Talk:Al-Khwarizmi/2

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Proposed introductions

This is not vote! Just a way to reach a consensus.

[edit] Proposed introduction by User:R. Koot

User:SouthernComfort has found http://facstaff.uindy.edu/~oaks/MHMC.htm, the authorative, neutral and well sourced refrence I was asking everybody to provide (see User:R. Koot/al-Khwarizmi for what, mostly tertiary sources, have to say about it). This articles, written by an Associate Professor in Mathematics at the University of Indianapolis, who specializes in Arabic/Islamic mathematics clearly states al-Khwarizmi was Persian, not Arabic. I would kindly request everybody to thoroughly read it. Based on this I propose the following introduction for the articles. Could everybody say if they support or oppose it, so we can finally settle this dispute? Cheers, —Ruud 14:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The professor knows more about mathematics than he does about Middle Eastern history. The mathematics is OK, but the history is clearly a mishmash of secondary sources. Not to be considered authoritative on anything except math. Zora 02:08, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī[1] (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن موسى الخوارزمي) was a Persian[2] mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. He was born around 780, in either Khwarizm or Bagdad, and died around 850. Few details of his life are known.

  • Support. —Ruud 14:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose We have three authorative sources stating he's an Arab, let's try not be selective in sources, shall we? MB 14:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Support SouthernComfort 14:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. — As demonstrated newer addition encyclopedias and dictionaries say he was born in Persia, or khwarizm.Zmmz 16:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I support it. But any proposed introuction should be based on the information of Tabari, Biruni and Ibn-Nadeem and any other ancient sources. Since we have to make statements based on all the available statements from ancient times. Although the ethnicity of many people in the ancient world might not be certain, but the available evidences all suggest and point to Persian/Iranian origin (Ali Doostzadeh).
    • I think it would be better to discuss the information of Tabari et al. in the body of the article. The introduction should be kept concise and I don't think it should be tucked away in a footnote. —Ruud 17:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Okay I Support. The information from Tabari is just the full name, which mentions Al-Majoosi. The information from Ibn-Nadeem mentions that he was originally from Khawarizm. And the information of Biruni mentions that the people of Khawarizm are of Persian stock. So these three lines should be mentioned and they are sufficient indicators of Persian origin. Ali-Doostzadeh
        • How many times will you support Ali? You only have one vote. MB 18:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Bidabadi 18:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - As per Ali Doostzadeh. --ManiF 06:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

With all respect Ruud, but with voting we can even make Isaac Newton a persian. LOOL Jidan 21:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Some how I doubt that. But really, have your read http://facstaff.uindy.edu/~oaks/MHMC.htm yet? It's not just some arbitrary website but written by by an associate professor in the history of mathematics with a specialization in the history of arabic/islamic mathematics. —Ruud 22:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
This vote will show us howmany persians use wikipedia! LOL Jidan 11:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed introduction by User:R. Koot (2)

Ok, a second attempt by me. This introduction clearly establish that al-Khwarizmi was of Persian ancestry (which we all agree on) and that he lived under Abbasid caliphate (which I think we also all agree on.

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī[3][4] (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن موسى الخوارزمي) was a Muslim mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. He was born around 780, in either Khwarizm or Bagdad, and died around 850. Al-Khwarizmi was or Persian ancestry, however by the middle of the 8th century Pesia was under the rule of the Abbasid caliphate and al-Khwarizmi published his works in Arabic. Few details about his life are known.

  • Support this one as well. —Ruud 00:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I really feel the evidence is over-whelmingly on the side of the Persians, nevertheless, in the intrest of compromise I reluctantly agree to this intro. Great job R. Koot.Zmmz 00:41, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed introduction by User:Jidan

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (c.780 - 850) (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن موسى الخوارزمي, Persian موسى خوارزمى) was a Muslim mathematician, astronomer, and geographer.

I disagree. The link provided by the Math Historian is very strong final case. There is absolutely no evidence of Al-Khwarizmi being Arab, but there is sufficient evidence to indicate he was persian. 1) Al-Majoosi title. 2) He was from Khwarizm which is predominately Persian region. Ibn-Nadeem mentions clearly that his asl (roots) are in Khwarizm and not in some Arab tribe or Arab country. I am not sure how you can overlook this? 3) Abu-Rayhan Biruni and many others have already indicated that the people of Chorasmia is Persian. Against this evidence, there is absolutely nothing to indicate he was Arab (and don't quote random sites again). The region of Chorasmia simply was not Arab speaking region and this is where Al-Khwarizmi was from (asl). So he was not Arab. If he was from Yemen, we can also argue that there was Sassanid colonies in Yemen and so he may have been persian, but the chances are that a Yemenese is an Arab. The same holds here. So I would add a Persian Muslim. I do not think it is far to rob Al-Khwarizmi from his Iranian Chorasmian background. Also we had already discussed the Baghdad issue and Baghdad at that time was robust multi-ethnic city and to an extent today even there are Assyrians, Kurds, Turkomens, Armenians...(Ali Doostzadeh).

[edit] Proposed introduction by User:Zora

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī[5][6][7][8] (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن موسى الخوارزمي) was a Muslim mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. He was born around 780, in either Khwarizm or Baghdad, and died around 850.

[edit] Step back

Instead of adopting one of the three theories as to his ethnicity, we can present all three and let readers decide. That's NPOV. I rewrote the article to say that his ethnicity is a controversial topic and that there are three theories. Proponents of each theory should make sure that each entry gives the best possible case for their theory. OK? yes? Zora 00:44, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I've already left a comment at your talk page, but what you proposed is the version which started this dispute (people changing Muslim to Persian/Arab/Turk all the time). —Ruud 00:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

If there's a conflict, and all sides are notable, then we give all sides, we don't just pick one. Look down the page, don't just look at the first para. Zora 00:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I proposed the exact same introduction as you a while ago with exactly the same argument (let the reader decide) and see what happened... but if you are willing to keep an eye on this article that would help. —Ruud 00:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Al-Khwarizmi didn't write in Latin

Zmmz edited the latest version, claiming that AK wrote in Latin (he didn't - he was translated into Latin) and inserting "Persian" before Khorasan. The ethnicity of Khorasan is debateable. I think we should refrain from making any claims as to its ethnic composition, and just give the political history, about which we know more. If Khorasan isn't indisputably Persian, then listing other scholars from Khorasan doesn't prove anything. All it proves is that there was a link between Khorasan and the Abbasids, which we know from history.

I did leave the point re writing in Arabic not proving anything, which is a good one. Arabic in those times was the equivalent of Latin in European scholarship -- it was the lingua franca of the elite, and allowed people with many different mother tongues to communicate. Zora 02:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spoke Greek and Latin?

Zmmz, how do you know that he spoke Greek and Latin? He may well have known Greek, since the House of Wisdom was translating Greek texts. But there's nothing to PROVE that he knew Greek. There's no support whatsoever for Latin.

Zora just after the dispute was finally being settled, and just after everyone voted, you took it upon yourself to practically rewrite the entire article. You can`t keep doing things like this, unless you come to an agreement with the majority of the editors, specially, if it is a drastic changes like this. Even so, I still asked others not to complain and revert, and I only added two more lines to the whole article, which are by the way very relevant to the Biography section. Finally, a simple error was corrected, and it now says he [read] and spoke Latin, and Greek. From now on, please refrain from going against a consensus, even if it was not an over-whelming one. Zmmz 02:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

What makes you think that his NAME is Persian? What about Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa is Persian? All those seem like good Arabic names to me.

Let`s not pretend Al Khwarizmi does not point to him being from Khwarizm. I wrote that may be an indication.Zmmz 02:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Again, you've restored the edits claiming that Khorasan was Persian and that a great many scholars came from Khorasan. This is not surprising, since the Khorasanis had put the Abbasids in power and many had moved to Baghdad. They were the elite, with the money and leisure for scholarship. But it's not relevant to AK's ethnicity. We don't know whether the Khorasani Islamic community was Arabic, or Persian, or Arabo-Persian. Have you considered the possibility that AK was of mixed blood? Zora 02:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No, actually those are some rather biased allegations. Please do more research first. Also, the `Mixing Population Theory` claimed by you and user Heja Helweda is an old argument, in the sense that it was already discussed and responded to many times in the above section. The only proof provided was the student encylopedia, Encyclopedia Iranica, written by Columbia University students.
Zmmz, you can't bring yourself to believe that Arabs and Persians ever intermarried (despite being in contact and under the same rulers for five hundred years) and routinely denigrate any sources that might challenge that strongly held belief. I do not automatically believe everything that the Encyclopedia Iranica publishes (it's inevitably biased towards an Iranian viewpoint) BUT it is a reputable scholarly source. Written by respected scholars and researchers, not by students. Zora 03:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
If it was mixed as you allege, then it would have been mentioned in at least one major encyclopedia. Again, three centuries after Al Khwarizmi` death, and four centuries into the Arab invasion, the genuis scientist and historian Al Biruni wrote, ل خوارزم ... کانوا غصنا" من دوحه الفرس

"the inhabitants of Khwarezmia are Persian". To this day Khwarizmians, now Uzbeks, they still speak Persian and are part of the Greater Iran. There are no signs of them being mixed with Arabs, nor do the speak Arabic. Khwarizm, which was part of Khorasan, was the center of learning, poetry and education during the Sassanid Persia era. The great empire took most of his resources and concentrated it around those areas. The Empire also set-up learning universities, and hospitals as well; the first in the East, and what would later be copied by the Romans. ThanksZmmz 04:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, three centuries later, the inhabitants of Khorasan might have spoken Persian. The Abbasid empire was breaking up and the Persian language was reasserting itself. But that doesn't really say anything about Khorasan three centuries earlier, or, crucially, about the household in which AK grew up. He could have grown up in an Arabo-Persian household in which the daily language was Arabic. (Just as a Syrian immigrant family living in New Jersey might be raising children whose first language is Levantine Arabic.) Zora 03:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No, Al Biruni said "the inhabitants of Khwarezmia are Persian", not that now they are mixed Arab-Persians breaking up or whatever. Not this historian, nor any other historian did ever, or do, say there was mixing going-on.Zmmz 04:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


You're wrong again, there. The center of Sassanid learning was in Khuzestan. See Academy of Gundishapur. Zereshk and I fought that one to a draw and I think it's fairly accurate now. The institute where AK worked is believed to have been modeled on the Sassanid academy. Zora 03:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


I never said the Academy of Gundishapur was in Khwarizm. The name Gundishapur should indicate it was in the region of Khuzestan. I did say, these learning centers were among other schools, mostly concentrated around [Khwarizm]. The Sassanids, as you can tell from the Academy of Gundishapur, emphasized on a good, well-rounded education. The revolutionized education in Persia. That is [why] almost 90 percent of scientists and poets of the Islamic era were Persian. With all due respect, if your allegations are true, then how come almost every scientist out of Khwarizm was Persian, and not Arab? Your disregard for the voting process, and the fact that you rewrote that article without asking others, reverted relevant citations added, and initiated another edit war is not the best way to deal with others here, and is getting tiresome. I have now erased two more lines from the [one] sentence addition I made to the Biography section. I am not going to engage in [yet] another lengthy back and forth discussion with someone who has tried to change the identity of other well-known Persian scientists, and someone who complaint why we feel it is necessary to write the poet Rumi was Persian, and let`s just call him Muslem. Thank youZmmz 04:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

It was well known he translated many Greek books on math. Ask others first for references.
No, it isn't known. The House of Learning was translating Greek mathematics texts, including Euclid. There is a great deal of argument about how much of the Greek deductive model AK incorporated, and argument as to whether or not he had read Euclid. If he had, he could easily have done so in an Arabic translation made much earlier. There is nothing in AK's works that proves that he read Greek, or made any translations. Zora 03:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, if that is your disagreement, then why do you erase all the other relevant evidence added by us? But, I`ll erase that part too.Zmmz 02:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What makes you think that writing in Persian wasn't allowed?

