Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khawarizmi is simply Al-Khawarizmi (Figure 1), and most historians refer to him as a great mathematician who founded Algebra. The exact date of Al-Khawarizmi birth is unknown, and although his name is indicative of the fact that his family could have originated from the region of Kwarizm near the Aral Sea, many historians do believe that their home city was Baghdad in present day Iraq (Berzina, 2006). Although historians know a little about his private life, Al-Khwarizmi’s work and his contributions to mathematics have survived ages until now. An exception is his book of arithmetic in which the traces of the original are missing, but just a Latin translation of the book and Arab references that cite the missing book. That aspect of mathematics popularized Al-Khwarizmi as the father of Algebra this was because of his significant contribution, and apart from the contribution towards math, and he has an enormous impact on the turf of astronomy and geography. The Muslims needed the knowledge in astronomy and geography for determination of what bearing to use while praying or for establishing the commencement of Ramadhan, which they largely based on the phases of the moon (Berzina, 2006). His work has an enormous impact on the modern science, and one of the most significant contributions in Al-Khwarizmi’s life was his role in the establishment of the Arabic number system (Berzina, 2006).
Al-Khwarizmi pioneered the concept of zero, which Brahmagupta, a mathematician and an astronomer from India, established together with the creation of a decimal based number system. Although, later on Brahmagupta tried to introduce the concept of positive and negative figures as credits and debts, it is evident that Al-Khwarizmi only accepted the concept of zero because the idea of negatives and positives as wealth and debts were not prevalent in his work (Berzina, 2006). The fact that Al-Khwarizmi worked on the ideas of Brahmagupta, he became he made the Arabic number system become similar to the Indian number system of ten digits 0-9. Additionally, Al-Khwarizmi became the first mathematician to use zero as a placeholder in positional base notation (Berzina, 2006). His books were used as a curriculum in many European universities until the 16thcentury. For example, The establishment of the writing of the book “Carmen de Algorismo and Algorismus vulgaris” was on Al-Khawarizmi books in Latin. Al-Khawarizmi’s work had a great impact on many continents especially on Europe. He was a member al-hikmah which means the house of wisdom in Baghdad, which was a society instituted by the caliph for the learning of science, and to crown the membership he became known as the father of algebra. The House of Wisdom is a place, which scholars gather to translate the important science into Arabic. Abbasid Caliph Mamun in Baghdad founded the house of wisdom, which later on Calliph al-mamun set up the house in 1004 A.D. The idea of building the House of Wisdom arose from the fact that Greeks belief in many Gods conflicted the Islamic belief in one God, and this spurred the Muslims to conquer the Middle East, North Africa and Spain destroying much of the Work of Knowledge the Greeks had established. The congests lasted to just a generation prior to Al-Khawarizmi’s and Al-Mamun’s birth. However, the drastic change of attitude among the Muslims towards the western science enabled the re-establishment of knowledge after realization of how knowledge might have been useful for their own purposes (Berzina, 2006). This led to Al-mamun creation of the House of Wisdom in an effort to restore and research the answers to some scientific questions that plagued his Empire’s administration then. This house enabled Al-Khawarizmi, who was one of the members together with Banu MNusa, establish themselves as significant scientists in the society. Al-Khawarizmi would publish several texts later on where two texts on mathematics would establish the Arabic Number System and Algebra.
Robert of Chester translated book into Latin, “Liber algebraeetalmucabala” that is how many of Al-Khawarizmi’s work influenced Europe. John of Seville developed a separate Latin version. His work became well known in Europe and made an amazing impact on the development of math there. His book Algebra is in Al-Khwarizmi’s own handwriting. It was the textbook for many Europe universities, which they referred to as “Algiebar and almachabel” and many other types, but finally they shortened to algebra. Besides his book Algebra, “Kitab al-Jam’awal-TafreeqbilHisab al-Hindi” and “Al-Maqala fi Hisab-al Jabrwa-al-Muqabilah” are only available in their Latin translations because the original copies got lost. “Introduction of Arabic numerals” was a great book that helps to develop science using simple numbers. The main idea was to introduce the number zero. This help to do many problems and calculations in an easy way. The idea of using zero became very popular in the west. Later, there was a translation of the book into Latin, and the Europeans accepted it in their countries (Ayyubi, 2006). When there was the consideration of one zx3 in math, there was the transfer of the number zero to Europe besides the decimal system it had. This event was one of the key contributions to the scientific revolution there where there was also the introduction of Arabic numbers in Europe. By then, the problems were easier to do than the previous times.
