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Modern mathematics emerged from “The House of Wisdom” in the 13th century
- nobodyandproud 6y ago“Scholars and translators at the library also took great pains to ensure that their work was accessible to the reading public. ” This point cannot be stressed enough.
- phreeza 6y agoWhat percentage of the population was the reading public back then though?
- bigbubba 6y ago> The centrality of scripture and its study in the Islamic tradition helped to make education a central pillar of the religion in virtually all times and places in the history of Islam.[50] The importance of learning in the Islamic tradition is reflected in a number of hadiths attributed to Muhammad, including one that instructs the faithful to "seek knowledge, even in China".[50] This injunction was seen to apply particularly to scholars, but also to some extent to the wider Muslim public, as exemplified by the dictum of al-Zarnuji, "learning is prescribed for us all".[50] While it is impossible to calculate literacy rates in pre-modern Islamic societies, it is almost certain that they were relatively high, at least in comparison to their European counterparts.[50] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age#Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age#Education
- phreeza 6y agoVery interesting, thanks!
- dwohnitmok 6y agoI don't think this is enough to conclude that "it is almost certain that they were relatively high." I don't have numbers unfortunately but anecdotally I don't think Arabic literacy rates in non-Arabic Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan or Malaysia are very high, even though it's accorded a special place in the constitution of Pakistan.
- bigbubba 6y agoThis is pertaining in particular to the Islamic world of the 8th to 14th centuries, which has been called the 'Golden Age' of Islam. I think, relatively speaking by contemporary standards, you'd be hard pressed to say modern Pakistan is in a golden age. But this is well outside any of my areas of expertise, so I could be wrong.
- dwohnitmok 6y agoOne of my biggest takeaway from the 20th century study of history has been a wariness of using the words "Golden Age" or "Dark Age" alone to draw conclusions about what life was like for people outside of the elite. As such I'm don't think the presence of a Golden Age is itself a particularly strong argument for literacy among the general populace.
- fakedang 6y agoBack then, an education was limited to basic math and arithmetic for business, a knowledge of Arabic literature and a study of the Quran, so it's very likely that people were very educated in the cities back then. Once the Abbasid Empire fell (the Islamic Golden Age period), none of the successor civilizations pursued such studies further - and none of them were Arabian empires, so that left the Arab world to stagnate. Malaysia had a strong Chinese influence coupled with an Islamic tradition, so they most certainly spoke a lot of Arabic before Dutch rule. Even during Dutch rule, Arabic was used to announce royal decrees, until Malay took over with a sense of national identity. As for Pakistan, the Western provinces are largely influenced by Afghan-Iranian culture (Pashto and Baluchi), while places like Sindh and Punjab had large Hindu populations before independence. So the study of Arabic wasn't as actively encouraged except for religious purposes. On the contrary, many Pakistanis today still stick to regional dialects and languages such as Pashto, Sindhi, Kashmiri and Punjabi, even though the official language is Urdu. Such non uniformity makes things way harder.
- selimthegrim 6y agoWhat makes me mad is my mom learned about Ibn Shatir in Damascus at school in Karachi but not one word about al Biruni measuring circumference of Earth at Nandana in Punjab or say Bakhshali manuscript.
- blargmaster42_8 6y agoThis is propaganda.
- alcuin 6y ago> That story begins in a palace library nearly a thousand years ago, at a time when most of Western Christendom lay in intellectual darkness. Laughable revisionism already thoroughly debunked by Sylvain Gouguenheim many years ago. A real shame as it makes me doubt the objectivity of the entire article.
- dleslie 6y agoI'm not sure why you were downvoted so low that I had to vouch you up; but the concept of a western intellectual dark age has well and truly been contradicted by modern scholarship. For further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)#Modern_academic_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)#Mod...
- xyzzyz 6y agoIt is contradicted by some modern scholarship, but it is by far not the consensus in the field. There are many scholars who do believe that Europe entered period of civilizational and intellectual decline for a number of centuries after the fall of the western Roman Empire. The debate is very much open on the issue.
- drieddust 6y agoIslam never produced anything of value. Works cited as Arabic are copy paste translations from India. Question to be asked is if Islam is so progressive then why it insists on blind following of weird and regressive rulers. How can someone develop scientific temper when you can be simply stoned, hanged flogged for merely having an opinion. Arabia was still a desert with no social,architectural, or technological progress up until oil was discovered. Ottoman ruled for many centuries but I don't recall any "scientific" achievements under there rule. I would love hear if someone has counter view.
- phs318u 6y agohttps://astronomy.com/news/2017/02/muslim-contributions-to-astronomy https://astronomy.com/news/2017/02/muslim-contributions-to-a...
- yumraj 6y agoCompletely ignoring the fact that this Islamic mathematics reached the Islamic world from Hindu India. Also, I always find it interesting how every such article insists on attributing such achievements to the religion rather than the region, even if they have to refer to modern country names, or even use terms such as Persian and Arabic.
