perhaps in order to give his works more reputation.

Re: Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999)

#37

Post by csomar »

yters wrote: post #7
thepete2 wrote: post #5

The word Algorithm comes from a mathematician named al-Khwarizmi. Many words that begin with Al (Arabic definite article) are of Arabic origin. Alcohol is another one :)

I've also heard that Allah is a variant of Elohim, and was used by Christians in the region before being conquered by the Muslims.

Muslims people believe in the Christian/Hebrew single God indeed. They just think that the right way to do it is through Mohammed (The muslim prophet) teaching. The argument is that Mohammed is the last prophet that god sent and thus should be the one to follow.

Re: Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999)

#38

Post by acqq »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #13
yters wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also heard that Allah is a variant of Elohim, and was used by Christians in the region before being conquered by the Muslims.

Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages. Elohim is the Hebrew word for "gods", the plural form of el, "god", as seen most commonly today in Hebrew names like Michael, Samuel, Raphael, Emmanuel, Elijah, Eliezer, etc. etc. etc. Allah is just the Arabic cognate, plus the definiteness marker. So yes, anyone speaking Arabic will use that word to refer to any god, and anyone speaking Arabic in the past would have used…

> the Christian god is nameles

Inherited from what developed as a norm in Judaism, where the name existed but then stopped being read (the most famous "one who must not be named"), but the original name of the deity is preserved in the given names used around the world:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophoric_name#Yahweh

Re: Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999)

#39

Post by lappet »

lappet wrote: post #35
alpha0mega wrote: post #6

Most of it was based on translated works from Indian, Europeans conveniently (or out of ignorance) forget that.

The same author has a pretty detailed page on Indian mathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Indexes/Indians.html

I stumbled upon an interesting essay on "Indian Mathematics: Redressing the balance" at the same page: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Projects/Pearce/inde...

Re: Arabic Mathematics: Forgotten Brilliance? (1999)

#40

Post by User23 »

Interestingly, it was the Arabic conquest of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa and subsequent control of the sea lanes that cut western Europe off from the east. Intellectual commerce between east and west was greatly curtailed after the Byzantines started losing badly. It wasn't until the Battle of Lepanto that western Europeans started to have more or less free access to the east again.

There is no denying that in western Eurasia the Mediterranean was the seat of high culture and learning until about the 17th century.

Post reply on HN