icial
translators, and naturally reporting directly or indirectly to Rome. There
was indeed at this time a complaint that Christian youths cultivated too
assiduously a love for the literature of the Saracen, and married too
frequently the daughters of the infidel.[396] It is true that this happy
state of affairs was not permanent, but while it lasted the learning and
the customs of the East must have become more or less the property of
Christian Spain. At this time the [.g]ob[=a]r numerals were probably in
that country, and these may well have made their way into Europe from the
schools of Cordova, Granada, and Toledo.

Furthermore, there was abundant opportunity for the numerals of the East to
reach Europe through the journeys of travelers and ambassadors. It was from
the records of Suleim[=a]n the Merchant, a well-known Arab trader of the
ninth century, that part of the story of Sindb[=a]d the Sailor was
taken.[397] Such a merchant would have been particularly likely to know the
numerals of the people whom he met, and he is a type of man that may well
have taken such symbols to European markets. A little later, {101} Ab[=u]
'l-[H.]asan `Al[=i] al-Mas`[=u]d[=i] (d. 956) of Bagdad traveled to the
China Sea on the east, at least as far south as Zanzibar, and to the
Atlantic on the west,[398] and he speaks of the nine figures with which the
Hindus reckoned.[399]

There was also a Bagdad merchant, one Ab[=u] 'l-Q[=a]sim `Obeidall[=a]h ibn
A[h.]med, better known by his Persian name Ibn Khord[=a][d.]beh,[400] who
wrote about 850 A.D. a work entitled _Book of Roads and Provinces_[401] in
which the following graphic account appears:[402] "The Jewish merchants
speak Persian, Roman (Greek and Latin), Arabic, French, Spanish, and
Slavic. They travel from the West to the East, and from the East to the
West, sometimes by land, sometimes by sea. They take ship from France on
the Western Sea, and they voyage to Farama (near the ruins of the ancient
Pelusium); there they transfer their goods to caravans and go by land to
Colzom (on the Red Sea). They there reembark on the Oriental (Red) Sea and
go to Hejaz and to Jiddah, and thence to the Sind, India, and China.
Returning, they bring back the products of the oriental lands.... These
journeys are also made by land. The merchants, leaving France and Spain,
cross to Tangier and thence pass through the African provinces and Egypt.
They then go to Ramleh, visit Damascus, Kufa, Bagdad, and