Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī

He died in c. 850.

He was born as Abū ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in a Persian family in Chorasmia c. 780. Not much is known about his early life for lack of well-documented information.

It is often assumed from his name that he came from Khwarezm (Khiva), then in Greater Khorasan. However some other sources suggest that he might have come from Qutrubbul (Qatrabbul), a viticulture district near Baghdad.

Al-Khwarizmi lived during the Abbasid Caliphate, and he had a very meaningful career at the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun. The caliph had a deep interest in science and philosophy and encouraged Al-Khwarizmi’s pursuits in scholarly investigations.

Since he lived several centuries ago, many facts regarding his professional life are also obscure. According to some sources, he may have been attached to al-Mamun's scientific academy in Baghdad, the House of Wisdom (Arabic, Bayt al-Hikma).

He is believed to have participated in the calculation of the length of a degree of latitude during this time. He was a part of a major project to determine the circumference of the Earth, following which he helped to make a world map for the caliph, overseeing 70 geographers.

He was a brilliant mathematician whose publication ‘On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals’, written around 825 CE played a major role in spreading the Indian system of numeration throughout the Middle East and Europe. The book was later also translated into Latin as ‘Algoritmi de numero Indorum’.

In 830 he completed his mathematical book ‘The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing’ (al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wal-muqābala) in which he provided an exhaustive account of solving polynomial equations up to the second degree.

Al-Khwarizmi is best known for his comprehensive book on mathematics, ‘The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing’ in which an exhaustive account of solving the positive roots of polynomial equations up to the second degree was provided. The book also deals with computations involved in Islamic rules of inheritance.