The Iranian editors seem to prefer wording that turns the Arabs into nasty oppressors who didn't let the Persians use their own language. That is not the case. This was an issue in the earliest days of the Islamic empire -- one Umayyad governor of Persia was a notorious badass :) and he cracked down hard on what he saw as sedition -- which included Persian scribes using Persian for government documents. Only Arabic must be used! But that applied to government business, not to daily life. There is no evidence whatsoever that Persian merchants were punished for keeping their accounts in Persian, or that anyone was punished JUST for speaking Persian. You have also restored the boast that many Islamic scholars were from Khorasan and therefore Persian -- which is both irrelevant, and not demonstrable from the facts. Zora 03:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

This reference from Columbia Encyclopedia makes me think that[1]. Furthermore, because, just like Alexander the Great, the invading Arabs burnt most of the Persian literature. It has been written in literatures like the `Epic of Kings` by Ferdowsi, who almost single-handedly revived the Persian culture, that helped to drive out the invading Islamic Caliphates, that Arabs did in fact persecute Iranians for writting in their native tongue. Such patriotic writtings inspired by the Sassanid, the Samanid dynasties, and others, in turn influenced Iranians to take back their culture. Also, all other Persian scientists wrote mostly in Arabic, so that should be another indication. If they were allowed to write in their mother language, Persian, then things would have been different.Zmmz 04:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


If they were allowed, or encouraged to, why not write in their mother language, Persian? Exactly! There you go, Zmmz. If there wasn't proof that Persians were prosecuted, and all these scientists decided to write in Arabic, what is that an indication of? That they're Arabs of course! This argument is silly, and I have no idea how you managed to perpetuate till now, also, I see an edit war looming...very sad on your part, especially when all evidence are pointing against you. MB 07:42, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

If they were allowed, or encouraged to, why not write in their mother language, Persian? When did I ever say that? I said, they were [not] allowed to, or [dis]couraged from writting in Persian. The word [dis]couraged here really is a polite word for saying prohibited.Zmmz 08:16, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, don`t worry I rephrased it to avoid any confusion. I didn`t say what you thought I said. I meant to say, If they were allowed to write in their mother language, Persian, then things would have been different. Columbia Encyclopedia supports this view.[2] Zmmz 08:22, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I don’t think anyone really claimed that speaking Persian was punished by death and even if they did it was an exaggeration. However the official language was Arabic, language of government and schools. This means language is being forced on people doesn’t it? The minorities in Iran today are complaining of the very same thing, they can speak their language if they want but school has to be in Persian, and you personally seem to be very protective and supportive of their issues. What is the difference here? Kurdish and Arab merchants of Iran are also allowed to keep their accounts in Kurdish or Arabic aren't they?

Gol 04:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Khwarizm as Persian?

Here's what it says in the WP Khwaremia article:

According to Biruni the area was ruled by the Afrigid dynasty from the 4th century to the 8th century CE. The resurgent kingdom was established around Khiva in 410 by Avar tribes possibly under Hephthalites influence. The inhabitants were called Khwalis or Kaliz by the Magyars after the eastern-most Kabars of Hungary, who dwelt in Carpathian Galicia. They were also called Khalisioi in Greek, Khvalis (and often associated with Khazars) in Russian, and Huālázǐmó (花剌子模) or perhaps Guali or Helisimijia in Chinese. The etymology of the name is unknown but may pertain to a kingdom of the Aral Sea or the Hua people.

The article also claims that Khwarezmi is Persian, but doesn't give any sources.

I have Birunis book, and none of the above information about Avas and Hephtalites are there. And the area could not have been ruled from 4th century to 8th century by the Afrigid dynasty since the Arabs took it was prior to that.
In the late 7th century, Khwarezmia was conquered by the Arab Abbasids and was the birthplace of the great Persian mathematician of the Abbasid period, al-Khwarezmi.

Four centuries of being ruled by Avars and the area is still "Persian"?

Avars were not in this area. Plus we have shown Biruni directly mention that the inhabitants of Chorasmia were Persian (Athar Al-Baghiya) and we brought the exact quote. You need to bring exact quote or else keep quite.

It might have been heavily-influenced by Persian culture -- we don't know. We'd have to look at the archaeological results. I can google, but I doubt that I'll come up with anything I can read; most of the sources are probably Russian, if there are any. Zora 04:47, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


Well, first and foremost that is inaccurate, since an strict Islamic law prohibited Arabs from marrying non-Arabs. I have a reference that is actually from an article written by you Zora, “Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates. They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature”.[3] .Zmmz 09:23, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Go read the Iranica article on Chorasmia which is sufficient and complete. --Ali doostzadeh 06:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedias all say Khwarizm was part of Persia for 1200 years. Even after the Arabs and Mongols invaded Persia they stayed Persian, much like when the Egyptians were under Persia for centuries, they still stayed--and to this date stay--Arab-Egyptians; no mixing was done, nothing. Again, Al Biruni, the Muslim historian, four centuries into the Arab invasion of Persia said, Khwarizmians are Persians: To this date, Khwarizmians, now Uzbeks speak Persian, and not Arabic, or Mongolian. You were already provided this information numerous times in the above sections, yet you keep bringing them up, and insert new headings to make it seem controversial. At this point, after writing incredibly lengthy texts in the discussion pages, you need to be aware that this non-stop flooding of these discussion pages [may] be considered some sort of vandalism. You are abusing your editing privileges.Zmmz 05:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Zmmz, you can't accuse people who argue with you of being vandals and abusers. You're trying to intimidate people. I'm not easily intimidated. Zora 05:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Intimidation does not work in Wikipedia nor should it be used. I am not intimidating you; please do not attack me and assume good faith; moreover, please refrain from playing the role of the victim, or the minority, which you do every time your argument fizzles. However, within the past few hours, you single-handedly rewrote the entire article without discussing it with the other editors, disregarded the mediation efforts and the fact that a poll was set up and votes were being counted, inserted many headlines one after another into this discussion page in an attempt to stampede the voice of others or prove your point, flooded the discussion page with repetitive claims that were already addressed numerous times, and erased others` citations without any discussions. I am just telling you that there are rules here. You can’t keep doing this in all time. You keep doing this on other articles too, like Khwarizm, Islamic conquest of Persia, and others.Zmmz 06:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


There is ample evidence besides the fact that Khwarizmians, who are modern Uzbeks still to this date speak Persian, not Arabic, that indicates no mixing between Persians and Arabs took place, because strict Islamic laws prohibited Arabs to marry non-Arabs: They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature. [Fred Donner. The Early Islamic Conquests]. Princeton Univ Press, 1981, beg with pg. 251.Zmmz 07:20, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Umm, Zmmz ... that's copied from the Wikipedia article, which I wrote. It's also true only of the time of Umar and Uthman. Ali moved the capital to Kufa -- out of Arabia -- Muawiya then moved it to Damascus, and the melding of the Arabs and their clients went ahead at full speed. Zora 07:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Zmmz, that's sad. You went back and edited your note to erase the sourcing to answers.com and instead gave the source I got it from. Zora 07:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


This is the third time you make a personal attack; just be aware of that. This kind of attitude will not lend further credibility to your claims. What does lend credibility is providing valid sources. Upon realising that the first source was actually a mirror page of a Wikipedia article, which turned-out to be written by you of all people (in that article too, you had inserted your controversial views to without discussing it first with the other editors) a new, more authoritative source written by a respected scholar was provided. Thank youZmmz 07:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That source was provided by me. I own the book. I've read it. Have you? Zora 07:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I provided a new source now. But it seems you are contradicting yourself. If the first reference was actually an article that was written by you, then, you yourself were the one who wrote, “Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates. They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature”?Zmmz 08:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

So you KNEW the truth; yet, tried feverishly to state otherwise in these articles so these Persian scientists can be portrayed as Arabs huh? Maybe to push an agenda. Nothing is greater than the truth. That is called hypocracy. But, as it turns-out, you ended-up providing sources that actually prove you yourself wrong. Great job Zora. ThanksZmmz 08:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Huh? That was the early policy and it failed. The Arab conquerors were to live in garrison towns, such as the ones established in Kufa, Basra, Cairo, and Khorasan. They were to remain soldiers, not sedentary landowners. That didn't last long. It is supposed that one of the reasons that there was so much discontent with Uthman (leading to his assassination) is that the Arab tribesmen wanted to split up the conquered lands and settle down as nobles. Just because a government has a policy for a few decades doesn't mean that the policy endures forever! Zora 08:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Not only your allegations are not backed-up by one single major encyclopedia, but what is as important is that just by chance you were caught red-handed, writing something that goes against every [single] claim you are making here, yet, you still keep going. You contradicted yourself. I personally recall stating that there was such an Islamic law, and you yourself said that there never [was] such a law: Don’t be baffled please, that was from an article written by you. You have tangled yourself beyond the point from which you could get yourself out of. With all due respect, you have zero credibility at this point.Zmmz 09:08, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP way to is give all sides

Guys -- if there's a dispute, we step back and give the evidence for all sides. You've gone back to playing revert war, trying to annihilate the other side. That violates NPOV. Zora 07:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


Sources that there were arabs in khorasan:

Jidan 08:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey everyone, I just thought it would be intresting to share with you that I found a source that proves strict Islamic law prohibited Arabs from marrying non-Arabs. This in an article written by the user Zora herself, who now claims Persians were mixed with Arabs, “Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates. They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature”.[4] .Zmmz 09:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


This was posted earlier by a user:

Durinng Ummayad period, large numbers of Arab soldiers acquired lands in villages throughout Khorasan, married local women or brought their families from Iraq, and settled permanently in the province. This implies that the Arab population in Khorasan must have been huge in comparison to that in western Iran. Even if the primary component of the Arab colony in Khorasan was limited to just the 50,000 families settled there by Rabi bin Ziad, the total Arab population would have to be estimated at close to a quarter of a million people in 8th century CE. The special circumstances in Khorasan, which integrated Arabs and Iranians into a common social fabric, facilitated the assimilation of Iranian culture by the Arabs and the gradual acceptance of much of Arab culture(above all the religion), by their Iranian subjects and peers.(Encyclopaedia Iranica, under Arab settlements in Iran,pp.213-214). The towns of Hamadan, Qazvin, Qom were predominantly Arab by the 9th century CE.(Encyclopaedia Iranica, under Arab tribes of Iran, p.215).

