1. Al-Khwarizmi
The terms Algebra and Algorithm are familiar to all of us but how many have heard of their originator Muhammad al-Khwarizmi. In Geography he revised and corrected Ptolemy's view and produced the first map of the known world in 830 CE. He worked on measuring the volume and circumference of the earth, and contributed to work related to clocks, sundials and astrolabes.
His full name is Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi. The last-mentioned name (his nisba) refers to his birthplace, Khwarizm, modern Khiva, south of the Aral Sea. He was born around 780 in the town of Kath part of Khwarizm. Kath is now buried in the sand. He died around 850. He was summoned to Baghdad by Caliph Al-Ma’mun and appointed court astronomer. From the title of his work, Hisab Al-Jabr wal Muqabalah (Book of Calculations, Restoration and Reduction), Algebra (Al-Jabr) derived its name.
Algebra symbolises the debt of Western culture to Muslim mathematics. Ironically, when it first entered the English language it was used as a term for the setting of broken bones, and even sometimes for the fractures themselves. This reflects the original literal meaning of the Arabic word “Jabr,” 'reuniting of broken bones,' from the verb jabara (to reunite). The anatomical connotations of this meaning were adopted when the word was borrowed, as algebra, into Spanish, Italian and Medieval Latin from one or other of which English acquired it. In Arabic, however, it had long been applied to the solving of algebraic equations (the full Arabic expression was 'Ilm al-jabr wa'-l-muqabalah', literally 'the science of reunion and equations,' and the mathematician Al-Khwarizmi used al-jabr as the title of his treatise on algebra.
In the twelfth century Gerard of Cremona and Robert of Chester translated the algebra of Al-Khwarizmi into Latin. Mathematicians used it all over the world until the sixteenth century.
A Latin translation of a Muslim arithmetic text was discovered in 1857 CE at the University of Cambridge library. Entitled 'Algoritimi de Numero Indorum', the work opens with the words: 'Spoken has Algoritimi. Let us give deserved praise to God, our Leader and Defender'.
It is believed that this is a copy of Al-Khwarizmi's arithmetic text, which was translated into Latin in the twelfth century by Adelard of Bath, an English scholar. Al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the history of mathematics in the form of Algorism (the old name for arithmetic).
2. Al-Kindi
Al-Kindi was born and brought up in Kufa, which was a centre for Arab culture and learning in the 9th century. This was certainly the right place for al-Kindi to get the best education possible at this time. Although quite a few details (and legends) of al-Kindi's life are given in various sources, these are not all consistent. We shall try to give below details which are fairly well substantiated.
According to [3], al-Kindi's father was the governor of Kufah, as his grandfather had been before him. Certainly all agree that al-Kindi was descended from the Royal Kindah tribe which had originated in southern Arabia. This tribe had united a number of tribes and reached a position of prominence in the 5th and 6th centuries but then lost power from the middle of the 6th century. However, descendants of the Royal Kindah continued to hold prominent court positions in Muslim times.
After beginning his education in Kufah, al-Kindi moved to Baghdad to complete his studies and there he quickly achieved fame for his scholarship. He came to the attention of the Caliph al-Ma'mun who was at that time setting up the "House of Wisdom" in Baghdad. Al-Ma'mun had won an armed struggle against his brother in 813 and became Caliph in that year. He ruled his empire, first from Merv then, after 818, he ruled from Baghdad where he had to go to put down an attempted coup.
Al-Ma'mun was a patron of learning and founded an academy called the House of Wisdom where Greek philosophical and scientific works were translated. Al-Kindi was appointed by al-Ma'mun to the House of Wisdom together with al-Khwarizmi and the Banu Musa brothers. The main task that al-Kindi and his colleagues undertook in the House of Wisdom involved the translation of Greek scientific manuscripts. Al-Ma'mun had built up a library of manuscripts, the first major library to be set up since that at Alexandria, collecting important works from Byzantium. In addition to the House of Wisdom, al-Ma'mun set up observatories in which Muslim astronomers could build on the knowledge acquired by earlier peoples.
Al-Kindi wrote many works on arithmetic which included manuscripts on Indian numbers, the harmony of numbers, lines and multiplication with numbers, relative quantities, measuring proportion and time, and numerical procedures and cancellation. He also wrote on space and time, both of which he believed were finite, 'proving' his assertion with a paradox of the infinite. Garro gives al-Kindi's 'proof' that the existence of an actual infinite body or magnitude leads to a contradiction in [7]. In his more recent paper [8], Garro formulates the informal axiomatics of al-Kindi's paradox of the infinite in modern terms and discusses the paradox both from a mathematical and philosophical point of view.
In geometry al-Kindi wrote, among other works, on the theory of parallels. He gave a lemma investigating the possibility of exhibiting pairs of lines in the plane which are simultaneously non-parallel and non-intersecting. Also related to geometry was the two works he wrote on optics, although he followed the usual practice of the time and confused the theory of light and the theory of vision.
Reference :
https://tiriztea.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/7-tokoh-ilmuwan-matematika-islam/
http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/al-kindi
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Al-Kindi.html
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