04-30-2006, 07:32 AM
Well, not so fast. The basic statement that the Arabs (not really Arab but for the most part they came from conquered Iranian/Central asian territories) copied from india has a lot of truth in it. But there are a couple of things they did better than the europeans.
1.They invariably give credit to the Indics for the use of their results. When they used to refer to Sind Hind, they meant the Siddhantas (the Surya siddhanta authored by Brahmagupta) and the Panch siddhanta by Varahamihira which is itself a summary of 5 older siddhantas. Except for the instances in the middle ages mentioned in my paper on Vedic Mathematicians
the west has completely ignored Indic contributions and we have now internalized it and believe that the Indic contribution was minimal.
Both al-Khwaresmi and al-Biruni - both from Khwaresm and spoke a dialect of Farsi gave full credit to indic scientists and specifically mention Aryabhatta among others. Saad al Andalusi from Moorish Spain in 1100 ce in Tabaqat al Umam pays a handsome tribute to indics also. so the respect of the Arabs for al-Hind was very high at least among the scientific community.
The Arabs did make a contributions in the area of medicine and in astronomy ( a lot of the stars in the sky are named after arabic names)
But the arab effort was not sustainable and it came to an end with the sack of Baghdad by Hulagu.
1.They invariably give credit to the Indics for the use of their results. When they used to refer to Sind Hind, they meant the Siddhantas (the Surya siddhanta authored by Brahmagupta) and the Panch siddhanta by Varahamihira which is itself a summary of 5 older siddhantas. Except for the instances in the middle ages mentioned in my paper on Vedic Mathematicians
the west has completely ignored Indic contributions and we have now internalized it and believe that the Indic contribution was minimal.
Both al-Khwaresmi and al-Biruni - both from Khwaresm and spoke a dialect of Farsi gave full credit to indic scientists and specifically mention Aryabhatta among others. Saad al Andalusi from Moorish Spain in 1100 ce in Tabaqat al Umam pays a handsome tribute to indics also. so the respect of the Arabs for al-Hind was very high at least among the scientific community.
The Arabs did make a contributions in the area of medicine and in astronomy ( a lot of the stars in the sky are named after arabic names)
But the arab effort was not sustainable and it came to an end with the sack of Baghdad by Hulagu.