- disown 6y agoExcellent point. And was Hindu or Islamic mathematics not modern? Did it only "emerge" as modern mathematics when it arrived in europe? I wish the article defined what their definition of "modern mathematics" is. It's primary focus is on the transfer of the Hindu-Arabic to Europe. What is it about the transfer of the numeral system to europe that made it "modern". Also, wasn't "modern mathematics" officially formalized fairly recently? The early 20th century?
- dang 6y agoThey're probably referring to modernity in the historian's sense of post-Renaissance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_period
- fastball 6y agoIs it really interesting? Outlets like BBC have been doing this for a long time now. Very clear agenda to try to make Islam look good.
- cle 6y agoIs there something wrong with pointing out its positive aspects? Personally I appreciate the counter balance to the last two decades of racist tropes.
- falseprofit 6y agoIslam isn't a race, and mathematics isn't a religious achievement.
- drieddust 6y agoIt is not only denial but glorification on religious grounds. Islam forces its followers to follow without questioning so how they developed the scientific temper is beyond my understanding. This is propaganda piece.
- bigbubba 6y agoMany men of science throughout history have been religious. Isaac Newton was devout adherent to a related religion that also demands blind belief, but clearly that didn't stop him from contributing to science. Matters are never so simple in real life. People are complicated, and their systems of beliefs no less so. These apparent contradictions or paradoxes are easy to find if you go looking for them.
- drieddust 6y agoI am speaking about any religion. My comment is with respect to Islamic worldview. Islam is different from Christianity and other faiths in terms that it does not allow adding or removing anything into Quran so if Quran says Earth is flat, it needs to stay flat evidence be damned. Christianity on the other-hand does not have this injunction against the progress. Rome and Pope were keeping the scientific thoughts suppressed by force but the scripture itself did not prohibit new interpretations and revisions.
- bigbubba 6y agoIn real life, if you go meet a few, I am quite sure you will find that many Muslims do not take their scripture literally. It is the real world application of a religion by any particular adherent that impacts society, not what you happen to think the associated text dictates. Passages are regularly ignored or reinterpreted by adherents of religions to suit their personal needs or desires. An Islamic politician who wants to promote literacy can find plenty of support for that agenda in his religious texts. And a politician who opposes that agenda can also find support for his agenda in those same texts. That's the nature of the beast. Revising the text itself may be forbidden but that doesn't mean the interpretation and practice of the religion are immutable traits, universal to all adherents.
- ignoramous 6y agoThe roots of "House of Wisdom" were really laid during the time of the Alid (as the Shi'a Islam's founder Ali al-Murtada's progeny were known), Zayn al-Abedin (who was also Muhammad's grandson's son). Zayn al-Abedin's son, al-Bakir, and al-Bakir's son, Jafar al-Sadiq taught at a university (in Medina and elsewhere) believed to be 25000 students strong at its peak. Indeed a majority of Islamic theological offshoots, including the largest one in Hanafi Islam, take root in this university. Jabir (latin: Geber) is perhaps amongst al-Sadiq's famous students. He invented modern Chemistry. al-Sadiq's students believed to have written cryptic books on al-Kimia (Alchemy), and in a way, writing such esoteric books in a cryptic manner gave rise to cryptography as a medium of securing text and thought. The Ummayids, who ruled from al-Shaam (Syria), disliked these Alids and their universities and everything they stood for (especially in terms of religious authority) and heavily persecuted them. The Abbasids, who pretty much came to power after a bloody rebellion in support of the Alids turned out to be worser in their treatment of Alids than the Ummayids. In the face of Abbasid cruelty, the Alids retreated to al-Misr (Egypt) and ruled from there for around 300 years over the Magbreb (Northern Africa), parts of Italy, the Levant, Hejaz (Western Saudi Arabia), and Yemen whilst the Abbasids ruled the rest of the Middle-Eastern Islamic world from Iraq. al-Rashid's House of Wisdom (Dar al-Hikma) was allegedly setup as a counter to the one run by the Alids of Egypt (who were now known as the Fatimids). It was alleged the Fatimids amassed a lot of wealth due to their knowledge of Alchemy. A rebellious offshoot of the Fatimids under Hasan al-Sabah, a student of the Fatimid House of Wisdom (Dar al-Ilm), would later fight in the Crusades and come to be notoriously known as the Hash-Hashins (or the Assassins). With the rise of the Turks and the Mongols sealing the decline of Abbasids of Iraq, Safavids of Iran, and Fatimids of Egypt; the Islamic Golden Age would rather come to a swift end. A physical embodiment of Baghdad's Dar al-Hikma hasn't survived but that of Cairo's Dar al-Ilm lives on in al-Azhar, which is considered to be one of the most (if not the most) important Islamic universities even today.
