Talk:Islamic mathematics

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1 No such thing as Islamic mathematics
2 Islamic mathematics?
3 NPOV tag
4 Religion and mathematics
5 Renaming this article to Middle-Eastern mathematics
6 "Totally disputed" tag
7 math typo
8 Contradiction

[edit] No such thing as Islamic mathematics

The religion of Islam does not include math, there is no connection. Mathematicians who were living in regions where Islam was the dominant religion , does not imply that they were Islamic mathematicians . The term makes no sense , but is rather used in some sort of vain attempt at associating the glory of the accomplishments of mathematicians and scientists with the religion of Islam. The fact of studying the Qu'ran makes no impact on one's mathematic ability. The same goes for any other association of a faith with a scientific field. Thus editors who are going around weaving terms like Islamic mathematicians are using Wikipedia as a soap box.--CltFn 06:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk on talk pages to gain consensus before moving. Add an NPOV if you are worried about these issues... you may be right but you need to discuss. Here's my problem. If anything is "good" you say it's not Islamic based and if it's "bad" like the invasion of Iberia you say it is Islamic. This is just adding systemic bias to Wikipedia because you don't have a coherent system for when to include religion as an influence... and when to not. We will get some discussion here before this is moved again and we will get discussion about how this should be dealt with over the whole gamut of articles. Thank you. gren グレン 07:31, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the move. See also Talk:Islamic science. --Striver 10:26, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the move as well. Islamic mathematics is a well-defined term to historians of mathematics with a precise meaning. It's pretty clear tha CtlFn again has no idea what he is talking about. If you don't like the name of this term, so be it, but don't start using Wikipedia as a soap box yourself. —Ruud 13:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Islamic mathematics and Arabic mathematics are modern historical terms for the mathematical sciences in Islamic civilization from the beginning of Islam (A.D. 622) until the 17th century. Although most of the mathematicians in this period of Islamic civilization were Muslims, some prominent mathematicians had other religious backgrounds (Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian). Arabic was the main scientific language but not necessarily the native language of a mathematician, who might have been Persian, Turkish, etc. (Definition by Prof. J. P. Hogendijk)

[edit] Islamic mathematics?

This is a discussion we really need to have. I completely oppose CltFn's arbitrary moves and changes on things he does not need acceptable but this does not make him wrong. What we need to discuss is "is there an Islamic mathematics?" Who uses that phrase? How is it used between different parties? Do Muslims uses it to glorify Islam while secular scholars use it as a term of convenience? If so we cannot conflate those differences as the same. Is attributing these mathematics to the Arabs any different than making it Islamic mathematics? Is it just changing it from a religious pride issue to an ethnic pride issue? What do mathematics historians call this? Personally I don't know what the title of this article will be but I'm pretty sure we'll need to have a section describing the fact that Islamic mathematics is a term in use but so is Arab mathematics. It is not one or the other and the supporters of each term have their biases. Arab nationalists want to glorify the Arabs while "Islamic nationalists" (for lack of a better term) want to use this to glorify Islam. We need to recognize that this is not a straightforward discussion of one is true the other isn't. Both have merit and both are propaganda. We could go for "Mathematics arising from the Middle East" however that is not a term commonly used and would therefore be hard to justify its usage. Let's have a serious discussion and not let this get into reverting before we have done that. gren グレン 18:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Historians of mathematics use the terms Arabic mathematics or Islamic mathematics. I don't know who coined these terms, but I think it is far more likely that they were invented by ignorant Westerners than nationalistic Arabs or Muslims. This article should clearly mention that not all mathematicians that fall under this category were Arabs or even Muslims, but it is definitly not Wikipedia's task to "correct" unfortunatly chosen terminology. —Ruud 19:09, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

invented by ignorant Westerners ? Sounds a bit strong for a guess--CltFn 02:02, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag

Ruud / R. Koot, you removed {{accuracy}}. I have re-added it in the sense of making it totally disputed. I am doing this because I think CltFn would make the point that we don't have proof that these mathematicians were Muslim. Therefore what you have would be inaccurate. I don't want to debate this as a fact or whatnot but please do me the favor of not removing this. I will make sure this doesn't digress into a revert war but in order to do that we must address the argument of CltFn which is by no means unfounded. Therefore please do not remove those tags and let us discuss it first. As we come to a decision we can remove the tags. Revert warring will not be tolerated though for anyone here. If you start reverting without involving yourself in the discussion you should probably receive a short block. gren グレン 18:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the {{accuracy}} tag as the reference I added made it clear that there are no factual accuracy problems with the current article, and that adding two tags was just CtlFn trying to make a WP:POINT. I don't understand your reasoning ("[...] that we don't have proof that these mathematicians were Muslim") though, as the article states that Islamic mathematics refers to mathematics "including Arab and Persian mathematicians, as well as other Muslims and non-Muslims"? —Ruud 19:16, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religion and mathematics

It seems that the debate involving the {{TotallyDisputed}} tag centers around whether Islam was influential in the development of mathematics. This is silly.

