More about al-Khawarizmi's book

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Feb 25, 2022 at 07:27

Dr. Pipes,

I wrote:

AND his (al-Khawarizmi) book كتاب الجمع والتفريق في الحساب الهندي or "The Book Of Addition and Subtraction in INDAIN Mathematics."

This should be: The Book of Addition and Division/Parting/Splitting (and see below) In Indian Mathematics.

Here is the meaning of the word تفريق from elmaany Arabic/English

https://www.almaany.com/en/dict/ar-en/%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%82/

And here is the meaning from Lisan al-Arab:

وإذ فرقنا بكم البحر معناه شققناه

This can be rendered as: And when We SPLIT, with you, the sea, means: We Split it

So The meaning of the word is really: Division/Parting/Splitting

Here is Ibn Manzur

https://www.islamweb.net/ar/library/index.php?page=bookcontents&idfrom=6203&idto=6203&bk_no=122&ID=6215

It could also mean the Algebraic: Integration/Differentiation or Calculating the area under the curve/Change incurred from one point to another.

There is no doubt that al-Khawarizmi's work is based on knowledge he gained from reading Indian mathematics including INDIAN NUMERALS AND ZERO. Notice that he did not call them Arabic numerals and did not claim that the Arabs are the ones that get the credit for "Zero."

May be we can paraphrase C Becker and add: Without Indian Mathematics there would have been no Islamic Mathematics.

And we all have to remember that history (including the history of Algebra) is about continuity not as Muslims claim, discontinuity.

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