Birth: al-Khwarizmi

All stops in this story

1. Birth: al-Khwarizmi — 780 CE · 164 AH

   Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, numbered by al-Mas'udi among Islam's astronomers .

2. The Algebra composed — c. 825 CE · c. 210 AH†

   At the House of Wisdom in Baghdad under al-Maʾmūn, al-Khwārizmī composed his Algebra — rules and geometric demonstrations for solving linear and quadratic equations; its Latin translation gave Europe the word algebra .

3. The meridian measurement at Sinjār — c. 827 CE · c. 212 AH†

   Al-Khwārizmī joined al-Maʾmūn's project to fix the Earth's circumference by measuring the length of one degree of meridian across the plain of Sinjār in Iraq .

4. Ṣūrat al-arḍ composed — c. 833 CE · c. 218 AH†

   Al-Khwārizmī wrote the Ṣūrat al-arḍ (Image of the Earth), giving coordinates of the known world's localities that corrected Ptolemy's Mediterranean length and Asian and African cities, and he helped build al-Maʾmūn's world map .

5. Death: al-Khwarizmi — 850 CE · 235 AH

   Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, numbered by al-Mas'udi among Islam's astronomers .