Jidan 09:06, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


Ah, the same student project Encyclopaedia Iranica that when you click on a link takes you to an empty site and asks you to download an Adobe file. Although, there is nothing wrong with an Adobe file, but you do realize that this is a junior Encyclopaedia right? That is the [only] source that you have, and it keeps being posted repetitively, and keeps being disregarded repetiively. Please put in some new information, like the fact that an article written by the user Zora herself completely contradicts the junior source you mentioned. If this indeed took place, then it would have been reported by one major encylopedia, like Britannica for example. There is a reason why it is not there.Zmmz 09:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

TO Zora: I am not sure if you are the right person to arbitrate, since you were refuted in the Aryan discussion in the other Persian thread. I think you have a major anti-Iranian grudge. For example you claimed that the term Aryan is not used in academia where as many articles proved you wrong [5]. Now can we expect you to have honesty about this issue. Here are some facts about him being Iranian. 1) The title Al-Majoosi(the Zoroastrian) mentioned by Tabari indicates Zoroastrian ancestary. Thus clearly indicating Persian roots of Al-Khawarizmi. Furthermore Tabari lived at the same time as Al-Khawarizmi which is very significant 2) The region of Chorasmia is referred to as Persian by the native Persian Chorasmian, Abu Rayhan Biruni. This is again a significant statement since Biruni was only 100 years after Al-Khawarizmi and he was a native of the same region. In fact we have much evidence on the Iranian language spoken by Chorasmians. 3) Ibn Nadeem mentions that his origin is from Chorasmia. Note all these evidences point to a most likely Iranian ethnic identity. One can not just brush off the statements of Biruni about the native language of Chorasmia and the statement of Tabari about the title al-Majoosi. These are basically all the information we have available about his ethnicity and thus pointing to probable Iranian ethnicity. I challenge anyone (for the sake of increasement of knowledge as well resovling of this quarrel) to provide alternative facts from ancient sources on the language of Chorasmia and other mentioning of Al-Khawarizmi in historical texts from 1000 years ago. --Ali doostzadeh 08:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Dear Jidan. Ahlan wa Sahlan. Thanks for the link. But we are talking about Chorasmia (Khawarizm) and not Khorasan. There were also tons of Persians and Iranians in Iraq. But the fact is that there was no influx of Arabs after the removal of Ummayads and many of these Arabs were removed by the Abu-Moslem/Abbassid revolution because of their pro-Ummayad stance. Also we should try not to use an anti-islamic website since we want to bring materials only from non-poltical sources. This tatement is also there from that article The Arabs of Khorasan were almost more Persian than Arab. Their fathers had married Persian wives, and the sons spoke Persian rather than Arabic, drank wine, wore trousers, and kept the Persian holidays. So case in point, they were culturally Persians. Also I must add that many of the Arab tribes who were pro-Ummayads were removed after the bloody battles of Khorasan and Abu-Moslems revolt. And the Abbassids did not continue the imperial policy of sending Arabs in the region since Persians had major power in their courts and the office of Vizir sometimes was more powerful than Caliph --Ali doostzadeh 08:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Replay to Ali

1) The title Al-Majoosi(the Zoroastrian) mentioned by Tabari indicates Zoroastrian ancestary. Thus clearly indicating Persian roots of Al-Khawarizmi. Furthermore Tabari lived at the same time as Al-Khawarizmi which is very significant

Invalid. read this: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Al-Khwarizmi.html

Nopte that is not invalid. THat is just Mr. Rashed's(an arab persons) opinion that a copyst made a mistake! He has shown no proof of it and furthermore if we insert "wa", no person by such a name has ever been mentioned in history books.

2) The region of Chorasmia is referred to as Persian by the native Persian Chorasmian, Abu Rayhan Biruni. This is again a significant statement since Biruni was only 100 years after Al-Khawarizmi and he was a native of the same region. In fact we have much evidence on the Iranian language spoken by Chorasmians.

Read the Sources above about the arabs in khorasan.

We are talking about Chorasmia during Abbassid times. Yes Arabic tribes for military reasons came to Khorasan during Ummayad times, but many of them were removed after the Abu-Moslem revolution.

3) Ibn Nadeem mentions that his origin is from Chorasmia.

Ibn Nadeem lived 150 years later, and he was just a book seller!! He just assumed this from his name!!

Such mere speculations are not an scholarly approach. If we have just these couple of sources, then honesty dictates that we must accept them. I am not sure how you become a psychic and tell me what Ibn-Nadeem was thinking 1000 years! Did Ibn Nadeem say "I assumed by his name"? Nope he didn't. So we can not make such speculations. There was a Turkish minister recently that claimed Prophet Muhammad(PBUH&HP) was Turkish! I am sure if he played the role of a time psychic he might be able to prove his point.
            Lets agree to disagree!!

With that I mean, lets accept the version of Zora. I also dont like it, but its the most natural!! You can then describe all the three points in the article, so whats the problem? Jidan 09:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intermarriage between Arabs and Persians, use of Persian language

I should have thought to do this earlier -- I checked my copy of The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, by Hugh Kennedy. On page 125, he says:

More Arabs settled in this area than in any other part of Iran during Umayyad times, and the settlement of large numbers of Muslims seem to have encouraged conversions among the local people.
In Khurasan there was considerable integration between Arab and non-Arab, many of the leaders of the Abbasid movement were of Arab origin but spoke Persian, and had intermarried with the local people ...

On page 133 he talks about the Khorasanis who led the Abbasid revolution:

While many of their leaders seem to have been of Arab descent, and no doubt spoke Arabic, a large proportion of the rank and file were Iranian Muslims and Persian was widely spoken.

So, we really can't tell from his name whether or not AK was Persian or Arab. He could have been Arab, or Persian, or Arabo-Persian.

A trawl through my history of Persian literature (Aryanpur) found no mention of speaking Persian being punished. Instead, it gave me the name of Abu Nuwas, whose father was Arab, whose mother was Persian, and who was said to have used Persian loan words in his Arabic poems. More evidence for mixing. Zora 10:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Your evidence's agree with the the sources i listed above. Jidan 10:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Note those Arabs that were in Khorasan became Persianized and lost all trace of Arabness. And we are here talking about Khawarazm and not Khorasan. They are adjacent but not the same. There is a list of cities that Arabs mainly settled in and Khawarazm is not one of them. Also Abu Nuwas was from Baghdad and not Khorasan or even Khawarazm. If you guys do not have any proof that there was Arab colonies in Khawarazm, which persisted after Abbassid times, then you should not just make hypothetical and unsound arguments with no refrences. --Ali doostzadeh 16:58, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Zora, with all due respect, how desperate are you to try and flood these discussion pages with excessive rhetoric, and try to prove something that you do not have a legitimate reference for? What were thinking, and how can you write this if you yourself stated in one your articles that Islamic law prohibited Arabs from marring non-Arabs? Editors like you who have a political agenda, just end-up driving away other editors in disgust, who have something productive to contribute to these articles. Here is proof that contradicts what you said above in [your] own words, “Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates. They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature”.[6]. ThanksZmmz 02:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ghazi Andalusi and Al-Khawarizmi - Very Important

Dear Friends, In th Al-Ta'rif Tabaghat Al-omam there is direct refrence to the Al-Khawarizmi using persian days and calendar.. Unless anyone has anything against this source, then Persian is final: 1) Chorasmians spoke a Persian language(A-biruni) 2) title Majusi by Tabari 3) Ibn Nadeem refers to his asl (roots, origins) as Chorasmian 4) Ghazi Sa'ed Al-Andalusi (about 1000 A.D) mentions him using Persian days and calendar. --Ali doostzadeh 16:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)(Ali Doostzadeh).


Well, dear friend what you have is written in Persian, give me an Arabic or English version so I could understand what he's saying. About your sources:

I have translated it into English. If you disagree with the source, you need to disprove it.

1)At the time of his birth, Khwarizms spoke predominately Arabic, you yourselves say that it was the language of science at the time, did you decide it's best to contradict yourselves?

Nope Khawarizm spoke Persian as Biruni has mentioned the language. Do not put words in my mouth.

2)al-Tabari calling him Majusi is disputed in the Mactutor reference of the article, we refuted the claims many times over, please don't ignore facts.

It is not disputed by Mactutor, but by Prof Rashed who is an Arab. And the burden of proof is on him. Because no such scholar after the "wa" exists.

3)sources?

See above.

4)We need it to be verified by a translation.


Who is "we". You need to disapprove it if you disagree.

Three very legitimate sources that state him to be Arab:

1)http://www.bartleby.com/65/al/AlKhowar.html

2)http://uk.encarta.msn.com/text_761560322___0/Khwarizmi_al-.html

3)http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-9311992

DO not bring these petty internet sources as there are tons of them that refer to him as Persian. I have proved from Ghazi Al-Andalusi that he is Persian. You want me to do a google search again and bring about all the sources that claim him as Persian. This sort of argument is not necessary as it has been done before.

These are all from major encyclopedias, this along with the fact that he wrote mostly in Arabic, and that he was born in a region with a huge Arab population are all sufficient enough to show he's an Arab. MB 16:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Nope Chorasm did not have huge arab population. You are talking about Khorasan which was an Ummayad military bastion as well. But most of those military bastions were wiped out by Abu-Moslem Khorasani. Roman sources and other sources clearly mention many Arab supports of Ummayads being cleared off. Secondly there are many major books and encyclopedias that claim him as Persian. You are not here to discuss the issue, and reiterating that old encyclopedia issue is not worth it. For example this source is much stronger than any of the sources you mentioned: http://facstaff.uindy.edu/~oaks/MHMC.htm

But I have proven this issue from ancient sources.

