Indian Influence On Islamic Science

The Golden Age of Islam, which saw a flourishing of science,
notably mathematics and astronomy, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries, had a notable Indian influence.

During this era, Baghdad stood as the Islamic world's foremost hub of intellectual activity. The Abbasid leaders in Baghdad quickly recognized their populace's limited understanding in fields like astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. They turned their attention to India and Persia for advanced knowledge. Possession of Sind provided the Abbasids with a crucial pathway to access Indian expertise. This period saw the visit of an Indian astronomer-mathematician and diplomat from Sind, Kanaka, to Caliph Al-Mansur's court (754–775). Intrigued by Indian astronomy and mathematics, the caliph instructed Ibrahim al-Fazari and Yaqub ibn Tariq to translate Brahmagupta's significant texts, Brahmasphutasiddhanta and Khandakhadyaka. These translations, named Sindhind and Arkand, introduced the concept of Indian numerals to the Islamic world. Similarly, Persian astronomical tables influenced by Indian astronomy, Zig-I shahriyarr, were translated into Arabic as Zijashshahriyar. The ninth-century scholar al-Khwarizmi, who learned Sanskrit, played a pivotal role in disseminating the Indian numeral system globally. Another contemporary scholar, al-Kindi, authored four books on Indian numerals.

Indian medical practices and pharmaceuticals were also highly sought after in the Islamic world. Numerous Sanskrit medical texts were translated into Arabic, sponsored by Khalid ibn Barmak, Al-Mansur's vizier. Khalid, originally from a Buddhist family in Balkh, converted to Islam after the Arab conquest. His family, known as the Barmakis of Baghdad, showed a keen interest in Indian innovations. Under Caliph Harun al-Rashid (788–809), the translation of Susruta Samhita into Arabic was commissioned. Furthermore, the notable Arabic medical work Kitab Al-Hawi, later translated into Latin as Liber continens in the 13th century, was penned by al-Razi, or Rhazes (865–925), incorporating substantial Indian medical knowledge.

History

For the best part of a millennium, from the Seleucid era and through to the Sassanid period, there had been an exchange of scholarship between the Greek, Persian and Indian cultural spheres. The origin of the number zero and the place-value system notably falls into this period; its early use originates in Indian mathematics of the 5th century (''Lokavibhaga''), influencing Sassanid era Persian scholars during the 6th century.

The sudden Islamic conquest of Persia in the 640s drove a wedge between the Mediterranean and Indian traditions, but scholarly transfer soon resumed, with translations of both Greek and Sanskrit works into Arabic during the 8th century. This triggered the flourishing of Abbasid-era scholarship centered in Baghdad in the 9th century, and the eventual resumption of transmission to the west via Muslim Spain and Sicily by the 10th century.

There was continuing contact between Indian and Perso-Arabic scholarship during the 9th to 11th centuries while the Muslim conquest of India was temporarily halted for 400 years.
Al Biruni in the early 11th century traveled widely in India and became an important source of knowledge about India in the Islamic world during that time.

Astronomy

The mathematical astronomy text '' Brahmasiddhanta'' of Brahmagupta (598-668) was received in the court of Al-Mansur (753–774). It was translated by Alfazari into Arabic as ''Az-Zīj ‛alā Sinī al-‛Arab'', popularly called ''Sindhind''. This translation was the means by which the Hindu numerals were transmitted from the Sanskrit to the Arabic tradition. According to Al-Biruni,

Alberuni's translator and editor Edward Sachau wrote: "It is Brahmagupta who taught Arabs mathematics before they got acquainted with Greek science."
Al-Fazari also translated the ''Khandakhadyaka (Arakand) of'' Brahmagupta.

Through the resulting Arabic translations of '' Sindhind'' and ''Arakand'', the use of Indian numerals became established in the Islamic world.

Mathematics

The etymology of the word "sine" comes from the Latin mistranslation of the word ''jiba'', which is an Arabic transliteration of the Sanskrit word for half the chord, ''jya-ardha''.

The sin and cos functions of trigonometry, were important mathematical concepts, imported from the Gupta period of Indian astronomy namely the ''jyā'' and ''koṭi-jyā '' functions via translation of texts like the ''Aryabhatiya'' and ''Surya Siddhanta'', from Sanskrit to Arabic, and then from Arabic to Latin, and later to other European languages. Uta C. Merzbach, Carl B. Boyer (2011), A History of Mathematics, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 3rd ed., p. 189.

Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi a scholar in the Abbasid caliphate wrote ''al-Fusul fi al-Hisab al-Hindi'' ("chapters in Indian calculation") to address the difficulty in procedures for calculation from the Euclid's Elements and endorsed the use of Indian calculation. He highlighted its ease of use, speed, fewer requirements of memory and the focused scope on the subject.

Medical texts

, an Indian physician at the court of Harun al-Rashid translated the ''Sushruta'' (the classical (Gupta-era) Sanskrit text on medicine) into Persian.

Al-Razi's '' Al-Hawi'' (''liber continens'') of c. 900 is said to contain "much Indian knowledge" from texts such as the Susruta Samhita.

Geography

The Indian geographical knowledge that was transmitted and influenced the Arabs included the view of Aryabhata that the apparent daily rotation of the heavens was caused by the rotation of the earth on its own axis, the idea that the proportion of land and sea on the surface of the earth was half and half and the land mass as being dome shaped and covered on all sides by water.

The Arabs utilized the Indian cartographic system in which the northern hemisphere was considered to be the inhabited part of the earth and divided into nine parts. Its four geographical limits were djamakut in the east, rum in the west, Ceylon as the cupola (dome) and Sidpur.

Indians believed that the prime meridian passes through ujjain and calculated their longitudes from Ceylon. The Arabs adopted this idea of Ceylon's being the cupola of the earth but later mistakenly believed ujjain to be the cupola.

See also

*Science and technology in India
*Indian mathematics
*Indian astronomy
* Bakhshali manuscript
* Bakhshali approximation
* Barmakids
* Indo-Persian culture

References

External links

The Development of The numerals Among The Arabs
chapter from the book – The Hindu-Arabic Numerals By David Eugene Smith

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hindu And Buddhist Contribution To Science In Medieval Islam
Science in the medieval Islamic world
History of science and technology in India
Science in the Middle Ages
Indosphere
Ancient Indian literature