and commerce flourished all
through this region. In Persia, for example, the reign of Khosr[=u]
Nu['s][=i]rw[=a]n,[364] the great contemporary of Justinian the law-maker,
was characterized not only by an improvement in social and economic
conditions, but by the cultivation of letters. Khosr[=u] fostered learning,
inviting to his court scholars from Greece, and encouraging the
introduction of culture from the West as well as from the East. At this
time Aristotle and Plato were translated, and portions of the
_Hito-pad[=e]['s]a_, or Fables of Pilpay, were rendered from the Sanskrit
into Persian. All this means that some three centuries before the great
intellectual ascendancy of Bagdad a similar fostering of learning was
taking place in Persia, and under pre-Mohammedan influences.

{92}

The first definite trace that we have of the introduction of the Hindu
system into Arabia dates from 773 A.D.,[365] when an Indian astronomer
visited the court of the caliph, bringing with him astronomical tables
which at the caliph's command were translated into Arabic by
Al-Faz[=a]r[=i].[366] Al-Khow[=a]razm[=i] and [H.]abash (A[h.]med ibn
`Abdall[=a]h, died c. 870) based their well-known tables upon the work of
Al-F[=a]zar[=i]. It may be asserted as highly probable that the numerals
came at the same time as the tables. They were certainly known a few
decades later, and before 825 A.D., about which time the original of the
_Algoritmi de numero Indorum_ was written, as that work makes no pretense
of being the first work to treat of the Hindu numerals.

The three writers mentioned cover the period from the end of the eighth to
the end of the ninth century. While the historians Al-Ma['s]`[=u]d[=i] and
Al-B[=i]r[=u]n[=i] follow quite closely upon the men mentioned, it is well
to note again the Arab writers on Hindu arithmetic, contemporary with
Al-Khow[=a]razm[=i], who were mentioned in chapter I, viz. Al-Kind[=i],
Sened ibn `Al[=i], and Al-[S.][=u]f[=i].

For over five hundred years Arabic writers and others continued to apply to
works on arithmetic the name "Indian." In the tenth century such writers
are `Abdall[=a]h ibn al-[H.]asan, Ab[=u] 'l-Q[=a]sim[367] (died 987 A.D.)
of Antioch, and Mo[h.]ammed ibn `Abdall[=a]h, Ab[=u] Na[s.]r[368] (c. 982),
of Kalw[=a]d[=a] near Bagdad. Others of the same period or {93} earlier
(since they are mentioned in the _Fihrist_,[369] 987 A.D.), who explicitly
use the word "Hindu" or "Indian," are Sin[=