You didn't show anything. I have shown sources from four ancient books. Modern encyclopedias can say variety of thing. The link from the Math historian Professor though is much more valuable. Plus the Ghazi- Al-Andalusi that I mentioned is the finishing point.


To the Turkish guy. The discussion here is not about Biruni. But Biruni was a (iranian) Khawrezmian and spoke no turkic. in his list of turkic month names (which are merely ordinals), he adds "I don't know what they mean and I don't know the (exact) order". So that is sufficient proof that he was not in anyway connected to Turks. He also has listed the Khawrezmian and Soghdian months and days and they are all Persian. The word Khawarazm is also Persian as Turkish has no "wa", but Pahlavi, Afghani Persian and most Iranian languages do. He also clearly mentions that the inhabitants of Khawarazm are Persians. I think the above case point is sufficient that Biruni was not Turkic.

--Ali doostzadeh 16:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Friends, somebody is deleting or vandalizing the discussions here. I urge them to stop.

--Ali doostzadeh 16:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zora's version

Zora's version was neither discussed here nor approved by anyone. User:R. Koot's version was put to a vote here and the majority reached a consensus on that version. Zora's version is full of speculations and unsubstantiated claims with no references. For examples, the user is speculating about Khwarizmi possibly being a Turk when there were no Turks or Turkic tribes in Khwarizm back in 700-800. Such speculations only confuse the readers and are not encyclopedic. Lets keep the version which was approved by a majority vote, at least for now, until a new version is proposed and approved/voted by a majority consensus here on talk. --ManiF 16:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

User:R.Koot himself though, put(in bold letters, too) that the proposition is not a vote, look at it again. MB 16:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, all I see is a vote where the majority agreed with the proposal. --ManiF 16:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Please keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a democracy, and that voting is not considered an acceptable method of finding consensus, nor can it be considered binding. --InShaneee 20:42, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] stay tuned

Dear Friends, I will soon have on a website scanned materials from Biruni that mentions the people of Khawarizm are a branch of Persians. Also the quote about Persian dates and calendar used by Al-Khawarazmi will be put up from the Arabic original of Tabaghat-Al-Umam (Andalusi). This is important since the chances of an Arab being familiar with Persian dates and calendar during Abbassid times is very very low! Because Arabic was the international language used by many different ethnic groups whereas Persian dialects were for the Persians! Also both Tabari and Ibn_nadeems original quote will be put up. I am in the process now of looking into other books and if anyone has materials from ancient books about Khawarzmi, they can help. Also the antagonistic friends need to provide sources for their very weak argument:

1) For example they need to show at least one arab colonoy in Khawarizm since the Iranica article is about Dinwar, Holwan (these two are Kurdish areas ), Esfahan, Qazvin, Merv, Neyshapur. Per their information many of the arab supporters of Ummayads were cleared out by the Abu Moslem revolution and the rest were assimilated since they were small relative to the native population. Also we must add that Iraq was 1000-1200 years under Persian rule and so many Arabs from there had Persian roots and the argument could go back and forth. But right now none of them showed any example of even one arab colony in Khawarizm. This is an important fact. Furthemore none of them can counter the statement of Biruni that the people of Khawarizm are a branch of Fars. An arab colony in Merv (which is turkomen speaking today) does not cut it, since the majority of people of merv were ever Persians and we are discussing Khawarizm and not Merv. Also Biruni is from the area! And the logic is simple. Since Biruni mentions the people of Al-Khawarizm are a branch of Fars and since Ib-Nadeem mentions that Khawarazmi's asl(origin, root, background) is from Khawarizm, then Khawarazmi is Persian. 2) Ibn Nadeem clearly mentions that Khawarzmi's Asl (roots, origin, base) is from Khawarazm (Chorasmia). Considering the fact that the area was predominatetly Iranian, then deceny would dictate that Khawarzmi was Persian. Rare cases do not apply here since there is no mention of even a tiny arab colony in Chorasmia. 3) The Al-Majoosi title has not been disputed by any scholar outside of Professor Rashed who is an Arab scholar. These people need to actually show an old manuscript of Tabari to validate their claim. Furthermore they need to show that a separate person by the name of Al-qurutabli Al-Majoosi existed in history whereas so far no book or article has ever mentioned such a person. But the rest of the people mentioned next to Al-Khawarazmi by Tabari have been mentioned in many many refrence books. So the title Al-Majoosi is very strong. (Ali Doostzadeh- Will write more soon).


Dear Ali, I must say you have good reasons to believe that he is persian, unlike your other iranian friends that know nothing about that, but still think he is persian. But with all respect you have two facts or "thorns in the eye":

  • All his Books are in Arabic not a SINGLE book in persian is known of him
  • He lived and produced his books in Baghdad, which is not persia

All your evidences can be refuted, as we have done before. But you cannot refute these two facts (excluding other evidences I provided). You see, you can refute me if I tell you that this women is beutifull, but you cant refute if I tell you that the sun exists. Jidan 21:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Latin was the scientific language at one time in Europe although most europeans were not latins. Same with French another time. Now it is English. Baghdad at that time was as multi-cultural as NY or London is today. So both of your points are weak.
None of the evidences we have given, has been refuted. When did you refute Biruni's statement that the people of Chorasmia are Persian? When did you refute Ibn Al_nadeem's statement that he came from Chorasmia? Do you have a counter evidence to Ibn Nadeem? What legitimate evidence do you have that Tabari made a mistake about the Al-Majoosi title? What evidence have you shown of even a single arab from Chorasmia (Khawarazimn and I am not talking about arab military garrison in Merv which is different region). What evidence have you shown that there is a high chance that an Arab would use Persian days and calendars? In fact all of your arguments have no basis and I can use for example a similar argument to claim that many many Iraqi or Yemenese based scientists were Persians and come up with weired reasons. The fact of the matter is that you are bounded by the sources. Ibn Nadeem, Tabari, Ghazi Al-Andalusi, Abu Rayhan Biruni coherently prove that Khawarazmi was not Arab. Anyways wait till I compile all these four sources. You need evidence and not just very weak (in my opinion) couter arguments to ancient sources. When Ibn Nadeem mentions his Asl is Chorasmian, then the chances of his Arab ethnicity is reduced significantly. You can attack Ibn Nadeem all you want, but all we have is from Ibn Nadeem and so unless you provide other evidence from historical authors, the Al-Khawarazmi is Chorasmian(Iranian) and not arab. When Biruni mentions the people of Khawarazim(Chorasmia) are a branch of Farsi, then your chance is reduced more. Finally add the Persian calendar and dates and Tabargi mentions the Al-Majoosi title, the chances of him being an Arab becomes virtually zero.
  • If his evidences can be refuted, your evidences are inaccurate to begin with. Baghdad was indeed in Persia and even after Islamic conquest, a city where most residents were Persian. Heck even the name Baghdad means "Gift of God" in Persian. Your statements shows that you know almost nothing about history. --125.247.105.242 21:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence Why User Zora, and the `Arab-Persian Mixing Theory` should be Discredited

There is beautiful word in English, and that is serendipity. It was coined by Horace Wallope who took it from a Persian folktale called, `The Three Princes of Serendip`. The tale is about three Persian princes, who are commissioned by a king to go on a journey, however, along the way the [discover] things not relating to the reason why they went on this expedition to begin with; they found amazing things. So, basically it kind of relates to my discovery last night. For a very long time the user Zora, then supported by users Heja Helweda, MB, and Jidal have repetitively inserted some comments about the fact that it is possible the Arabs were hugely mixed with Persians in the Persians provinces of Khwarizm and Khorasan. And, maybe, just maybe, it is remotely possible that some mixing had occured, and that Al Khwarizmi [may] have been a mixed Persian-Arab. Such allegations then force all the other editors to come in and defend the views of the consensus. We have proved many times that it would have been nearly impossible for any mixing to occur. We stated that one of main reasons for that is because strict Islamic law prohibited Arabs marrying non-Arabs. I then searched for and found a reference that would prove that, and submitted that source. In a bazaar accident, as it turns out, the article from which the source was provided was actually written by guess who? Non other than the same user who vehemently has denied that such a law [ever] existed; that would be user Zora; now [that] is serendipity. This proves our point, but it also clearly shows editor Zora preferrs to hide the truth, perhaps so that it can serve her purpose here, even though it was written in her own article. As such, at this point we are not accepting any reversions by Zora, and we will vote on a version written by the admin, R. Koot. To provide proof why any mention of mixing between Arabs and Khwarizmians or people in Khorasan should be omitted, we are submitting the following reasons,

  • According to Zora herself (she read this in a book written by a foremost scholar of the Islamic era), Strict Islamic law prohibited Arabs marrying non-Arabs: “Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates. They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature”[7]. This idea is also found in another source, which possibly where Zora took it from originally. [Fred Donner. The Early Islamic Conquests, Princeton Univ Press, 1981.]
  • An statement by the most prominent Islamic scientist, and poet Al Biruni of his lifetime, who he himself was from Khwarezm, Persia, and lived about a century or two after Al Khwarizmi, and four centuries already into the Arab invasion of Persia, proves Khwarizmins were Persians. Now, that is very important because if there was any mixing between Arabs and Persian in Khwarizm, he would have mentioned it. It is written in Arabic because it was the language of the invading Arabs who required their subjects to speak it (Persians were discouraged from participating in their own culture). It says,

ل خوارزم ... کانوا غصنا" من دوحه الفرس "The inhabitants of Khwarezmia are Persian". He, nor any other historian ever mentioned anything about Khwarizmians being mixed with Arabs.


  • The fact that to this day, Khwarizmians who are modern day Uzbeks still speak Persian, and not Arabic. In fact, there is no trace of any Arab influence, or any Arabs being in Uzbekistan: They are the living proof.
  • The fact that Columbia Encyclopedia confirms the reason why Al Khwarizmi wrote almost exclusively in Arabic is because Persian scientists, or historians were not allowed to write in their native language, Persian, and were in fact discouraged from participating in their own culture. Some were persecuted for stirring-up Iranian patriotic sentiments.Columbia Encyclopedia supports this view.[8]

As a result of these facts, we must insist that any mention of `The Mixing Theory` be omitted. And, in light of the fact that user Zora has been discredited to such an extent, as well as the fact that she seems to have some controversial edits in many other articles too, like Khwarizm, Islamic conquest of Persia, we are not in any way supporting her version of the article, which she chose to rewrite without discussing it with anyone first. Please submit your votes if you agree Zora`s version should be disallowed.


