The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c10.8

c10.8

For over five hundred years Arabic writers and others continued to apply to works on arithmetic the name “Indian.” In the tenth century such writers are ‘Abdallāh ibn al-Ḥasan, Abū ’l-Qāsim³ (died 987 A.D.) of Antioch, and Moḥammed ibn ‘Abdallāh, Abū Naṣr⁴ (c. 982), of Kalwādā near Bagdad. Others of the same period or earlier (since they are mentioned in the *Fihrist*,¹ 987 A.D.), who explicitly use the word "Hindu" or "Indian," are Sinān ibn al-Fatḥ² of Ḥarrān, and Aḥmed ibn 'Omar, al-Karābīsī.³ In the eleventh century come Al-Bīrūnī⁴ (973–1048) and 'Ali ibn Aḥmed, Abū 'l-Ḥasan, Al-Nasawī⁵ (*c.* 1030). The following century brings similar works by Isḥāq ibn Yūsuf al-Ṣardafī⁶ and Samū'īl ibn Yaḥyā ibn 'Abbās al-Maġrebī al-Andalusī⁷ (*c.* 1174), and in the thirteenth century are 'Abdallaṭīf ibn Yūsuf ibn Moḥammed, Muwaffaq al-Dīn Abū Moḥammed al-Baġdādī⁸ (*c.* 1231), and Ibn al-Bannā.⁹