[illegible] the work in this chapter is to [always] make the whole (number) a numerator under the line, and you relate to it and to the other numerator together the divided fraction. For example, divide seven ninths by seventeen, and you put the question to this formula
, then you take the seventeen and make it a numerator [against] the fraction under the upper line to the right, so the whole form becomes seven ninths of a part out of seventeen in this formula
, and this is the quotient. The first part of Albayann has finished on Safar, of the months of the year ninety and five-hundreds AH, at the hand of Mohammad Ben-Abdollah Albaghdadi (of Baghdad), the calculator to the Nezami School, situated in Baghdad, the prevented, followed in the second by the chapter of dividing fraction; and the success is by God.
End.
On which it is noticed:
| 1- | The transcriber, in this Iraqi transcript of the book, has replaced the Ghebari form of the nine Arabic numerals with the Arabic-Eastern ones. |
| 2- | The Arabic right-direction rule in reading numbers in writing: 590, as a confirmation to the Arabism of the right-direction. |
The third page of the same book whose source is:
The thousands are named six, i.e. they are in the sixth position. The thousands of thousands [evaluated to] seven because it is in the seventh position. And so on to the [end]. People of the arithmetic call this chapter as [the power's], which is the positions' chapter [descriptively] [illegible]. The second chapter is on the form of Ghebar (numerals) and distributing them on the decimal positions. [It is understood] that the Ghebari digits that are used by us in arithmetic are nine glyphs of variant shapes as such: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (in their Ghebari form) and these are the original script in this book as written [illegible], and these are known as the script [illegible] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (in their Arabic-Eastern form) and are nine digits of which the numeral in each position one of nine, for example, in the units from One to Nine, and in the tens from ten to ninety. If you want to write ten, you have known that the ten is in the second position of the number, then you need to put [something] in the units' position, you [left blank] the position to tell that the units' position has nothing in it, so the people of the arithmetic accorded to put null in it denoted by a little circle, then they advance the one leftwards to the writer, so to be the ten: zero and one in this form: 10. If two is put in place of the one, it is said to be twenty, because it is two in the second position, and two in
End.
On which it is noticed:
| 1- | His saying: "People of the arithmetic", and not people of India, certainly means the Arabic calculators. | ||||
| 2- | His saying: "the form of Ghebar (numerals) and distributing them on the decimal positions", ends the doubt with certainty in negating the meaning of Ghebar by "the dust"; as the author talks about: the form of the ancient numerals; since if he meant by "distributing" to be for the word "form", he would have said in Arabic: "tasreefoha تصريفها" (because the word: form, in Arabic is feminine); and the dust cannot be distributed. | ||||
| 3- | In his saying: "known as the script [illegible]", if, supposedly, this [illegible] thing is the word [alhendi], it confirms that [alhendi] is just a name for that script or calligraphy (not an adjective as: Indian), otherwise the writer would have said - in Arabic: "alqalam alhendi القلم الهندي" (meaning: the Indian calligraphy), and not: "qalam [alhendi]". Besides, the looking of this [illegible] term definitely denies it to be read as [alhend الهند] (meaning: "India"). Therefore, the writer is talking of two forms (scripts or calligraphies) of the same origin of the Arabic numerals. Were the second form (Arabic-Eastern) - supposedly - originally Indian, then what was the first's (the Ghebari's) origin?! And if both forms' source was India, why the writer has differentiated them in names, and why two forms? And if they were of different sources, how come for them to be that close in looking or in structure, and why? The thing that confirms the Arabism of both forms.. | ||||
| 4- | His saying: "to put null in it denoted by a little circle", ends the doubt with certainty that the zero concept is domestic, because if it is transmitted from non-Arab, he would have directly referred to the symbol of the zero which is put here in this case as it is transmitted from its source, without touching on the accordance about. Again, the mentioning of (the people of the arithmetic accorded) implicitly tells that the nine numerals too are not transmitted, as their proprietors, after encountering in working with them the problem of a position being empty in a number, they have termed, for tackling this hole, with an additional idea. The word "sefran صفراً" being mentioned undefined with "al الـ" [the] purports that it is not a translation of a transmitted word, but a rooted Arabic description for a position's emptiness. Meanwhile, the zero in India takes the following names of the associated meanings:
|
Following are old varying forms of the numerals used in India (following the appearance of the zero), as said by the source webpage:
From these varying forms - often through time - we notice:
| 1- | The conformation between the digit One being circled, and its both forms: the Arabic-Eastern and Arabic-Western (the ancient) - regardless of the rotation. |
| 2- | The conformation between the digit Two being circled, and its both forms: the Arabic-Eastern and Arabic-Western (the ancient) - regardless of the rotation. |
| 3- | The conformation between the digit Three being circled, and its Arabic-Eastern form - regardless of the rotation. |
| 4- | The conformation between the two digits of Four being circled, and their both forms: the Arabic-Eastern and Arabic-Western (the ancient) - regardless of the rotation. |
| 5- | The existence of the two forms: of the Arabic-Eastern and Arabic-Western (the ancient), of the digit Five being circled - regardless of the rotation - in a primitive simulation to its forms: the Arabic-Eastern (in the middle circle), and the Arabic-Western (the ancient) in the upper and lower circles. |
| 6- | The shape of the first Six being circled is the primitive Arabic one I have already illustrated, and from which the Six in each of the Ghebari, Arabic-Eastern and Devanagari have most likely transformed before it disappears. The second Six being circled is the transformed one in the Arabic-Eastern numerals. |
| 7- | The shape of the Seven being circled is the same as that of the Ghebari (ancient), from which the Seven has transformed in each of the Arabic-East and India. |
| 8- | The conformation between the Eight being circled and that of the Arabic-Eastern, after the transformation - regardless of the rotation. |
| 9- | The semi-conformation between the Nine being circled and that of the Ghebari. |
So, how come for this intermittent resemblance to gather for the digits in India with the Arabic-Eastern and Arabic-Western digits, the more ancient, that separated as seen through the manuscript: "Albayann Wa-Altezkarr…" [The Demonstration and Reminding on the Trade of Ghebar], unless the Eastern Arabs were the source of these numerals for the Indians through the time, and that the two forms of numerals are two phases of a sole ancient Arabic origin?