Dear friend, actually the above statement is not a poem, but it is from his writing. It translates to "The Inhabitants of Khawarazmia are a branch of the Persians". Funny thing is that so far, there is no other historical facts given about the historical region of Khawarazmia and yet people claim there was Arabs there. And also Biruni is from the exact area which makes his statement many times stronger than any other quote about the people of Chorasmia.



Let me summerize what you wrote in 100000 lines into 4 words: al-khwarzimi was an arab. 80.19.30.10 23:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


Let me summerize how much credibility you have in this discussion page into one word; zero. You have failed to offer [one] proof that shows any of the above evidences are not factual. Not using your username, and instead, staying anonomous while using an IP address, does not help your credibility either. ThanksZmmz 00:01, 11 March 2006 (UTC)




We stated that one of main reasons for that is because strict Islamic law prohibited Arabs marrying non-Arabs

False fabrication. Do you have proof for these farfetch'd claims?

we will vote on a version written by the admin

Wikipedia is not a democracy

Now, that is very important because if there was any mixing between Arabs and Persian in Khwarizm, he would have mentioned it. It is written in Arabic because it was the language of the invading Arabs who required their subjects to speak it (Persians were discouraged from participating in their own culture).

I find it very amusing that once an Iranian user(I don't consider him an editor yet) in a fit of anger(not much unlike a childish tantrum) that Persians wrote books in Arabic not because it was the language of science but, because they were forced, it caught on faster than a fire in June! It's very disturbing actually, that you would claim farfetch'd, unsourced, offensive claims that Arabs enforced anything on Persians. Didn't you in the same breath claim that: "Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates. They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature" and went out of your way to discredict Heja and offer sources to these claims. How could Arabs force anything if they weren't involved in the province's people? Please, you're contradicting yourself, and confusing us. What are you arguing exactly? MB 21:06, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


MB, once you were the first one in line to say there was never, ever, a law saying, ...strict Islamic law prohibited Arabs marrying non-Arabs . As you can see an article written by one of your own editors; states otherwise, as well as articles written by many scholars on Islamic law. So, there goes that argument. Secondly, I, myself was the one who told you Wikipedia is not a democracy, and only facts are allowed; that`s exactly why hypothesis such as yours or user Zora`s should not be put in an encyclopedia, since they seems promote a political agenda. Finally, for the thousandth time, we have provide you with enormous amount of refrences that point towards the Persian ancestry of Al Khwarizmi; there seems to be no doubt thst he was an ethnic Persian; yet, unreasonable users such as yourself not only try to change this scientists` heritage, but you yourself have tried numerous of times to change the ethnicity of other Persian scientists like Avicenna, even Al Biruni, and God knows how many else. You trying to change these historical figures` Persian origins into Arabic does not change the facts, no matter how feverishly you keep at it, and it also does not make you the most credible editor around. Anyway, good luck. Zmmz 23:31, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, let's get things straight here: 1) Wikipedia is not a democracy is a policy not something you say. 2) Zora isn't my editor...where the hell did you get that from? 3) I wasn't trying to change anybody's ethnicity, I'm correcting falsified information put through to promote a political agenda. Please stop trying to echo the accusations pointed at you. It was you after all who designated the ethnicities without any references at all and are pushing weak arguments( He was born there, he used a Persian calendar...etc.) to keep calling al-Khwarizmi Persian, even if surmounting evidence proves him to be Arab. I'm already gathering info. to prove for a fact that al-Biruni along with dozens of Arab scientists you put in your little list of Persian scientists are all in fact Arabs. In fact there was no such law, I was simply showing the self-contradiction your friend Ali presented in his little "proof" thst al-Khwarizmi is Persian(refuted many times ovcer in this talk page, just check the archives). MB 10:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I see..hhmm...even after I provided a direct quote that says Arabs had a law that said Arabs were not to marry non-Arabs, which was written by a foremost scholar from Stanford University, and the editor Zora whose history links show 98 percent of her edits in Wikipedia are pro-Islamic ones, you still deny it huh. And NOW you are saying other Persian scientists like Avicenna, Al Razi, Al Tusi, Al Farsi, Al Tabari, Al Farabi, and even Al Biruni were Arabs too? Wow, now you have gone from being unreasonable to just...totally non-credible, and now that I know you have this type of unrealistic mentality, I wont be wasting my precious time to reply to editors like you. I guess Wikipedia has got them all huh. Zmmz 10:57, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Very long, tedious read. But from the little I read of it, let me tell you that me and Jidan strongly support and have proven by various evidence from his life and sourced many encyclopedias, that he was in fact an Arab. Strictly an Arab, no "mixing of Persians" in him. He was ethnically Arab, and we have many proofs for that. Also, please realize that all major encyclopedias: Britannica, Encyclopedia Columbia, and Encarta all agree that al-Khwarizmi is strictly an Arab. Finally, Wikipedia is not a democracy. I suspect that what you did here is copy/paste all the arguments the Persian editors' put forth, which were all refuted by me and Jidan. Do you expect us to copy/paste the refutations here, as well??? MB 21:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


Well, hhmm, so what happened to your stead-fast argument that said Khwarizmians were mixed with Arabs? Too much evidence above that says otherwise huh? By the way, I was the one who told you Wikipedia is not a democracy, only facts are allowed. So, please stop breakig so many of the Wikipedia`s rules here just to prove your hypothesis. You just broke the 3rr again, for the third time.Zmmz 22:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that was Heja's argument. Let me explain my argument(it's not that complicated actually) al-Khwarizmi is ethnically an Arab. I have provided three sources all from major encyclopedias, Heja's source states that there were huge immigration of Arab families in the region, al-Khwarizmi was born to one of these immigrating families, after he was born, they soon returned to Arab lands in Baghdad. Simple, actually, do you have any confusion? I'm not Heja. Seriously, just check my sig! Also, it was Tony, an admin, who posted that, not you. I broke 3RR twice only, you broke it a myriad of times, what you're doing is considered slander, please learn to be civil when arguingMB 21:06, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

You have not proven anything about him being Arab. You can not even demonstate one Arab colony from the historical region of Chorasmia. The math professor who researches in Islamic-Mathematical history is much stronger than a random authorless encyclopedia. None of the evidences we have given, has been refuted. When did you refute Biruni's statement that the people of Chorasmia are Persian? When did you refute Ibn Al_nadeem's statement that he came from Chorasmia? Do you have a counter evidence to Ibn Nadeem? What legitimate evidence do you have that Tabari made a mistake about the Al-Majoosi title? What evidence have you shown of even a single arab from Chorasmia (Khawarazimn and I am not talking about arab military garrison in Merv which is different region). What evidence have you shown that there is a high chance that an Arab would use Persian dates and calendars? In fact all of your arguments have no basis and I can use for example a similar argument to claim that many many Iraqi or Yemenese based scientists were Persians and come up with weired reasons. The fact of the matter is that you are bounded by the sources. Ibn Nadeem, Tabari, Ghazi Al-Andalusi, Abu Rayhan Biruni coherently prove that Khawarazmi was not Arab. Anyways wait till I compile all these four sources. You need evidence and not just very weak (in my opinion) couter arguments to ancient sources. When Ibn Nadeem mentions his Asl is Chorasmian, then the chances of his Arab ethnicity is reduced significantly. When Biruni mentions the people of Khawarazim are a branch of Farsi, then this is reduced more. Finally add the Persian calendar and dates and the Al-Majoosi title, and the chances of him being an Arab becomes virtually zero.


Al-khwarzmi also wrote on the jewish calender, is he jewish?
I think first you have to tell me what it means to be persian? Jidan 22:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Okay so he wrote on the jewish calendar. But he uses the Persian days and calendar according to Al-Andalusi! That is a big difference! Biruni for example wrote on the Chorasmian, Soghdian, inland Persian province of Fars, Arab, Roman, Turkic, Chaldean, Sabian... calendars. But he for example definitely did not use the Roman calendar in his writing! But using a calendar with Persian days and years is different. This is mentioned in the work Al-Andalusi and it is very important. Also the topic is not about what is Persian or what is an Arab because that would require many many arguments and so forth. You will get many many answers and definitions. Some say an Arab speaker is an Arab whereas Christians in Lebanon or Copts in Egypt or many say that Al-Khawarizmi is persian, it means that he had Persian roots. That is his ancestors were (Khawaraizm) and not the other Arab speakers don't think so. I don't agree with that definition, since I do not consider myself English. Now when we Arabian peninsula. He was a son of Chorasmia and not an Arab speaking region. Also the Islamic civilization has had several important languages, the main one being Arab and the next one being Persian. But contribution to these languages has come from many many different groups. (Ali Doostzadeh)



Okay so he wrote on the jewish calendar. But he uses the Persian days and calendar according to Al-Andalusi! That is a big difference!


Okay, friend, buddy, my amigo, you're not making any sense! He used the jewish calendar and the persian calendar...is he jewish? Your argument was based on this: He uses the Persian calendar and so he's Persian. Jidan refuted you by pointing out that he used the jewish calendar as well, by your logic this means he's jewish as well. Is he? No? Then, I guess your argument is refuted. If you don't get it, let me recap.

      Your logic:
                  al-K uses P calendar=He's a P
   by same logic  al-K also uses J calendar=He's a J

Is it true? Then I guess Jidan successfully refuted that argument of yours. MB 21:06, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


Ali, we may specualte alot about al-k ancestors. So lets say he is : arab mathematician with persian ancestory. Since nobody calls a person from baghdad today persian. How is this? Jidan 22:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Salam. The thing is Baghdad was a major multi-cultural city back then. I even have several travellers book and before the British took over Iraq and the era of Arab Ba'athist nationalism, there was a relatively good sized Iranian population in Baghdad and Basra and other Iraqi cities. About Iraq during Abbassid times though all the following groups are mentioned: Zangis (Blacks), Turks (Mot'asem the Caliph was half Turk), Berbers, Iranians (from all over Iran and also native Kurds from Mosul and etc), Assyrians, Greeks and of course Arabs. I am more concerned here for the sake of the truth. That is why the evidences I brought are all from ancient sources. So I would actually concur with the statement: "A muslim mathematican, likely of Persian Ancestory". But note the argument here is not just about al-Khawarizmi. Many Arab scientists of probable "Arab" ancestory would also fall under this rule and then we would have to use the word "probable" in many enteries. Again I think what is important here is to mention the ancient sources (Biruni, Tabari, Ibn Nadeem, Qazi Sa'ed Al-Andalusi). Even if you have an argument against ancient sources, you must provide counter sources. Else all we have are ancient sources that claim he was from Chorasmia, people of Chroasmia are Persians, he used Persian dates and calendar, he had Al-Majoosi as one of his title.. The thing is, even if you have problem with such sources, they are the only ones that are available to mankind to make a decision about his ethnicity. So even if Al-Khawarizmi was an Italian for example, it would not matter, since mankind today has only the sources I mentioned and based on those sources they will make a decision and those sources are strong indicators of Persian background. (Ali Doostzadeh)


Al-Biruni's exact statement

اهل خوارزم، و ان کانوا غصنا من دوحۀ الفارس

The exact translation:
"The Ahl-e-Khawarazm (The people of Khawarazm), They are a branch(Ghosan) of the Persian tree (dawhat)". This is further corroborated by the calendar and names of months used in Khawarazm and recorded by Biruni.

