n one of those regions where the converging routes of trade give rise
to large cities.[387] Quite as well of Bagdad as of Athens might Cardinal
Newman have said:[388]

"What it lost in conveniences of approach, it gained in its neighborhood to
the traditions of the mysterious East, and in the loveliness of the region
in which it lay. Hither, then, as to a sort of ideal land, where all
archetypes of the great and the fair were found in substantial being, and
all departments of truth explored, and all diversities of intellectual
power exhibited, where taste and philosophy were majestically enthroned as
in a royal court, where there was no sovereignty but that of mind, and no
nobility but that of genius, where professors were {97} rulers, and princes
did homage, thither flocked continually from the very corners of the _orbis
terrarum_ the many-tongued generation, just rising, or just risen into
manhood, in order to gain wisdom." For here it was that Al-Man[s.][=u]r and
Al-M[=a]m[=u]n and H[=a]r[=u]n al-Rash[=i]d (Aaron the Just) made for a
time the world's center of intellectual activity in general and in the
domain of mathematics in particular.[389] It was just after the _Sindhind_
was brought to Bagdad that Mo[h.]ammed ibn M[=u]s[=a] al-Khow[=a]razm[=i],
whose name has already been mentioned,[390] was called to that city. He was
the most celebrated mathematician of his time, either in the East or West,
writing treatises on arithmetic, the sundial, the astrolabe, chronology,
geometry, and algebra, and giving through the Latin transliteration of his
name, _algoritmi_, the name of algorism to the early arithmetics using the
new Hindu numerals.[391] Appreciating at once the value of the position
system so recently brought from India, he wrote an arithmetic based upon
these numerals, and this was translated into Latin in the time of Adelhard
of Bath (c. 1180), although possibly by his contemporary countryman Robert
Cestrensis.[392] This translation was found in Cambridge and was published
by Boncompagni in 1857.[393]

Contemporary with Al-Khow[=a]razm[=i], and working also under
Al-M[=a]m[=u]n, was a Jewish astronomer, Ab[=u] 'l-[T.]eiyib, {98} Sened
ibn `Al[=i], who is said to have adopted the Mohammedan religion at the
caliph's request. He also wrote a work on Hindu arithmetic,[394] so that
the subject must have been attracting considerable attention at that time.
Indeed, the struggle to have the Hindu numerals replace the A