The House of Wisdom
Open the interactive lesson
Decisions, questions and your own progress, in the app
Scholars before a library, miniature by Yahya al-Wasiti · Zereshk · Public domain · Source page
The story
Under the Abbasid caliphs, scholars in Baghdad translated Greek, Persian and Indian books into Arabic, then built on them.
What happened next
One of them, al-Khwarizmi, wrote a book on solving equations called al-jabr. It gave us the word algebra, and his own name gave us the word algorithm.
Remember
- Baghdad was one of the largest cities in the world
- Paper making, learned from China, made books cheaper
- Many Greek texts reached Europe through Arabic translations
Review question
Which word comes from the name al-Khwarizmi?
Answer: Algorithm. His name was written in Latin as Algoritmi. Algebra comes from the title of his book.
Image credits
- Scholars before a library, miniature by Yahya al-Wasiti · Zereshk · Public domain · Source page