َ:: Ibn Nadeem mentions that Al-Khawarazmis asl (origin) is from Khawarizm. Unless anyone has a legitimate proof from ancient sources to counter these, (also add the al-majoosi by Tabari and the use of Persian days and celandar by Al-andalusi), then there is no further argument. All we have are ancients source to make judgements about his ethnicity. Else if we want to tamper with every ancient source, then then ethnic doubt can be cast on a host of Arab or English or many other groups of scientists. Also I hope Jidan knows that I am not one of those Iranians that bashes Arabs and infact I give credit where credit is due. I have a good deal of Arab friends and that is why I did not act emotional on this subject. I have full respect for him here, but his arguments are lacking and there is not even one indicator to claim him as anything else but Persian. At the same time, the Kurdish guy from Turkey (which is weired because anyone that is an Iranian is also a pride of Kurds as well just like every Iranian is proud of any accomplished Kurd) and Nora hate Iranians and so even if Al-Khawarizmi wakes up from his grave and tells them he is Iranian, they would not budge. Either way , the available evidences point to a Persian root. One can not take the statement of Biruni lightly since he was born in the same area and his many statements have been always considered authoritative. In the end, I wanted to say that of course both Arabs and Persians were responsible for the great Islamic civilization, which is a common heritage of both of these groups. So for example Ibn-Arabi belongs as much as to the Iranian world as Avicenna belongs to the Arabic world although one comes from an Arab region and the other from an Iranian region. But I feel personally that it is wrong with this much evidence to rob Al-Khawarizmi of his Khawarzmian roots.

11 March 2006 (UTC) (Ali Doostzadeh)
No Ali, i know that you aren't one of those that bashes Arabs, you have good reasons to believe that he was persian. I think the difference between you and me is, that you want to call him persian becasue his ancestors were likely persian, and I want to call him arab because of where he lived (arabic culture) and because all his work was in Arabic. Jidan 06:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. The point though is that Baghdad was definitely a multi-cultural city as mentioned by many many sources and did not have just an Iraqi-Arab culture. Just look at how many of the caliphs had different ethnic mothers and how many of their vazirs were Persians or other ethnic groups. Or look at Arabic music instruments, many of them are Persian in origin. The abbassids were even put in power by Persians and their system of ruling and taxation and administration owes its heritage to the Sassanid. And many many other aspects that show the pluralism of Baghdad at that time. Also your criterion again is not sufficient to make him arab. By your definition, if I learn arabic, then I become Arab. This is not true, since I am speaking English and I am not an English. My asl is Irani just like Al-Khawarazmi's asl is Irani. On the particular region of Khawarizm, we have only information indicating that the area was Persian and no one has shown even one evidence that people of Khawarizm were anything else but Iranians. Biruni was from the same area. Writing in Arabic which was the scientific language of the time does not make one Arab, just like thousands of europeans who wrote in latin, were not latins. For example there is probably more Persian texts from India than Iran proper during several hundred years of Moghul rule there. The reason is that Persian became the lingua franca in India. Yet I would not call these Indians as Iranians. Also for example the Iranian Buwayids and the Turkic seljuqs ruled Baghdad for a long time. But these are not considered Arabs either. A good example perhaps is the stories of Hezar o Yek Shab or the thousand and one nights. Most of the stories are of Persian and Indian origin and many of the names like Shahrzad and Shahryar are Persian. Yet there are some arab, berber, greek and etc. stories as well. So Baghdad was not solely an arab city and it was the NY city of its time. I have shown ample proof that Baghdad was very multi-cultural city at that time. If you also consider that Sassanids ruled the area for a long time and large number of Persians (along with Zanj (blacks), Turks, Berbers, Assyrians, Greeks, perhaps Khuz(elamite) and other Iranians like Kurds) were present. Also you simply say Arabic culture but there is no Arabic culture since for example the culture of Morrocco is very different than that of say Yemen and they are both different than that of Sudan. There is only an Arabic language and language is not sufficient to define culture. And the point is that writing in Arabic at that time does not make one an Arab and one language does not mean a single group. For example Kurds speak variety of dialects some mutually unintelligble yet they share similar culture and are Kurds. Or the Irish and the English today speak the same language, but they simply hate each other and I am sure there is a lot of wikipedia enteries where they are battling out. So I think both your criterions are wrong. Baghdad was multi-cultural and writing in a language does not imply anything about roots. I think the statement of Ibn-Nadeem should definitely be part of the article. The root and ethnicity of Al-Khawarazmi is from Chorasmia and this is important for people to know. (Ali Doostzadeh)


You can`t deny a man`s ethnicity just because you admire him, or the fact that he was forced to write in Arabic.Zmmz 06:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Arabic was just the scientific language of the time. Just like English is today and perhaps Chinese will be tommorow (Ali Doostzadeh)


Ok. Lets make an analogy. If a person from Iran goes to NewYork(baghdad back then was NY of its time), lives his whole life in NY and writes his all his books there and all in english. Wouldnt you say that this man is "American with persain ancestory"? You see, thats why I want to call Al-khwarizimi "arab mathematican with persian ancestory". Jidan 07:23, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

No, he would be called Iranian living in NY.Zmmz 07:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

If the person is born in American and raised there as well but happens to have Persian parents, she would be an American of Persian origin. But if the person was born and raised in Iran and moved to American in a later age (like me) then she would be an Iranian living in America.Gol 08:25, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Unlike the word "persian", the word "arab" is loosely defined. It can mean an egyptian, lebanon, sudan, yemen, etc. In fact, "arab" is not anymore an ethnic description!!. Jidan 07:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Jidan, it seems Arab editors disagree with you: They define an Arab along ethnic lines: [9] --Zereshk 08:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, this means I am not an Arab!! ;-).
From Arab article: Ethnic identity: someone who considers himself to be an Arab (regardless of racial or ethnic origin) and is recognized as such by others. Jidan 08:18, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
And what about this?--Zereshk 08:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
According to that dictionary I am not Arab, but I am!!. So which one will you believe, me or a dictionary? ;-) Jidan 09:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
So I take it you are saying that Meriam Webster is not to be trusted then?--Zereshk 09:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Meriam also says an Arab is a member of an Arabic-speaking people. Jidan 09:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Really, hhmm, that`s news to me, because I have the lates edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary in front of me, and it says, Persian born...hhmmm.Zmmz 10:57, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

But they also give an ethnic definition. My Arabic teacher used to say the same thing: "If you speak Arabic, youre an Arab". But the fact of the matter is that "Arabness" has heavy ethnic tones to it, as seen by Arabs themselves, whether you deny it or not. I wonder what people like Gamal Abdel naser would say if they were still alive.
Also, I'm not going to interject in this debate. But I dont buy the "he was from an Arab tribe that migrated to Khwarazm" argument. People forget that right up until the Islamic conquest (immediately before Khwarazmi's time), the capital of the Sassanid Persian empire was right next to where Baghdad sits. That's why some Iraqi cities still today retain their Persian names. (e.g. al-Anbar)--Zereshk 09:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
This matter has been discussed 1001 times. Scroll through the discussion archives. Jidan 10:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
May I also point out that some of the discussions and sources were deleted by certain users(I know who), because they didn't "like" it. Jidan 10:31, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Regardless: Meriam Webster is the English Language's most prestigious dictionary. Dismissing it is simply a bad idea.
Also, you can be sure that this dispute will continue for another 1001 cycles. That's why I told Zmmz I choose not to get involved in it: It goes in cycles. It's a pointless debate. Have fun.--Zereshk 10:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
We have agreed to disagree and the main article shows that! Jidan 11:01, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

That is fine, but it has nothing to do with Al Khwarizmi being Persian.Zmmz 07:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Advice to all: Whatever you put in the article, immediately cite it! Experience shows that your text will otherwise be challenged, changed, and deleted by some user later on, no matter how factual or obvious it is.--Zereshk 08:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brief cooling off

I'm protecting this article for a few hours because things are getting a little heated. Please use the time to cool off and discuss how best to describe thinking on Al-Khwarizmi's ethnicity by reference to reliable sources. --Tony Sidaway 19:18, 11 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Here is summary

Due to constant re-editing, manipulation of words and deletions by different users, I have put up the strong evidence of Khawarazmi's Persian origin here: http://www.azargoshnasp.net/wikipedia/khawarazmi.htm [10]

If the other side has proof (and not just hypothetical argument) from ancient sources to counter the claims of the above mentioned article, they should bring it forth. Else, I believe the constant revision of the page should stop.

--Ali doostzadeh 19:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks your reasearch together with Dr. Jeff Oaks's article should settle this. —Ruud 19:59, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Wonderful work. It is settle once and for all.Iranian Patriot 20:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow, great work R. Koot to find the research done by Jeff Oaks of University of Indianapolis that shows once and for all Al Khwarizmi was Persian. ThanksZmmz 04:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Uhhh, SouthernComfort found that a few days ago... —Ruud 04:11, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arab mathematician - Articles

University of Colorado: http://autocww.colorado.edu/~blackmon/E64ContentFiles/Mathematics-Algebra,etc./algebra.htm

By Joseph W. Dauben: http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/lehman/enews/2005_02_28/quo_dauben.html (Distinguished Professor, History)
By J. Lennart Berggren(professor): http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/html/id.phtml?id=15655


 IMPORTANT: Exam paper on History of Mathematics: http://public.csusm.edu/aitken_html/m330/guide3.pdf


Encyclopedias:

I am preparing a website to disprove all Ali doostzadeh evidences. I am not doing this for wikipedia, but for the sake of challenging my friend Ali. ;-) hahahaJidan 08:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem with your first source is that it does not have any refrences. Whereas Professor's Jeff Oaks article is full of refrences to various historical books. Indeed there is absolutely no historical background given in your article. But either way I will personally contact (if I can find their address) the two Profesors you mentioned and see what they have to say on this matter.

