3. MUSLIM CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

~ 125 ~ Emperor, Frederick II, who was a patron of science. In the year 1220, Leonardo was invited to appear before the Emperor at Pisa, and there he propounded a series of problems, three of which Leonardo presented in his books. The first two belonged to a favourite Arabic type. Wilfrid Blunt writes: And supposing the tide of Islam had not been stemmed? Nothing so delayed the advance of science in the West as the clumsiness of the Roman numerals. Had the Arabic numerals, which had reached Baghdad from India towards the end of the eighth century, been soon afterwards introduced into and adopted by Western Europe as a whole, much of that scientific progress which we associate with the Renaissance in Italy might have been achieved several centuries earlier. 57 AN EXPLANATION For those who are interested in how the concept of zero originated in India, the Children’s Book Trust, New Delhi has published a 22 page booklet in