These are called Arabic Numerals.. The decimal system was invented by Indian mathematicians, but the Arabs perfected it by adding the Zero.. indian numerals or symbols are different from what we are used to it today.. the Arabs have invented their own numerals; and they used the concept of counting angles to craft symbols for the decimal numbers 1 through 9 with the numeral for zero denoted by a circle which of course contains no angles.. [as seen in the picture] Today, many east arab counteries, use the indian numerals; while majority of world countries uses the Arabic numerals.. in the past, the Arabic numerals were called “Al-Ghubariyyah” numerals, then called “Andalusia” numerals, then called “western Arabic numerals”, and then simply and officially called “Arabic Numeral”.. Most Arab teach their children that “Al Ghubariyyah” is from the word “Ghubar” which means dust, because most ancient Arabs used dust as a medium of writing and calculus; that’s the popular belief.. but there is more to the story.. I made a mistake in Zaid comment when I said “Al Ghubar” is in the reference to the ‘Left over numbers’.. which is half of the story.. in Ancient Arabic, nouns were used to represent numbers.. for example “Kad” is the number 25, and “Fi Al-Mishmish” is the number 801.. the Arabs call this “Hisab Al-Jumal” with every letter represent a number.. very similar to Roman numeral MDCCLXXVI which is the number 1776.. (if you think that’s weird, the modern French have even weirder numbering system used until now).. there was a famous story that Jews of AlMadinah came to the prophet Muhammad S.A.W., asking about “Alif Lam Meem” in the beginning of Surah AlBaqarah; of which they’ve deduced that Islam would only last 71 years.. Even better, if you are in Myanmar or in many parts of the world, restaurants that puts up the number 786, is usually a reference to halal food.. deduced from (letter to letter) bismiAllah ArRahman ArRahim.. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad_numerals To ease up the numbering system and making the maths easier, the early Arabs adopted the decimal system and they shortened up the naming system upto twelve.. after the number 12, the following number would be assembled from standard nouns for example: “thir-teen”, “four-teen”, “twenty-two” “three thousand and thirty two” etc.. To teach the new maths to the Arabs who are used to the “hisab al Jumal”, they used to teach them in poems.. ten eleven and twelve, whatever is left “numbers Ghubarat” are numbers to be assembled.. and a new science was born and many books were called “ilmu AlGhubar” in the early reference to mathematics..
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 02:53:14 +0000