--Ali doostzadeh 16:43, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


As Per Encyclopedia Britannica check out this link: [11]. I will contact Britannica and both of those Professor's soon. Thanks for the reminder, but the corrections will bee soon in those sources as well :))
I have also found another evidence of Al-Khawarazmi using Persian formulation. In the book of Al-Tabaghat Al-Umum we read: Al-Khawarazmi made some changes in the Sindhind system and deviated from its relations and declinations; he adopted the Persian system in formulating his equation and relied on the method of Ptolemy for determining the declination of the Sun.. The people of Khawarazm (where Khawarzmi is from) are a branch of Persians. What people forget here is that there was large number of Persians not only in Baghdad, but even in Egypt. For example Ibn-Battubah mentions that all the Sufi lodges in Egypt are inhabited by Persians. So any weired and unprobable method on assigning ethnic background can definitely work both ways. Specially in Baghdad which was a major multi-cultural city.

--Ali doostzadeh 16:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I have already contacted Britannica yesterday. —Ruud 17:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I also contaced Encarta. I am not sure how to contanct columbia's encyclopedia. --Ali doostzadeh 17:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I bet they will tell you all different things. But I think most agree that he was born in baghdad. Jidan 18:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
The thing is we need to show from ancient sources he was born in Baghdad. Also being Born in Baghdad doesn't say anything about his ethnicity since Baghdad was the NY of the time. Actually I have found another source that he had something to do with the court of Khazaras as well(Al-Moqaddessi). Also can you or anyone else translate this:

خزانة أمير المؤمنين مع إنه يقول حدثني سلام المترجم أن الواثق بالله لما رأى في المنام كأن السد الذي بناه ذو القرنين بيننا وبين ياجوج وماجوج مفتوح وجهني وقال لي عاينه وجئني بخبره، وكان الواثق وجه محمد بن موسى الخوارزمي المنجم إلى طرخان ملك الخزر وضم إلي خمسين رجلاً ووصلني بخمسين ألف دينار وأعطاني ديتي عشرة آلاف درهم وأمر بإعطاء كل واحد من الخمسين ألف درهم ورزق سنة وأعطاني مائتي بغل تحمل الزاد والماء

Does it say Al-khawarazmi was also astronemer in the court of Khazars as well?
--Ali doostzadeh 19:14, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
See [12], at the bottom. —Ruud 19:35, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. The text above said the same thing also and mentions that the Caliph Wathiq sent Khawarazmi to the Kaghan's court. So it seems Khawarazmi spent a little time in the Khazars court as well. Which shows that he was one of the greatest scholars of all time. "Muhamad ibn Musa Al Khwarizmi works in Khazarian Kagan's palace, sent there by Caliph Al-Wathiq". BTW I emailed the two mathematicans mentioned by Jidan and I am awaiting their reply. As I mentioned many times, there is absolutely no historical sources that refer to him as an Arab, but there are sufficient historical sources that indicate he was Persian. The book by Al-andalusi mentions twice that "He used Persian calendars and days, and he used Persian formulations for calculating the trajectory of the stars". It is very rare and extremly doubtful for an Arab to be familiar with such Persian texts and Persian Astrology/Astronomy. It is like an American knowing Japanese for instance since the two languages(Persian and Arabic) are group differently, one being semetic and the other indo-european. Recently there was an excavation of astronimical observatory from Pars province in Persia dated in Sassanid times. There is also mention by Al-Andalusi that the Persians excelled above all nations (at the time) in astronomy. I must say though that Jidan's article had absolutely no historical sources whereas Professor Oak's had about 50 historical references. Also there is are no historical source that mentions he was born in Baghdad on the other hand there is clear source that mentions his origin is from Khawarazmia (Ibn Nadeem). Also being born in Baghdad does not mean much since Baghdad at that time consisted of Arabs, Persians, Turks, Berbers, Zangs, Greeks and hosts of other ethnic groups. --Ali doostzadeh 19:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Interesting point by Professor Oaks. In Sasanian Persia, astrology played a fundamental role in the lives of the ruling class. This is in contrast to the Arab Muslims, who were warned by the Prophet himself to avoid study the subject, for it leads to divination. [22] Thus astrology played only a minor role under the Ummayads. [23] It is with the Persian revival under the ‘Abbasids that astrology became an integral part of Islamic court life. Imitating the Sasanian kings, the caliphs from al-Mansur on hired astrologers to cast horoscopes, foretell events, and to glorify their reigns by writing astrological histories. So Al-Khawarazmi who is of course of an Iranian Chorasmian background used persian dates, calendars and formulations of star. A good read on Zoroastrian astrology and astronomy may be found here: http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Din/astrologybundahishn.pdf
Interestinly enough Qazi Al-Andalusi in his Tabaghat Al-Umam mentions: The most noted traits of the Persians are the following: their great interest in the study of medicine and their profound knowledge of the positions of stats and the effect of stars on the lower world.

--Ali doostzadeh 20:07, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Khwarizm, Chorasm, Khorezmia, etc.

I'm still reading Svat Soucek's History of Inner Asia, but I'm becoming increasingly sceptical of the Persian editors' insistence on Khwarizmi "Persianness". The Chorasmians apparently spoke a dialect related to Sogdian, an Indo-European language, and lived mainly on the Turkic side of the Oxus river (now the Amu Darya). They were not subject to the Sassanids; the Oxus was the usual border of the Persian province of Khorasan. After the Islamic conquest of Khorasan, the Islamic forces pushed into Transoxania, into historically non-Sassanid territory, and after much hard fighting, managed to subdue the Chorasmians. Al-Khwarizmi may have been descended from the conquered peoples, or the conquerors, or both, IF he came from that area rather than the village close to Baghdad -- but even if he were descended from the Chorasmians, it's not clear that this constitutes Persianness. There seems to be some movement afoot, in articles like Iranian nations and Greater Iran, to claim any group speaking a language related to Persian as Persian or Iranian. If no further qualifications are added, Iranian as "language group" is conflated with Iranian as "citizen of Iran" and a covert case for irredentism is made. I object to politically-motivated sloppy use of language. Zora 01:11, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Your object is kind of silly. And yes the Sassanid border was fluid as well. Please stop playing with the term "may" and show proof. There is no record of Arab settlements in Khawarazm and you guys failed miserabely in showing any Arab settlements in the area. Biruni also hit it right on the nail. It is funny that you do not say Soghdian and Chorasmian were Iranian languages. But you just mentioned Indo-European! This show again your anti-Iranian bent. Yes Chorasmian is not exactly modern Tehrani Persian, but it is an Iranian language as recorded by Abu Rayhan Biruni and the people there as Abu Rayhan Biruni said are a branch of Persian. In fact the language is closer to Avesta since it is eastern Iranian. Also you are wrong, the area was not Turkic at all. Chorasmanians as Al-Biruni said are a branch of Persians (Al-Fors) and Abu Rayhan Biruni had zero knowledge of Turkic as he himself has said in his book and he was from the area. The area slowly became turkified during the Seljuq era. But the mongols finished off the Iranian culture there. What you say , is like claiming ancient Greek philosophers to be Turkic! Now as to your point, the Achaemenids, Sassanids, Parthians controlled a good portion of Arabic speaking world. So by your silly definition I can consider any modern Iraqi, Anatolian, Caucasian, Yemenes as a Persian since they may have been descendants of the large number of Iranians at one time from the area! Or for example Newton can be considered a Roman because the Roman empire extended there at one time. Nope it doesn't work like that and you should definitely take a course on logic. What we know is that Chorasmia spoke Chorasmian Iranian language, they considered themselves a branch of Persians and Al-Khawarazmi was a native from the area, he used Persian dates, months and formulation of stars, his ephiphet was Al-Majoosi. In fact just speaking the modern Tehrani version of Persian is not the only definition of Persian. Or else by your definition the Achaemenid, Sassanids and etc. were not Persians. Or the Zoroastrians of Yazd who have their own distinct Persian dialect different from Tehrani Persian probably by your silly definiton are not Persian although they consider themselves as Persian. For example the term Arab now does not just mean speakers of classical Arabic but there are many dialects from Morroco, Lebanese, Egyptian, Iraqi and so on. If Abu Rayhan Biruni who was native son of Chorasmia considered Chorasmians as a branch of Persians (Iranians), then who are you to argue? In the old days descendants of Iranian speaking Zoroastrians are equivalently called Persians and were known as Persians. So the definition of Persian is fluid and encompasses large groups of Iranian speakers like the Tajiks, Bactrians, Khorasanis, Mazandaranis, Esfahanis, and many different regions of Persia. The modern Persian language is a descendant of the Khorasani middle Persian dialect with influences from Chorasmian and Soghdian. What you say here is really invalid, and it is like calling a host of German scientists non-Germans, because originally the term German applied to one tribe of the Germanic people! The term Iranian and Persian were equivalent in middle ages and largely today too. For example my native language is not modern Tehrani Persian and yet I consider myself Persian since it is closer to Middle Persian or Pahlavi. If you have a problem with the word "Persian" here and are confused about its definition, then the term Iranian is sufficient although historically the two terms have been equivalent from atleast the Sassanid onward. That is why Mahmud Kashghari, the Turk, also refers to the Soghdians as Persians (Al-Fors). The term Turk by the way has the same definition problem, but I don't see you jumping up and down. For example Uighyurs, Oghuz, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kirghiz are all different groups that are deemed Turk. Al-Khawarazmi is Iranian from Chorasmia (khawarazm).
Anyways if this user objects to the term Persian (which has a fluid definition), then the term Iranian Chorasmian can be subsituted, since the Chorasmian language is an Iranian language and the people there were Zoroastrians before the Islamic invasion, as mentioned by Biruni. But Abu Rayhan Biruni, who has some Persian books as well, is best authority on this matter and not Zora. He explicitly says that the people of Khawarazm are a branch of Persian. And modern scholars have clearly shown that Khawarazmian language is an Iranian language and during the middle ages, the two terms, Iranian and Persian were equivalent for the Greeks, Arabs, Turks and Iranians and more importantly the native of Khawarazms themselves viewered themselves as a branch of Persians. --Ali doostzadeh 03:06, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
How do you know how the Chorasmians viewed themselves? So far, I haven't run across any references to surviving literature. Is there any? I'm interested :) Zora 03:27, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Read Biruni's exact statement as provided by my link above. I have brought the Arabic as well with the date and publisher. It translated to: "The people of Khawarazm, they are a branch of Persians..". It is that simple. And Biruni incase you do not know, is a native son of Chorasmia. And no he wasn't Turkic either as I have shown elsewhere.

