Al-Khwārizmī, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā. Title page of Al-Kitāb al-Mukhtaṣar Fī Ḥisāb al-Jabr Waʾl-Muqābala. Baghdad: House of Wisdom, ca. 820.
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Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was a ninth-century Persian scholar often referred to as the Father of Algebra. Al-Khwārizmī lived in Baghdad, where he led the Abbasid Caliphate’s House of Wisdom (Dār al-Ḥikma). His book Al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr waʾl-muqābala, from which we get the word “algebra,” built on ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Hindu works to show rules and demonstrations for solving linear and quadratic equations and apply mathematics to practical everyday problems. Another of his major books, known by its translated Latin title Algoritmi de numero Indorum, is where we get the word “algorithm” from and later became the main source from which Europeans learned Hindu-Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). With other works including the creation of a highly accurate world map and set of astronomical tables, al-Khwārizmī is one of the most influential historical mathematicians for both theoretical and practical mathematics.
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