The connection between religion and mathematics is well-known in the history of mathematics. The followers of Pythagoras held the religio-spiritual belief that everything was number. Religious aspects of the theory of number appear in the Theaetetus and the Timaeus of Plato. Even as late as in the 17th century, Leibniz would have said that the invention of calculus was a vehicle for peering into the mind of God.

Even in the early 20th century, Western mathematics has been highly influenced by Western philosophical thought, and philosophical thought does and should include religion. Only after the separation of logic into its own category (apart from mainstream mathematics) in the middle of the 20th century did the connection between Western mathematics and Western philosophy cease entirely.

Now, I am not an expert in medieval mathematics, but I am quite knowledgeable about the philosophy of mathematics. The suggestion that Islamic thought had nothing to do with the development of medieval mathematics seems highly improbable to me, and I believe that the {{TotallyDisputed}} tag should be removed. --Wzhao553 08:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree, the NPOV concerns were easily debunked and I have already adressed the factual accuracy concerns. No one has voiced any concerns since. —Ruud 00:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

There is no connection between religion and mathematics that I can see, by the way what exactly is Islamic thought and what does it have to do with Mathematics. This seems to be obvious to you , so , how about explaining this to other wikipedia editors who may not be see the connection. .--CltFn 01:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming this article to Middle-Eastern mathematics

I would like to open a discusion about renaming this article to Middle-Eastern mathematics as Mathematics has nothing to do with Islam or Judaism or Buddhism or Christianity or any religion , unless that religion provides mathematical principles and datums that would justify such an association. --CltFn 02:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

But religion and mathematics are heavily intertwined. Mathematics provided a religious and spiritual world-view for the Pythagoreans. Logical and "mathematical" proofs of the existence of God have been attempted by Anselm, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza and many others. Then there's Kronecker's famous quote that "God made the whole numbers; the rest is the work of man." Even proponents of intelligent design have begun to employ probability theory in their arguments against naturalism. Why do you feel that there is no justification for such an association? --Wzhao553 02:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Give me one tenet from Islam that correlates with Mathematics. --CltFn 02:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

How about Averroes' attempt to provide mathematical rigor to his theological and metaphysical reasoning by attempting to reconcile Islam with Aristotelian philosophy? --Wzhao553 03:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

What tenet from Islam are you referring to? --CltFn 03:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Averroism. --Wzhao553 03:40, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes I see , thanks to this remarkable tenet I can see my math skills increasing already.--CltFn 03:48, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. The term "Middle-Eastern mathematics" is a neologism, while the term "Islamic mathemtics" is as well-established in the history of mathematics as "Renaissance" is in the history of Europe. —Ruud 02:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

No need to vote , this is not a vote but a discussion --CltFn 02:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Where did I vote? —Ruud 02:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't rename this. "Islamic mathematics" gets plenty of Google hits; "Middle-Eastern mathematics" only a few, most of which refer to something entirely different. --Lambiam ^Talk 08:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The term "Middle-Eastern mathematics" would be incorrect due to several reasons. Islamic mathematicians not only lived in the Middle East, they also lived in Central Asia, North Africa, Spain and India. Mathematics has also been studied in the Middle East since the days of the Egyptians and Babylonians (which already have their own articles), and continued in the days of the Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Arabs and Turks. This article refers broadly to the mathematics of the Islamic-dominated cultures, and not just the religion of Islam, in the same way "Greek mathematics" refers braodly to the mathematics of the Hellenistic cultures, and not just the Greek people. Jagged 04:16, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Totally disputed" tag

CltFn re-added the {{Totally disputed}} tag on 2006 May 15 03:01, with edit summary: the dispute is all over the talk page and was mentioned in my comment when I inserted the tag the first time. But as far as I can see, all issues have satisfactorily been dealt with since. What else is left? CltFn should be more specific, especially in light of the fact that the tag was removed by another editor in good standing. --Lambiam ^Talk 08:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] math typo

This bit seems to have an obvious typo:

Al-Haytham (b. 965), also known as Alhazen, in his work on number theory, seems to have been the first to attempt to classify all even perfect numbers (numbers equal to the sum of their proper divisors) as those of the form $\ 2^k-1(2^k - 1)$ where $\ 2^k - 1$ is prime.

since $2 k - 1(2 k - 1)$ is always 1. I can think of a few things that the author might've meant to write, but I don't know the subject well enough to correct it myself. Staecker 12:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I've corrected the formula, which now reads: $\ 2^{k-1}(2^k - 1)$ . --Lambiam ^Talk 14:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

Supposedly Al-Batanni (868-929) produced the relationship tanx = sinx/cosx

However, it says later that Abu'l-Wáfa (940-998) invented the tangent function.

I dont see how you could get a relationship for the tangent function before the tangent function was invented. Harley peters 17:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

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