- nafizh 6y agoHanafi Islam is not a theological offshoot. It’s one of Islam’s 4 major schools of law, the other three are Maliki, Shafii and Hanbali. All of them are inside what is considered orthodox mainstream Islam.
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- falseprofit 6y ago> A global shift away from Roman numerals underscores a creeping innumeracy in other aspects of life. Sorry, what? How is knowledge of an obsolete number system important to numeracy?
- ImaCake 6y agoYeah this seems a bit silly. We are not ignorant buffoons because we can’t read latin. Sure, I could certainly read more things if I could read latin, but the same could be said for speaking french or knowing set theory. The author’s defence of different numbering systems as a means to gain insight is valid, but the extrapolation is silly.
- disown 6y agoEven better, since when did "the globe" use roman numerals to begin with? Did the chinese, indians, aztecs, persians, etc use roman numerals? When was there a "global" shift from roman numerals?
- qart 6y agoAh, the accursed eurocentricism. Some people have to indulge in it even when they are writing a fluff piece about another culture they are trying to extol.
- PicassoCTs 6y agoIts not even complete- not once mentioned sumerias influence- the whole base 6 numbers system. 0-360° 0-12-24 h in a day, etc..
- dang 6y agoPlease don't post in the flamewar style here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fzil 6y ago
- secondcoming 6y ago> It is a tale that should dismantle our Eurocentric view of mathematics, shine a spotlight on the Islamic world’s scientific achievements Well, the word 'algebra' would suggest credit is being given to the Arab world. Let's not also forget that the Chinese had been reading and writing for centuries before anyone else.
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- ncmncm 6y agoThe people who invented algebra and, indeed, science, were absolutely not Arabic. They were Persians and Egyptians working as Islamic scholars in an explicitly Islamic tradition. That Islamic scholarship has fallen so far since their time is a great tragedy.
- secondcoming 6y agoAre you not contradicting your previous post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25318387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25318387
- ncmncm 6y agoDon't see how. They wrote in Arabic, but were not themselves Arabs. Arabic, the language, was carried with Islam out of Arabia to the entire Indian Ocean seacoast, and well inland most places.
- didibus 6y agoThis is what I gather as well from a bit of reading. It seems that most innovation in mathematics of the time came from Persian, but obviously this then became part of Islamic empire, and it seems under those for a time they were still friendly to people continuing to learn about and advance those pre-islamic sciences. The Madrasas might have helped fund for further people to learn about and push those sciences, so the institutions put in place during some of the Islamic empires also do seem to have helped invest in them. > Muslims distinguished disciplines inherited from pre-Islamic civilizations, such as philosophy and medicine, which they called "sciences of the ancients" or "rational sciences", from Islamic religious sciences.[50] Sciences of the former type flourished for several centuries, and their transmission formed part of the educational framework in classical and medieval Islam.[50] In some cases, they were supported by institutions such as the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, but more often they were transmitted informally from teacher to student. This has to be commended at least, I'm not sure all strongly religious empires supported teaching people non-religious sciences/philosophies and invested in their further study.
- vfclists 6y agoWanted to make a note of this, but decided to keep my mouth shut. A Muslim couple find the vaccine for Covid-19 - https://bit.ly/33Ph2IV https://bit.ly/33Ph2IV It is surprising how the contemporary media notes accomplishments of Muslims by their faith, instead of nationality as would be the usual case, as though being a Muslim makes a person underprivileged or intellectually challenged in some way which makes their accomplishments more notable. If you go back far enough in time and you'll see that all Muslims are descendants of non-Muslims. Why should they be any different from the descendants of their ancestors who did not adopt Islam? "The soft bigotry of low expectations", not racism in this case. Muslims are not a race.
- bsaul 6y agoI wonder if it's not something coming from the muslim world itself. Modern nations is a western concept and has mostly been shaped by western colonisation. Identity in many part of the world is more defined by ethnicity, tribe, or religion, than by the nationality.
- vfclists 6y agoMuslims have been divided along ethnic and ideological lines as much as Christians or any other ethnic or religious groups. Trying labelling an Iranian as an Arab to his face and see the outcome. (hint, it never ends well)
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- dang 6y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25317810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25317810 and marked it off topic. Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar.
- enangel 6y agoWhile there was certainly a great advancement in the introduction of the algebraic perspective, I believe modern mathematics are still primarily an European (or, Greek) invention. Euclid's elements is written in the still-used Axiom-Theorem-Proof style and reveals mathematics as something beyond mere arithmetical manipulation. Is there something equivalent that predates Euclid?
- vram22 6y agoAlso: Bhaskaracharya and the man who found zero: https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2010/06/bhaskaracharya-and-man-who-found-zero.html?m=0 https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2010/06/bhaskaracharya-and-man-w...
- oa335 6y agoFor those more interested in Islamic history around this time period, I would recommend http://abbasidhistorypodcast.com http://abbasidhistorypodcast.com. For more about the history of science and philosophy, I recommend the “History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps”.