Mathematicians From Persia

"Good deeds stand tall like a green pine, evil deeds bloom like flowers; The pine is not as brilliant as the flowers, it seems. When the frost comes, the pine will still stand tall, While the flowers, withered, can be seen no more"

"To whome the Pine, with longe Experience wise, And ofte had seene suche peacockes loose theire plumes, Thus aunswere made, thow owght'st not to despise, My stocke at all, oh foole, thow much presumes. In coulde and heate, here longe hath bene my happe, Yet am I sounde and full of livelie sappe. But, when the froste and coulde shall thee assaie, Thowghe nowe alofte, thow bragge, and freshlie bloome, Yet, then the roote shall rotte and fade awaie, And shortlie, none shall knowe where was thy roome: Thy fruicte and leaves, that nowe so highe aspire, The passers by shall treade within the mire."

"A gourd wrapped itself round a lofty palm and in a few weeks climbed to its very top. ‘And how old mayest thou be?’ asked the newcomer; ‘About a hundred years,’ was the answer. ‘A hundred years and no taller? Only look, I have grown as tall as you in fewer days than you can count years.’ ‘I know that well,’ replied the palm; 'every summer of my life a gourd has climbed up round me, as proud as thou art, and as short-lived as thou wilt be.’"

"Twas in Religion that he gloried by whom till the Day of Judgement The Arabs excel the Persians in glory. He who lacks religion is ignoble and mean, Though Feridun be his maternal, and Jamshid his paternal uncle."

"Have you heard? A squash vine grew beneath a towering tree. In only twenty days it grew and spread and put forth fruit. Of the tree it asked: "How old are you? How many years?" Replied the tree: "Two hundred it would be, and surely more." The squash laughed and said: "Look, in twenty days, I've done More than you; tell me, why are you so slow?" The tree responded: "O little Squash, today is not the day of reckoning between the two of us. "Tomorrow, when winds of autumn howl down on you and me, then shall it be known for sure which one of us is the most resilient!""

"He was one of the most distinguished and prolific mathematicians in the medieval tradition of Arabic Islamic science. He became known in Europe in the thirteenth century as the author of the book on optics—the mathematical theory of vision. In his Kitâb al-Manâ zir (De aspectibus), if the eleventh-century he offered a new solution to the problem of vision, combining experimental investigations of the behavior of light with inventive geometrical proofs and constant forays into the psychology of visual perception — all systematically tied together to form a coherent alternative to the Euclidean and Ptolemaic theories of "visual rays" issuing from the eye."

"Whosoever seeks the truth will not proceed by studying the writings of his predecessors and by simply accepting his own good opinion of them. Whosoever studies works of science must, if he wants to find the truth, transform himself into a critic of everything he reads. He must examine tests and explanations with the greatest precision and question them from all angles and aspects."

"The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspends his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency."

"He moved to Egypt and supported himself by teaching and by copying Arabic translations of Greek mathematical classics such as Euclid’s Elements and Ptolemy’s Almagest."

"I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and it became my belief that for gaining access to the effulgence and closeness to God, there is no better way than that of searching for truth and knowledge."

"He lived in a period of competitive patronage of the sciences, especially mathematics and astronomy, in the Middle East and Central Asia. He is said to have been a high administrative official in a small principality made up of Basra, in what is now Iraq, and the adjacent region of Ahwâz."

"‘To describe all regions of the earth and to establish all local times would be tedious and unfeasible since, for innumerable times and for boundless regions, the meridians have been recorded with respect to Arin, in such a way that it would not be difficult to determine from this radix by geometrical and arithmetical rules the other places and times... if we are removed in longitude from this (place, namely Arin), then the distance between our place and the locality of Arin must be taken into account’ for calculating the mean positions of planets."

"That he [Al-Khwarizmi] should have borrowed from Diophantus is not at all probable; … It is far more probable that the Arabs received their first knowledge of algebra from the Hindus, who furnished them with the decimal notation of numerals, and with various important points of mathematical and astronomical information."

"Of course the Arabs themselves never laid claim to the invention, always recognizing their indebtedness to the Hindus both for the numeral forms and for the distinguishing feature of place value. Foremost among these writers was the great master of the golden age of Bagdad, one of the first of the Arab writers to collect the mathematical classics of both the East and the West, preserving them and finally passing them on to awakening Europe. This man was Mohammed the Son of Moses, from Khowarezm, or, more after the manner of the Arab, Mohammed ibn Mūsā al-Khowārazmī, a man of great learning and one to whom the world is much indebted for its present knowledge of algebra and of arithmetic. Of him there will often be occasion to speak; and in the arithmetic which he wrote, and of which Adelhard of Bath (c. 1130) may have made the translation or paraphrase, he stated distinctly that the numerals were due to the Hindus. This is as plainly asserted by later Arab writers, even to the present day. Indeed the phrase ilm hindī, "Indian science," is used by them for arithmetic, as [is] also the adjective hindī alone."

