3 things from "An Introduction to The Mathematics of The Golden Age of Medieval Islam"

 1.  “In the tenth century the scholar al-Sijzī, writing from an unnamed locality, complained that where he lived people considered it lawful to kill mathematicians. (Perhaps this was because most mathematicians were also astronomers, and hence astrologers.)… … mathematicians and astronomers in Islam could expect both honor and support… … ’’.

This is interesting to know. I think the development of any subject would require support from various channels. I cannot believe that during the tenth century, it is considered lawful to kill mathematicians. People at that time relate mathematicians to astronomers to astrologers to fortune tellers and then perhaps to witchcraft. This indicates that the general public at that time was scarcely exposed to any type of science, even the policymakers (who made it lawful to kill mathematicians). On the other hand, I do see that many examples of great mathematicians died either prematurely or from unnatural causes, namely Fourier, Archimedes, Galois, Gödel, Cardano, Abel, Ramanujan, Riemann, Ramsey, and more. This makes me wonder about the reasons for such a visible trend because mathematics is considered the backbone of all science subjects.   

2. “Al-Khwārizmī’s achievements in geography earn him a place among the ancient masters of that discipline… … Al-Khwārizmī’s contribution went beyond this to assist in the construction of a map of the known world … … Among al-Khwārizmī’s achievements in his geographical work The Image of the Earth were his correction of Ptolemy’s exaggerated length of the Mediterranean Sea and his much better description of the geography of Asia and Africa’’.

 I always know that Al-Khwārizmī contributed hugely to mathematics and astronomy, however, I never knew that Al-Khwārizmī also made a huge contribution to the subject of geography. It makes total sense since math can be essential to geography because map-making involves relating spherical geometry and plane geometry. Even small tasks such as mapping a portion of the surface of a sphere onto a plane need theories to support and needs time to verify (for example by travelers and sailors) the precision and accuracy. Having an accurate map at that time would strategically put the ruler/caliph at an advantage when expanding/controlling his/her territories.   

3. “‛Umar is admired more as a poet than as a mathematician, and yet his contributions to the sciences of mathematics and astronomy were of the first order… … he was able, in 1079, to present a plan to reform the calendar then in use… … and produced a length for the year closer to the true value than does the present-day Gregorian calendar”.

‛Umar al-Khayyāmī is the only poet–mathematician I have ever encountered in the literature. I think normally people don’t associate something so sentimental (such as poetry) with something so rational (such as mathematics). I guess what poetry and math have in common is the requirement of being imaginative and creative. Mathematics is not just crunching numbers and doing computations, it is the way for which “logic” expresses itself. Similarly, poetry is how a poet expresses him/herself.

Another thing I was surprised about is that ‛Umar al-Khayyāmī produced the length for the year closer than the present-day calendar. This was quite impressive since it was almost 500 years earlier than the Gregorian calendar!!