The word “algorithm” came from one of Al-Khawarizmi’s book, “al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi Hisab al-jabrw’al-muqabala” which in English stands for “The Condensed Book on Calculation by Restoring and Balancing” (Figure 2). This book explains the measures needed in eliminating equations and simple problems extracted from life. The way of solving equations later evolved into a type of math known as algebra. Al-jabr means removing a negative symbol from a given equation while al-muqabala means balancing or equating an equation between an equal sign. He wrote a book “algebra” that teaches the basic, simple and useful ways of doing arithmetic. These calculations were required in cases of partition, trade, geometrical computations and more fields of calculation.
His equations include roots, square of x, and decimals where he first introduced the operation addition and subtraction. Soon after, he introduced the method of completing a square using geometric method. He also worked on finding the area of some figures such as the circle. Moreover, he finds the needed aspects of volume in solids such as the sphere, the common cone, and the shape of pyramid.
Al- Khawarizmi introduced the basics of algebra, and he found a way to deal with complex numbers found within square roots and complex fragments in equations and fraction. He did many experiments, calculated the dimension composing the earth’s atmosphere in terms of height, and discovered the idea behind magnifying lens. There was a translation of many of Al-Khwarizmi’s books, which made remarkable improvements in science. Indeed Al- Khawarizmi was one of non-western mathematician who had influenced Europe and led to great industrial revolution (Fiorina, 2012).
According to Berzina (2006), in Al- Khawarizmi’s work, he attempted to classify and solve a considerable number of quadratic equations and provide paradigms for the operations. This is because much of Al- Khawarizmi’s algebra work drew heavily on geometrical concepts, where he represented simple numbers and roots as lengths of line segments (Berzina, 2006). Historians believe that Babylonian and Indian sources provided a significant influence on the works of Al- Khawarizmi where while the Babylonians supplied the numerical processes the Greeks supplied the tradition of rigorous proof (Berzina, 2006). Al- Khawarizmi found a way of solving quadratic equations using geometric solutions.
He starts with a square of side x; therefore the square would be . Then, he adds the rest area that is added to the square on each side. In this case, it is 10xs we have four sides, so four areas to add, and the total area is 10xs so each side should have an area of which is . Finally we need to add the four remaining areas to the new square we got. Each area will be that is equal to . Since we have 4 smaller square outside then, the area we should add is . Thus, we get eight as the length of the outside square. So we get leads that . (See figure 3). The method of geometric proof is actually facing many disagreements because if this is right, it means that Al-Khawarizmi was familiar and studied Euclid elements, and this is what mathematician should argue about (Syed, 2011). From the Algebra, Al- Khawarizmi determined that there were three quantity types, which are simple numbers like 4 and 20, the root of the numbers which is the unknown X and the mal(wealth) which is the square root of the problem (Berzina, 2006).
It is evident that Al-Khawarizmi is a great mathematician who has done many works and influenced many European countries. He wrote many books including:
1) Al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi Hisab al-jabrw’al-muqabala.
2) Algebra
3) Al-Jamawal-TafreeqbilHisab al-Hindi
4) Al-Jabrwa al-muqabala
His writings had been rewritten into many European languages that have affected Europe in many aspects. Many universities used Khawarizmi’s work as their textbooks for a long time until 16th century. He is the founder of basic algebra and algorithms. He had done an enormous work developing the fundamental of math. Advanced math is now based on of his scientific discoveries. He introduced to the world the number zero which made many calculations and problems easier to calculate and solve than it was before the discovery. He discovered a way of solving a quadratic equation by using trigonometry and completing a square. Simply, by adding rectangular shapes to the original square and calculating the area needed to complete the square. He also calculated the height of the atmosphere. He is considered as the father of algebra due to his achievements and discoveries. Many industries were developed and improved in Europe due to Al-Khawarizmi’s work and discoveries.
References
Ayyubi, N. (2006, December 27). Contribution of Al-Khwarizmi to Mathematics and Geography.
Retrieved from
< http://www.muslimheritage.com/>
Berzina, C. (2006). Al-Khwarizmi: The Inventor Of Algebra. New York, The Rosen Publishing
Group.
Fiorina, C. (2012, November 3). “Technology, Business and our Way of Life: What’s Next?”
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
School of Mathematics and Statistics. (2005). Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi.
Retrieved from
<http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/>
Syed, I. (2011, October 12). Al-Khwarizmi: The Father of Algebra. Islamic History. Retrieved
from
<http://www.onislam.net/>
