'Rabs had algebra.
So did the Hindus.
The other perspective.
saudiaramcoworld.com
Drawing principally from Greek texts, but also Persian and Indian sources, medieval Islamic scientists made a staggering number of breakthroughs. The brilliant ninth-century Baghdad mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi invented algebra, initially to resolve property disputes (even though countless generations of high school students wish he hadn’t bothered). He also solved linear and quadratic equations using algorithms, the basis of computer programming; the term itself is derived from his surname, testimony to al-Khwarizmi’s enduring gift to mathematics.
Arab scholars even theorized about evolution, arriving at conclusions that anticipated Darwin. In 1377, nearly half a millennium before the 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species, the Tunisian-born historiographer Ibn Khaldun, renowned as one of the founders of sociology, asserted in Al-Muqaddimah (Prolegomena), “The animal kingdom was developed, its species multiplied, and in the gradual process of Creation, it ended in man & arising from the world of the monkeys.” |
