"Multicultural education is certainly important, but it should not be about bundling children into preordained faith schools. Awareness of world civilisation and history is necessary. Religious madrasas may take little interest in the fact that when a modern mathematician invokes an "algorithm" to solve a difficult computational problem, she helps to commemorate the secular contributions of Al-Khwarizmi, the great ninth-century Muslim mathematician, from whose name the term algorithm is derived ("algebra" comes from his book, Al Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah). There is no reason at all why old Brits as well as new Brits should not celebrate those grand connections. The world is not a federation of religious ethnicities. Nor, one hopes, is Britain."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Amartya Sen, "Solution to cultural confusion is freedom and reason", Financial Times (November 29, 2005)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_M%C5%ABs%C4%81_al-Khw%C4%81rizm%C4%AB
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī
9 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī →
Related Quotes
"That fondness for science, … that affability and condescension which God shows to the learned, that promptitude with …"
"‘To describe all regions of the earth and to establish all local times would be tedious and unfeasible since, for inn…"
"I have decided first to consider the majority of the authors who up to now have written about [algebra], so that I ca…"
"As regards algebra, the early Arabs failed to adopt either the Diophantine or the Hindu notations. An examination of …"
"al-Khwārizmī “not having taken algebra from the Greeks,. . . must have either invented it himself, or taken it from t…"
"That he [Al-Khwarizmi] should have borrowed from Diophantus is not at all probable; … It is far more probable that th…"
"Of course the Arabs themselves never laid claim to the invention, always recognizing their indebtedness to the Hindus…"
"[T]here is a possibility that some of the works ascribed to Sened ibn 'Alī are really works of Al-KhowarazmI, whose n…"
"The sun moves towards south or north along the ecliptic every moment. Therefore, the direction [determined by the Ind…"
"I would never say I’m a porn star. I would never call myself … I can say porn actress, yes, but porn star? I’m not a …"