( viii )
From the manner in which our author, in his preface, speaks of the task he had undertaken, we cannot infer that he claimed to be the inventor. He says that the Caliph Al Mamun encouraged him to write a popular work on Algebra: an expression which would seem to imply that other treatises were then already extant. From a formula for finding the circumference of the circle, which occurs in the work itself (Text p. 51, Transl. p. 72), I have, in a note, drawn the conclusion, that part of the information comprised in this volume was derived from an Indian source; a conjecture which is supported by the direct assertion of the author of the Bibliotheca Philosophorum quoted by Casiri (i.426, 428). That Mohammed ben Musa was conversant with Hindu science, is further evident from the fact[1] that he abridged, at Al Mamun’s request—but before the accession of that prince to the caliphat—the Sindhind, or
- ↑ Related by Ebn al Adami in the preface to his astronomical tables. Casiri, i.. 427, 428. Colebrooke, Dissertation, &c. p. lxiv. lxxii.
