The

Golden Age of Islam The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign ...

, which saw a flourishing of

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

, notably

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries, had a notable Indian influence.

History

For the best part of a millennium, from the

Seleucid era The Seleucid era ("SE") or (literally "year of the Greeks" or "Greek year"), sometimes denoted "AG," was a system of numbering years in use by the Seleucid Empire and other countries among the ancient Hellenistic civilizations. It is sometimes r ...

and through to the Sassanid period, there had been an exchange of scholarship between the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

n and

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

cultural spheres. The origin of the number zero and the

place-value system Positional notation (or place-value notation, or positional numeral system) usually denotes the extension to any base of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system (or decimal system). More generally, a positional system is a numeral system in which the ...

notably falls into this period; its early use originates in Indian mathematics of the 5th century (''

Lokavibhaga The ''Lokavibhāga'' is a Jain cosmological text originally composed in Prakrit by a Digambara monk Digambara Sādhu (also ''muni'', ''sādhu'') is a Sādhu in the Digambar tradition of Jainism, and as such an occupant of the highest l ...

''), influencing

Sassanid era The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

Persian scholars during the 6th century. The sudden

Islamic conquest of Persia The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrian ...

in the 640s drove a wedge between the Mediterranean and Indian traditions, but scholarly transfer soon resumed, with translations of both Greek and Sanskrit works into Arabic during the 8th century. This triggered the flourishing of Abbasid-era scholarship centered in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

in the 9th century, and the eventual resumption of transmission to the west via

Muslim Spain Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the Mus ...

and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

by the 10th century. There was continuing contact between Indian and Perso-Arabic scholarship during the 9th to 11th centuries while the

Muslim conquest of India The Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent mainly took place from the 13th to 17th centuries. Earlier Muslim conquests include the invasions into what is now modern-day Pakistan and the Umayyad campaigns in India in eighth century and res ...

was temporarily halted.

Al Biruni Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...

in the early 11th century traveled widely in India and became an important source of knowledge about India in the

Islamic world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In ...

during that time. With the establishment of the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).

in the 13th century, northern India fell under Perso-Arabic dominance and the native Sanskrit tradition fell into decline, while at about the same time the "Golden Age of Islam" of the Arab caliphates gave way to Turko-Mongol dominance, leading to the flourishing of a secondary "Golden Age" of Turko-Persian literary tradition during the 13th to 16th centuries, exemplified on either side of Timurid Persia by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

in the west and the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

in the east.

Astronomy

The mathematical astronomy text '' Brahmasiddhanta'' of

Brahmagupta Brahmagupta ( – ) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer. He is the author of two early works on mathematics and astronomy: the ''Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta'' (BSS, "correctly established doctrine of Brahma", dated 628), a theoretical trea ...

(598-668) was received in the court of

Al-Mansur Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Manṣūr (; ar, أبو جعفر عبد الله بن محمد المنصور‎; 95 AH – 158 AH/714 CE – 6 October 775 CE) usually known simply as by his laqab Al-Manṣūr (المنصور) w ...

(753–774). It was translated by Alfazari into Arabic as ''Az-Zīj ‛alā Sinī al-‛Arab'', popularly called ''Sindhind''. This translation was the means by which the

Hindu numerals Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

were transmitted from the Sanskrit to the Arabic tradition. According to

Al-Biruni Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...

, Alberuni's translator and editor Edward Sachau wrote: "It is

who taught Arabs mathematics before they got acquainted with Greek science."

Al-Fazari al-Fazari ( ar, الفزاري) is a surname. The attributive title (nisba), Fazari, denotes an origin from Fazara ibn Dhubyan. Notable people with the surname include: * Samura ibn Junbad al-Fazari, one of the 7th century Companions of the Prop ...

also translated the ''Khandakhadyaka (Arakand) of'' Brahmagupta. Through the resulting Arabic translations of ''

Sindhind ''Zīj as-Sindhind'' (, ''Zīj as‐Sindhind al‐kabīr'', lit. "Great astronomical tables of the Sindhind"; from Sanskrit ''siddhānta'', "system" or "treatise") is a work of zij (astronomical handbook with tables used to calculate celestial po ...

'' and ''Arakand'', the use of Indian numerals became established in the Islamic world.

