The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c10.28

c10.28

As a result of this interactivity among peoples of diverse interests and powers, Mohammedanism was to the world from the eighth to the thirteenth century what Rome and Athens and the Italo-Hellenic influence generally had been to the ancient civilization. "If they did not possess the spirit of invention which distinguished the Greeks and the Hindus, if they did not show the perseverance in their observations that characterized the Chinese astronomers, they at least possessed the virility of a new and victorious people, with a desire to understand what others had accomplished, and a taste which led them with equal ardor to the study of algebra and of poetry, of philosophy and of language."¹