Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a scholar of mathematics and astronomy whom al-Mas'udi counts among those who engaged in the sciences of astronomy after the appearance of Islam, together with al-Kindi, Abu Ma'shar, al-Farghani, Thabit ibn Qurra, al-Battani and others 1 2 3. The editors of the Cairo edition of his Book of al-Jabr and al-Muqabala quote from Ibn al-Nadim's Fihrist that he came from Khwarazm, was attached to the "Treasury of Wisdom" of al-Ma'mun, and was an expert in astronomy 4. Ibn al-Nadim lists among his books the Book of the Zij in its two versions known as the Sindhind 4.
The museum's data give his birth as about 164 AH (780 CE) and his death as about 235 AH (850 CE); these dates are given as reported, rest on one source, the "Encyclopaedia of Notable Scholars and Men of Letters", and need an additional source 3. The Cairo editors hold that the dates of his birth and death are not known with certainty, and that he was a contemporary of al-Ma'mun, who ruled from 813 to 833 CE 4 5. They hold that he "is rightly regarded as the founder of algebra" and that his name became "algorithm" in English and Algorismus in Latin 6 7. They add that the Indian way of reckoning, with its use of zero, reached the West through his book on arithmetic 7.
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