“Kitab al-jabr wa al-muqabalah” (work by al-Khwarizmi): see “Book of Restoring and Balancing”
“Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala, al-” (work by al-Khwarizmi): see “Book of Restoring and Balancing”
Islamic contributions to mathematics began around AD 825, when the Baghdad mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi wrote his famous treatise al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala (translated into Latin in the 12th century as Algebra et Almucabal, from which the modern term algebra is derived
This activity provided a channel through which older thought could enter and be reoriented by Islamicate societies. In the field of mathematics, al-Khwarizmi, from whose name the word algorithm is derived, creatively combined Hellenistic and Sanskritic concepts. The word algebra derives from the title of his major work, Kitab al-jabr wa al-muqabalah (“The Book of Integration and Equation”).
One scientist typical of the 9th century was Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. Working in the House of Wisdom, he introduced Indian material in his astronomical works and also wrote an early book explaining Hindu arithmetic, the Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation. In another work, the Book of Restoring and Balancing, he provided a systematic introduction to algebra, including a theory of quadratic equations. Both works had important consequences for Islamic mathematics. Hindu Calculation began a tradition of arithmetic books that, by the middle of the next century, led to the invention of decimal fractions (complete with a decimal point), and his Restoring and Balancing became the point of departure and model for later writers such as the Egyptian Abu Kamil. Both books were translated into Latin, and Restoring and Balancing was the origin of the word algebra, from the Arabic word for “restoring” in its title (al-jabr). The Hindu Calculation, from a Latin form of the author's name, algorismi, yielded the word algorithm.