Mathematics

The etymology of the word "sine" comes from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

mistranslation of the word ''jiba'', which is an Arabic transliteration of the Sanskrit word for half the chord, ''jya-ardha''. The sin and cos functions of trigonometry, were important mathematical concepts, imported from the

Gupta period The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gold ...

Indian astronomy Astronomy has long history in Indian subcontinent stretching from pre-historic to modern times. Some of the earliest roots of Indian astronomy can be dated to the period of Indus Valley civilisation or earlier. Astronomy later developed as a dis ...

namely the ''jyā'' and ''koṭi-jyā '' functions via translation of texts like the ''

Aryabhatiya ''Aryabhatiya'' (IAST: ') or ''Aryabhatiyam'' ('), a Sanskrit astronomical treatise, is the ''magnum opus'' and only known surviving work of the 5th century Indian mathematician Aryabhata. Philosopher of astronomy Roger Billard estimates that th ...

'' and ''

Surya Siddhanta The ''Surya Siddhanta'' (; ) is a Sanskrit treatise in Indian astronomy dated to 505 CE,Menso Folkerts, Craig G. Fraser, Jeremy John Gray, John L. Berggren, Wilbur R. Knorr (2017)Mathematics Encyclopaedia Britannica, Quote: "(...) its Hindu inven ...

'', from Sanskrit to Arabic, and then from Arabic to Latin, and later to other European languages. Uta C. Merzbach, Carl B. Boyer (2011), A History of Mathematics, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 3rd ed., p. 189.

Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi Abu'l Hasan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Al-Uqlidisi ( ar, أبو الحسن أحمد بن ابراهيم الإقليدسي) was a Muslim Arab mathematician, who was active in Damascus and Baghdad. He wrote the earliest surviving book on the positional use ...

a scholar in the Abbasid caliphate wrote ''al-Fusul fi al-Hisab al-Hindi'' ("chapters in Indian calculation") to address the difficulty in procedures for calculation from the

Euclid's Elements The ''Elements'' ( grc, Στοιχεῖα ''Stoikheîa'') is a mathematical treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulat ...

and endorsed the use of Indian calculation. He highlighted its ease of use, speed, fewer requirements of memory and the focused scope on the subject.

Medical texts

Manka, an Indian physician at the court of

Harun al-Rashid Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar , أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn ...

translated the '' Sushruta'' (the classical (Gupta-era) Sanskrit text on medicine) into Persian. Al-Razi's ''

Al-Hawi ''Al-Hawi'' or ''Kitāb al-Ḥāwī fī al-ṭibb'' translated as ''The Comprehensive Book on Medicine'' is a medical composition authored by Rhazes in the 10th century. It was first translated into Latin in 1279 under the title ''Continens'' by ...

'' (''liber continens'') of c. 900 is said to contain "much Indian knowledge" from texts such as the

Susruta Samhita The ''Sushruta Samhita'' (सुश्रुतसंहिता, IAST: ''Suśrutasaṃhitā'', literally "Suśruta's Compendium") is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgery, and one of the most important such treatises on this subje ...

Geography

The Indian geographical knowledge that was transmitted and influenced the Arabs included the view of

Aryabhata Aryabhata (ISO: ) or Aryabhata I (476–550 CE) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer of the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. He flourished in the Gupta Era and produced works such as the ''Aryabhatiya'' (which ...

that the apparent daily rotation of the heavens was caused by the rotation of the earth on its own axis, the idea that the proportion of land and sea on the surface of the earth was half and half and the land mass as being dome shaped and covered on all sides by water. The Arabs utilized the Indian cartographic system in which the northern hemisphere was considered to be the inhabited part of the earth and divided into nine parts. Its four geographical limits were djamakut in the east, rum in the west, Ceylon as the cupola (dome) and Sidpur. Indians believed that the prime meridian passes through ujjain and calculated their longitudes from Ceylon. The Arabs adopted this idea of Ceylon's being the cupola of the earth but later mistakenly believed ujjain to be the cupola.

References

External links

The Development of The numerals Among The Arabs
chapter from the book – The Hindu-Arabic Numerals By David Eugene Smith {{DEFAULTSORT:Hindu And Buddhist Contribution To Science In Medieval Islam Science in the medieval Islamic world History of science and technology in India Science in the Middle Ages Indosphere Ancient Indian literature