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Ghebari Numerals (Arabic-West & Europe)
Are Ancient Arabic Numerals
Europeans themselves have saved us substantiating it by confessing - at first - the numerals' Arabism. Furthermore, the Europeans knowing the digit "sefro" [zero] (which is an Arabic adjective meaning: empty) has transmitted to them once again through translating the Arabic-Eastern books, not only with its transformed Eastern form as a dot, but also with its Arabic pronunciation and is presently written in English: "Cipher", that means zero and commonly applied to all digits; in French: "Chiffre", that is commonly applied to all digits, in German: "Ziffer", that is commonly applied to all digits too, while the meaning of zero or nothing with them comes from the Latin material: nulla, so it is written in French: nul, in English: null, and in some other Slavic languages as: nula. Some Europeans - as the majority's habit - diminished the favour of Islamic-Arabic World upon the modern European civilization by stating the fact of them having learnt the zero from Arabs by saying: "Arabs taught us zero", meaning: the digit of no value or nothing, for deriding! The Arabic "sefro" in Europe still bears the "o" in zero, which is a vocal-suffix to "sefro" for the beginning; from the Italian "Zefro" up to "zero", as we - God willing - will know.
Europeans had used to use not but the Latin or Roman numerals whose figures are as follows:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| XI | XII | XIII | IVX | VX | VIX | VIIX | VIIIX | IXX | XX |
| 50 | 100 | 500 | 1000 | ||||||
| L | C | D | M |
Their numerals continued as such with no consideration to decimal positions. So if you want to write the value: 998, in Roman numerals you write it as: DCCCCLXXXXVIII. It is noticed either they consisted of more than ten digits, or of only seven digits which are: I, V, X, L, C, D, M, beside they included not a digit representing the zero, as they were based not on the decimal positions' concept, and such deficiencies dispossessed them of the competence of use in the commercial and mathematical applications.
However, it is worth drawing the attention that the left-to-right descending order of the numbers' values with Europeans in the past - i.e.: from the greater in the left to the lesser rightwards - according to the European left-to-right direction of writing and reading, though this value-order direction corresponds to the Arabic ascending order of the same - which is the right-to-left direction of writing and reading with Arabs - the European's was not an order related to the decimal position's conception and what establishes onto it of addition, subtraction and multiplication. Not only because the decimal position has not been known to Europeans before their connection with Arabs, but also that in European's primeval operations of addition and subtraction, they started - as we will know later on - with the lesser values (starting with units) from left as, of course, they write and read. One evidence to that was the way of writing the number nine - for instance - which is: IX, meaning: one taken from ten. It is in harmony with the logic of ascending order of values but from left which is their direction in writing and reading.
Cultural Impacts of the Arabic-Euro Trade
History states that the Arab-Islamic World had its economy been flourished and its living pleasant to the contrary to the living becoming in Europe, so trade between both sides - Arab-Islamic and European - has enlarged trans Mediterranean Sea via Italian harbors in particular, on top of which comes Venice and Naples (Napoli). History has registered relationships of these two cities with Moslem Arabs to the extent of sea military aid to Arabs. As to Sicily and its harbor, Palermo, it all was a bridge (a connecting link) between Moslem Arabs and Europe.On the Arabic side there has been Alqairawan (Kairouan or Kirwan), Susa (Sousse) and Qabes (Gabes) in Tunisia as well as others, where Arabs used to export spices (brought from Indian subcontinent, and Malaya Islands), Syrian and Moroccan textiles, sugar, glass and porcelain (from Sur "Tyre", Lebanon), and paper (from Barcelona in Andalusia, today Portugal, then from Baghdad). "Some of such Arab-Moslems' exports are still preserved in the monasteries and churches of the Italian peninsula", as Dr. Sigrid Hunke, stated.
Perhaps nothing is more indicative to such trade's impact, whose wind long blew from the Arab-Islamic World onto Europe - of transmitting a lot of Arabic words to them in food, clothes, and sea travel, such as: سكّر (En.: sugar, Fr.: sucre, Gr.: zucker); أرزّ (from Arabic, from Indian; En.: rice, Fr.: riz, Gr.: reis, Sp.: arroz); بنان الموز (En.: banana, Fr.: banane, Gr.: bananen); and the menu is quite long.
Of the clothes' names or that related to trade: الشفّاف (En., Fr. and Gr.: chiffon); القُفّة (old traveling bag; Pr.: alcôfa, Gr.: koffer); المخزن (En.: magazine, Fr., Gr.: magazin); الديوان (meaning: customs, from Arabic, from Persian; Fr., Gr.: douane); مركَب (meaning: dhow, Gr.: markab); السَفَر (En., Fr., Gr.: safari); السيّد (meaning: master, Gr.: cid); قبطان (En.: captain); أمير البحر (En., Gr.: admiral); دار الصناعة (especially in manufacturing ships: En., Fr., Gr.: arsenal); ريح السَموم (meaning: hot wind, En.: simoom, Gr.: samum).. Besides, the names of many constellations and planets of which is: كَوْكَب (meaning: planet, Gr.: kochab).
Among the numerous scientific results of that trade connection in Europe was the learning of whomever in the Islamic-East and transmitting the manufacturing of the mariner's compass, of which Peter the Pilgrim (Petrus Peregrinus) has left, in 1269, an illustration in his message known, in Latin, as: "Epistole de Magnete", that bore Arabic letters.
Of that also, what the German researcher, Dr. Sigrid Huke, has mentioned - from the history's pages - in her book: "Allahs Sonne über dem Abendland Unser Arabisches Erbe" [about: Allah's sun on the West with Arab heritage], that, in 973 AD (circa 362 AH), a delegation headed by Ebraheem Ben-Ahmad Attartoosi (of Tortosa, in today Spain) had been sent by the Andalusia-Umayyad ninth Caliph: Alhakam II, by sea with a present to Roman-German Caesar, Otto (or Othon) the Great. That Ebraheem, head of the delegation, and in the German town of Mainz, looking over the river Rhine, a German merchant has handed him an Arabic coin from Samarqand, Uzbekistan. That coin bore an Arabic name in Kufi calligraphy and the date 301 AH (circa 913 AD).