"I have decided first to consider the majority of the authors who up to now have written about [algebra], so that I can fill in what they have missed out. They are very many, and among them Mohammed ibn Musa [Al-Khwarizmi], an Arab, is believed to be the first [...] I believe that the word “algebra” came from him, because some years ago, Brother Luca [Pacioli] of Borgo San Sepolcro of the Minorite order, having set himself the task of writing on this science, as much in Latin as in Italian, said that the word “algebra” was Arabic [...] and that the science came from the Arabs. Many who have written after him have believed and said likewise, but in recent years, a Greek work on this discipline has been discovered in the Library of our Lord in the Vatican, composed by a certain Diophantus of Alexandria, a Greek author [...] Antonio Maria Pazzi and I have translated five books (of the seven) [...] In this work we have found that he cites the Indian authors many times, and thus I have been made aware that this discipline belonged to the Indians before the Arabs."

"As regards algebra, the early Arabs failed to adopt either the Diophantine or the Hindu notations. An examination of [the algebra of Al-Khwarizmi] shows that the exposition was altogether rhetorical, i.e., devoid of all symbolism."

"al-Khwārizmī “not having taken algebra from the Greeks,. . . must have either invented it himself, or taken it from the Indians. Of the two, the second appears to me the most probable”"

"That fondness for science, … that affability and condescension which God shows to the learned, that promptitude with which he protects and supports them in the elucidation of obscurities and in the removal of difficulties, has encouraged me to compose a short work on calculating by al-jabr and al-muqabala , confining it to what is easiest and most useful in arithmetic."

"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."

"[T]here is a possibility that some of the works ascribed to Sened ibn 'Alī are really works of Al-KhowarazmI, whose name immediately precedes his."

"An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death."

"Those who deny the first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not whipped."

"Religious law makes it illegal for the ignorant to drink wine, but intelligence makes it legal for the intellectual."

"Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health."

"The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit."

"God, the supreme being, is neither circumscribed by space, nor touched by time; he cannot be found in a particular direction, and his essence cannot change. The secret conversation is thus entirely spiritual; it is a direct encounter between God and the soul, abstracted from all material constraints."

"I [prefer] a short life with width to a narrow one with length."

"The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final."

"Farabi followed Plato not merely as regards the manner in which he presented the philosophic teaching in his most important books. He held the view that Plato’s philosophy was the true philosophy. To reconcile his Platonism with his adherence to Aristotle, he could take three more or less different ways. First, he could try to show that the explicit teachings of both philosophers can be reconciled with each other. He devoted to work is partly based on the so-called Theology of Aristotle: by accepting this piece of neo-platonic origin as a genuine work of Aristotle, he could easily succeed in proving the substantial agreement of the explicit teachings of both philosophers concerning the crucial subjects. It is however very doubtful whether Farabi considered his Concordance as more than an exoteric treatise, and thus whether it would be wise of us to attach great importance to its explicit argument. Secondly, he could show that the esoteric teachings of both philosophers are identical. Thirdly, he could show that “the aim” of both philosophers is identical."

"A just city should favor justice and the just, hate tyranny and injustice, and give them both their just desserts."

"They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshýd gloried and drank deep: And Bahrám, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass Stamps o'er his Head, and he lies fast asleep."

"Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day, How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp Abode his Hour or two, and went his way."

"Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring The Winter Garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing."

"And those who husbanded the Golden Grain, And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain, Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd As, buried once, Men want dug up again."

"The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes — or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face Lighting a little Hour or two — is gone."

"That sallow cheek of hers to' incarnadine."

"Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry, "Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry.""

"Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!"

""How sweet is mortal Sovranty!"—think some: Others — "How blest the Paradise to come!" Ah, take the Cash in hand and wave the Rest; Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!"

"In divine High piping Péhlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine! "Red Wine!"—the Nightingale cries to the Rose That yellow Cheek of her's to'incarnadine."

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness — Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"

"Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness — And Wilderness is Paradise enow."

"But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, And many a Garden by the Water blows."

"Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight The Stars before him from the Field of Night, Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light."

"Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain. No attention should be paid to the fact that algebra and geometry are different in appearance. Algebras (jabbre and maqabeleh) are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements."

"Came out by the same Door where in I went."

"With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with my own hand labour'd it to grow: And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd— "I came like Water, and like Wind I go.""

"With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd — "I came like Water, and like Wind I go.""

"Into this Universe, and why not knowing, Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing: And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing."

"Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same door as in I went."