The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c10.4

c10.4

The first definite trace that we have of the introduction of the Hindu system into Arabia dates from 773 A.D.,¹ when an Indian astronomer visited the court of the caliph, bringing with him astronomical tables which at the caliph’s command were translated into Arabic by Al-Fazārī.² Al-Khowārazmī and Ḥabash (Aḥmed ibn ‘Abdallāh, died c. 870) based their well-known tables upon the work of Al-Fazārī. It may be asserted as highly probable that the numerals came at the same time as the tables. They were certainly known a few decades later, and before 825 A.D., about which time the original of the *Algoritmi de numero Indorum* was written, as that work makes no pretense of being the first work to treat of the Hindu numerals.