Al-Khow[=a]razm[=i] and [H.]abash[33]
as translators of the tables of the _Sindhind_. Al-B[=i]r[=u]n[=i][34]
refers to two other translations from a work furnished by a Hindu who came
to Bagdad as a member of the political mission which Sindh sent to the
caliph Al-Man[s.][=u]r, in the year of the Hejira 154 (A.D. 771).

The oldest work, in any sense complete, on the history of Arabic literature
and history is the _Kit[=a]b al-Fihrist_, written in the year 987 A.D., by
Ibn Ab[=i] Ya`q[=u]b al-Nad[=i]m. It is of fundamental importance for the
history of Arabic culture. Of the ten chief divisions of the work, the
seventh demands attention in this discussion for the reason that its second
subdivision treats of mathematicians and astronomers.[35]

{10}

The first of the Arabic writers mentioned is Al-Kind[=i] (800-870 A.D.),
who wrote five books on arithmetic and four books on the use of the Indian
method of reckoning. Sened ibn `Al[=i], the Jew, who was converted to Islam
under the caliph Al-M[=a]m[=u]n, is also given as the author of a work on
the Hindu method of reckoning. Nevertheless, there is a possibility[36]
that some of the works ascribed to Sened ibn `Al[=i] are really works of
Al-Khow[=a]razm[=i], whose name immediately precedes his. However, it is to
be noted in this connection that Casiri[37] also mentions the same writer
as the author of a most celebrated work on arithmetic.

To Al-[S.][=u]f[=i], who died in 986 A.D., is also credited a large work on
the same subject, and similar treatises by other writers are mentioned. We
are therefore forced to the conclusion that the Arabs from the early ninth
century on fully recognized the Hindu origin of the new numerals.

Leonard of Pisa, of whom we shall speak at length in the chapter on the
Introduction of the Numerals into Europe, wrote his _Liber Abbaci_[38] in
1202. In this work he refers frequently to the nine Indian figures,[39]
thus showing again the general consensus of opinion in the Middle Ages that
the numerals were of Hindu origin.

Some interest also attaches to the oldest documents on arithmetic in our
own language. One of the earliest {11} treatises on algorism is a
commentary[40] on a set of verses called the _Carmen de Algorismo_, written
by Alexander de Villa Dei (Alexandra de Ville-Dieu), a Minorite monk of
about 1240 A.D. The text of the first few lines is as follows:

"Hec algorism' ars p'sens dicit' in qua
Talib; indor[um] fruim bis quinq