Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi

Abu'l Hasan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Al-Uqlidisi was an Arab mathematician, who was active in Damascus^[1] and Baghdad.^[2] As his surname indicates, he was a copyist of Euclid's works. He wrote the earliest surviving book on the positional use of the Arabic numerals, Kitab al-Fusul fi al-Hisab al-Hindi (The Arithemetics of Al-Uqlidisi) around 952.^[3] It is especially notable for its treatment of decimal fractions, and that it showed how to carry out calculations without deletions.

While the Persian mathematician Jamshīd al-Kāshī claimed to have discovered decimal fractions himself in the 15th century, J. Lennart Berggrenn notes that he was mistaken, as decimal fractions were first used five centuries before him by al-Uqlidisi as early as the 10th century.^[2]

Notes

1. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu'l Hasan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Al-Uqlidisi", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
2. Berggren, J. Lennart (2007). "Mathematics in Medieval Islam". The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook. Princeton University Press. p. 518. ISBN 978-0-691-11485-9.
3. The Arithemetics of Al-Uqlisidi, The story of Hindu-Arabic Arithematic, translated and annotated by A.S.Saidan, D.Reidel Publishing Company,Boston, 1978

References

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu'l Hasan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Al-Uqlidisi", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.