3. MUSLIM CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

~ 121 ~ could not become widely known, and continued for a long time to remain hidden in privately owned books. The new invention did not, therefore, gain currency: people clung to the old method, considering it to be holy. Having learnt that in the recently established Baghdad empire great appreciation was shown for new inventions, an Indian traveller went in 771 to Baghdad, which was then under the rule of the Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mansur. The Indian pandit introduced into Baghdad a treatise on astronomy, a siddhanta (the Arabs called it sind hind) and a treatise on mathematics. By order of Al-Mansur these books were translated into Arabic by Muhammad IbnIbrahim al-Fazari, between 796 and 806. The famous Arab mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi (780-850) went through this translation into which the digit zero had been introduced. He found that with the nine Indian figures, I-9, and the zero sign, any number could be written. Calling these the ‘Indian’ numerals, Al Khwarizmi pronounced them the most satisfactory, and advocated their general adoption.