The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c9.4

c9.4

¹ E.g., they adopted the Greek numerals in use in Damascus and Syria, and the Coptic in Egypt. Theophanes (758–818 A.D.), *Chronographia*, Scriptores Historiae Byzantinae, Vol. XXXIX, Bonnae, 1839, p. 575, relates that in 699 A.D. the caliph Walīd forbade the use of the Greek language in the bookkeeping of the treasury of the caliphate, but permitted the use of the Greek alphabetic numerals, since the Arabs had no convenient number notation: καὶ ἐκώλυσε γράφεσθαι Ἑλληνιστὶ τοὺς δημοσίους τῶν λογοθεσίων κώδικας, ἀλλʼ Ἀραβίοις αὐτὰ παρασημαίνεσθαι, χωρὶς τῶν ψήφων, ἐπειδὴ ἀδύνατον τῇ ἐκείνων γλώσσῃ μονάδα ἢ δυάδα ἢ τριάδα ἢ ὀκτὼ ἥμισυ ἢ τρία γράφεσθαι· διὸ καὶ ἕως σήμερόν εἰσιν σὺν αὐτοῖς νοτάριοι Χριστιανοί. The importance of this contemporaneous document was pointed out by Martin, loc. cit. Karabacek, “Die Involutio im arabischen Schriftwesen,” Vol. CXXXV of *Sitzungsberichte d. phil.-hist. Classe d. k. Akad. d. Wiss.*, Vienna, 1896, p. 25, gives an Arabic date of 868 A.D. in Greek letters.