Kharazmi? Iranian or not?
Fernando Soto
Dear Behzad
The problem with Kharazmi, Ibn Sina and Mulavi (Mulana Jalaledin Balkhi)
and probably others is the same.
Either the place of birth was Iran and later changed hands. As you may
remember from the history lessons we got in grade and rahnamaee school in
Iran, the borders of Iran changed many times and a place where once was
part of Iran became part of another country.
Then some of these Scientists/Poets were buried in another country so for
example Turkey now claims that Mulavi was a turk! Even though where he was
born was part of Iran at the time of his birth and he wrote most of his
work in Persian (I used to get a kick out of walking in the old section
of Istanbul and read his poems that were hacked on the walls, and
pointing out to my Turkish friends that if Muavi was a turk, how come
only a handful of turks remain that can actually read his works in
original form??)
In the case of Kharazmi he did most of his work in Arabic, because at the
time Arabic was the predominant language of science. Western historians
were probably thinking that whoever writes in Arabic must be an Arab!
Another oversight by western historians that really bugs me is that they
managed to completely screw up the names of people from Iran and Mideast,
or maybe it was Iranians who totally screwed up the names of Greeks!
For example what we know as "Arastoo" is Aratostane(sp?) or what we know
as "Sassanian" is a totally different thing in English publications.
IMO there is no point in arguing who was from where. Edison was American
but all over the world people use his inventions everyday and he also
managed to invent the electric chair too! (I bet not many people are proud
of that). Why should we put mate'e be khashkhash?? They were all human and
tried to make the world a better place.
I remember sometime in the early seventies when Iran, USSR, Turkey and
one other Mid east country all printed stamps in commemoration of the
"n" hundredth birthday of Avecinna=Ibn Sinna, and they all claimed that
he was from their country.
To wrap up my ramblings here's a joke from the old days that seems relevant:
rashti: telegraph ro ma ekhtera kardim!
azeri: az koja midonee?
rashti: vaghtee to rasht zamin ro mikandand, sime bargh peyda kardand.
azeri: bi sim ro ma ekhtera kardim!
rashti: ki mege?
azeri: vaghtee to tabriz zamin ro mikandand, hichee sim peyda nakardand,
pas ma bi sim ro ekhtera kardim...
eidetoon mobarak, dombetoon se charak :)
ehsan saffari
aa...@sfn.saskatoon. sk.ca
p.s. If I remember correctly, Kharazmi was not only born Iran but he is
also buried in Iran, I used to go to Kharazmi High School my self (my
math wasn't as good as his :(
In article <3l5dbn$5...@cascade.cs.ubc.ca> you wrote:
: I always thought that KhArazmi was Iranian; but anywhere I look, he is
: mentioned as an Arab. For example, Webster online says, under the word
: 'algorithm':
: al-go-rithm \'al-ge-,rith_-em\ n
: [alter. of ME algorisme, fr. OF & ML; OF, fr. ML algorismus, fr. Ar
: al-khuwa^-rizmi, fr. al-Khuwa^-rizmi fl A.D. 825 Arab mathematician]
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: (ca. 1894)
: :a procedure for solving a mathematical problem (as of finding the
: greatest common divisor) in a finite number of steps that frequently
: involves repetition of an operation; broadly :a step-by-step
: procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end
: so he's known to be Arab; also this artificial intelligence book that
: I have (by Russelll & Norvig) says:
: "The notion of expressing a computation as a formal algorithm goes back to
: al-Khowarazmi, an Arab mathematician of the ninth century, whose
: writings also introduced Europe to Arabic numerals and algebra."
: Was he or was he not Iranian? If he was, why are the Arabs appropriating him
: and what can be done? After all, he supposedly came up with things like
: algorithm and algebra.
: behzad
N.B. Fazel
N.B. Fazel
I got the following informative response.
behzad
-----------------------------------------
Message inbox:85 - New, Unread
From: M. Shapour Hakam <m4s...@snfc430.PacBell.COM>
To: <fa...@cs.ubc.ca> [nonreceipt]
Subject: Khwarazmi
The first volume of Knuth on data structures gives an
excellant one-page description of this word....
Shapour
Alireza Mahmoodi
He mentions Kharazmi as a "Persian textbook author".
Ali
Houman Amjadi
Kharazmi is definitely not the only iranian scientist of "old days" who is
mentioned as an Arab. Simply look at his name und you recognize where he
comes from. Persian is still the spoken language in that area.
During the first centuries in islamic calendar Middle East was the
scientifical center of world. Islam encouraged people to "open their eyes"
and research the creation. One might consider the islamic imperium with its
western boundaries in Spain and eastern in India. Then it is obvious that
a scientist could only contribute and publish his work in Arabic when he
wanted to get understood elsewhere.
Unfortunately our european and american colleagues can not consider a world
without English as the common language in sciences. Otherwise they would
understand that contributions in Arabic might have been writen by Non-Arabs.
The most important point is: He has developed the algebra, no matter where
he comes from!
P.S. Molla Nasreldin is mentioned as Irani, Arab, Turk and so on. Where is
he really from?