The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c9.8

c9.8

The Spanish forms of the numerals were called the *ḥurūf al-ġobār*, the *ġobār* or dust numerals, as distinguished from the *ḥurūf al-jumal* or alphabetic numerals. Probably the latter, under the influence of the Syrians or Jews,² were also used by the Arabs. The significance of the term *ġobār* is doubtless that these numerals were written on the dust abacus, this plan being distinct from the counter method of representing numbers. It is also worthy of note that Al-Bīrūnī states that the Hindus often performed numerical computations in the sand. The term is found as early as *c.* 950, in the verses of an anonymous writer of Kairwān, in Tunis, in which the author speaks of one of his works on *ġobār* calculation;³ and, much later, the Arab writer Abū Bekr Moḥammed ibn ʿAbdallāh, surnamed al-Ḥaṣṣār (the arithmetician), wrote a work of which the second chapter was "On the dust figures."¹