Oh, you have, but to you choose to turn a blind eye. I understand if it those literature are of no use to you, because they don`t serve your purpose. Good LuckZmmz 04:12, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

What now Zora? Why after being proved that you have controversial political views that are mostly some sort of weird pro-Islamic propaganda, you are still here flooding these discussion pages with rhetoric? When was the last time you saw a culture who spoke a certain language for the past 2500 years, who to this date still speak it, and still keeps certain traditions related to that language alive, as being not related to the language and traditions in question in any way? The language and tradition of Persians are still being kept alive by ancient Khwarizmians, who are modern day Uzbeks. So, what happened to the wild claims that they are mixed Arabs? Any author can write a book and state his or her opinions, but where are your legitimate sources like a major encyclopedia? Do we have to spend more of our time to bring a case against you in front of the Arbitration Committee for inserting political views into an article?Zmmz 01:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually Uzbeks can not be considered the cultural descendants of ancient Khwarizmians since the Khawarazmians viewed themselves a branch of Persians and they were Iranian speakers and not Turkic speakers. The Uzbeks are descendants of Changhiz Khan although like all other people, they have mixed with different groups. The Iranian speakers like the Tajik and other Iranian people are the true descendants of Khawarazmians and Soghdians. In fact the Tajiks(Persians) of Badakhshan still speak dialects directly descendant of Soghdian (Yaghnobi, Roshni and some other dialects) and modern Persian also owes much to Khawarazmian/Soghdian Iranian dialects since it evolved from Khorasan. But the Uzbeks are a Turkic people although the main cities of Bukhara, Samarqand and large areas of Ferqanah are today inhabited by Tajiks (Persians). --Ali doostzadeh 03:06, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] He was Persian

Every single source that I have seen on the internet states that he was of Persian descent.

[edit] It's That Simple

 * New York is an American city. Therefore New Yorkers are Americans, no matter where there ancestors come from. 
 * Baghdad is an Arab city. Therefore Baghdadi’s are Arabs, no matter where there ancestors come from.
 ** Al-Khwarizmi was a citizen of Baghdad. Therefore he is an Arab, no matter where his ancestors come from. IT'S THAT SIMPEL!!


You Iranians are really wasting your time. If you want to be proud of yourselves, then you should instead look for scientists that:

  • wrote in your language (NOT Arabic) or,
  • lived in your cities (NOT Baghdad) or,
  • ruled by your kings (NOT the Arab caliphates).


It's that simple! Being an arab is not a race term but a culture term or something like that. On its formation in 1946, the Arab League defined an "Arab" as follows:

"An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples."

.

This should be the end of this useless discussion about his ethnicity.

Jidan 05:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

None of those reasons point to the ethnicity of someone who was born in a country that was under an invading Arab empire. It has nothing to do with origins. Ninty percent of Islamic era scientists like Avicenna came from Khwarizm, and Khorasan, Persia, and were Persian.Zmmz 06:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


to Jidan

First of all you are being very rude. Please be a little more considerate. Would you like me to say you have no business being proud of and Iraqi Arab from Baghdad since the city has a Persian name? your logic is similar to that.

Just because he wrote in Arabic does not mean he was an Arab. AVICENNA, who you yourself agreed was a Persian, also wrote in Arabic. For years the Egyptians had to obey the Turkish rulers of Ottoman. Do you like me to question their being Arab? You might be able to question him being Persian, if there is not enough evidence, but you can not label him as Arab just because he wrote Arabic or lived in Baghdad. I live in American and I speak English but I am not American.

If you want to have credibility as an editor stop getting all emotional and saying things that I believe even you yourself know is not accurate. All the Kurds of Iraq are living in an Arab country. Dare and tell them that they are Arab!!

Gol 07:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

@Gol, im really sorry if I seemed rude.

  • AVICENNA was not a citizen of baghdad. he is persian.
  • Al-biruni was not a citizen of baghdad he is persian.

Baghdad is a persian name, but Tehran is an arab name! Kurds are not Arabs. The Kurds region is in the north of Iraq and not in baghdad. To be an Arab you dont need to have the DNA of an Arab. Jidan 07:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


So, so far you can cross out your reasoning that he wrote in Arabic, therefore, let`s consider him an Arab, since all these Persian scientists you mentioned above had to write i Arabic too. But, while you`re at it, why don`t you go and cross out your above rational too, since all these Persian scientists you mention above at one point lived in Baghdad too, since the invading Arab Caliphate commissioned them for research, just like they commissioned---guess who? The Persian Al Khwarizmi. Take-careZmmz 07:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


I don’t know what you mean by Kurds don’t live in Baghdad!! What I meant was that there are people who live in an Arab country but are not Arabs such as Kurds so your argument that Kharazmi was an Arab because he lived in an Arab country is not credible. Not every citizen of an Arab country or every subject of and Arab ruler is an Arab. Just as not every subject of Persian empire was Persian. You can question him being Persians but these reason you mentioned are not enough to name him Arab and I think you personally know it. And who talked of DNA? I think I was the first person who argue against it!! your frined Zora was Passionately arguing about possible mixing in Chorassan!

Also

“Baghdad is a Persian name, but so is Tehran!” ?????

I hope you understand what you mean here! if you do then please tell me!

Gol 07:38, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I meant ofcourse: Baghdad is a persian name, but Tehran is an arab name! Jidan 07:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Really? I have never heard of that, what does it mean? Do you know? I am actually really interested to know!

Back to the issue at hand, What is your objection to the rest of my message? Are you arguing that any citizen of an Arab country is an Arab or every subject of an Arab ruler is an Arab? Do you consider Kurds of Iraq and Syria to be Arab? Does that go for the other ethnicities as well? You consider the Egyptians under the ottoman rules to be Turks? Again you might not be able to call him Persian but these reasons are not enough to call him Arab either.

Gol 07:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

@Gol, if you want to understand what I mean then do the following: 1) find an Arab from khusztan or a turk from Tabriz, or an azri from azerbyjan 2) Tell me what is written in the front page of their passport?

I guess .....it should be Iran, although they are ethnicaly not Iranians(Aryans). Being arab is just like being iranian(aryan), its not a race term but a culture term or something like that.

ahaa you didn't know about the arabic origin of tehran? Tehran was actually spelled like this: طهران which meaned clean. Becasue of anti-arab racist feelings your governement changed it to تهران. Just like they changed many other places which sounded arabic.And just like you whant to change the ethnicity of Al-khwarzmi. Jidan 08:17, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Tehran is an arab name! Kurds are not Arabs..hhhmmm? Zmmz 07:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah but that still has little to with Baghdad, and is not even comparable to it. This is because for 1200 years before Arabs invaded Persia, Iraq used to be Babylon, and it was the adminstrative capital of the first Persian dynasty, then it became the actual capital of the next two dynasties, like the Parthians. Even Elamites who were one of ancestors of Iranians were from Babylon. Later on Arabs invaded Persia and Arabs moved in the area, hence, the modern country of Iraq. Also, Baghdad was built by a Persian architect named Mushallah. Of course the name Baghdad is Persian too, as well as even ironically the Faroud square, which was the site that was shown all over the news in which a man beat up the statue of Saddam with his shoe, is named after the poet who single handedly revived Persian culture, and caused the Arabs to be driven out; that would be Ferdowsi. But that`s just icing on the cake. So, as you can see this is not just a naming issue. Did Arabs build Tehran? ThanksZmmz 08:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


First of all stop the bad language please. Do not label anyone as racist it is very insulting.

I disagree with your trying to describe "Arab" as an nationality since it is not the case. it is an ethnicity. not related to DNA as I said before but related to culture and native language. sorry but while I am not convinced that Kharazmi was Persian, I am not convinced that he was Arab either. How do you know he practiced Arab culture and not Persian or Turkish? How do you know he spoke Arabic as the first language and not Persian or Turkish? You are doing now what you were complaining about a few days ago, people simply putting their POV without accepting legitimate criticism. I wonder if Zora who was so upset about both sides not being presented properly will come here and argue with you as passionately as she did with Iranian editors!


This is not really relevant but since you brought the example of Iran I wanted to clarify this.

The term Iran has two meanings, one is racial (Aryan) the other one is national (citizen of Iran) Arabs of Khuzestan or other non Aryans are considered to be Iranian (citizens of country Iran) but not Aryan. The same goes for many other countries. German is not only the name of the nationality but name of a race too. Black people of Germany are citizens of Germany and therefore German but they are not Germanic people. these days most when you hear the term Iranian, it is a reference to Citizens of Iran and rarely it is a reference to Iranian people ( speakers of Iranian languages) same goes for German.


and thanks for the Tehran info! the meaning of the word "Tehran" was something I was always confused about! I dont know how accurate it is since I had heard something different but your version sounds equally possible.

Gol 10:48, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

@Gol

On it's formation in 1946, the Arab League defined an "Arab" as follows:

"An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples."

.Jidan 12:40, 13 March 2006 (UTC)



Jidan your definiton does not hold any ground. Many people all over the world even in the mideast, China and India now write in English and some even solely in English. So there goes your first definition. The second definition is also false, since Baghdad was not an Arab city back then, but it was a major multi-cultural city with Arabs, Turks, Berbers, Zangs, Persians, Greeks and you name it. The third definition is also baseless, because the Vazirs of the Abbassid had more power and for the most of the Abbassid dynasty, it was the Iranian Daylamites and then the Seljuqid Turks that had the real power. Note who put the Abbassids in power, an Iranian by the name of Abu Moslem Khorasani. Note how according to all sources the Abbassids adopted a Sassanian model of ruling and did not follow the traditions of Ummayads. Note how many of the Abbassids had foreign mothers (probably the majority of them). The very fact that Al-Khawarazmi comes from Khawarazm (Ibn Nadeem), he used Persian dates, calendar and formulation, he was involved in astronomy/astrology (and astrology is definitely not an Arab or even Islamic orthodox tradition but it is a Zoroastrian tradition) is sufficient to make him a Persian. The chances of an Arab being familiar with Zoroastrian astrology, dates and calendar is zero. And chances of an Arab having an ephipet of Al-Majoosi is zero. The changes of an Arab being native of KHawarazm is also zero, since there has not been any evidence of even a single Arab colony in the region! Note how the other colleagues of Al-Khawarazmi, like Nawbakht were also Persian. The al-Majoosi part btw makes perfect sense if we consider the fact that he practiced the art of astrology, since this was a Zoroastrian practice.
BTW the name Tehran is relatively new (probably at most from the Safavid dynasty and most likely from Qajar dynasty) and the old name is Ray (old Persian Ragha) and the people from there are called "raazi" like Zakariya raazi and Fakhruddin raazi. As per the spelling both تهران and طهران were used in Persian and since in Persian both T/t are pronounced the same, the government adopted just one convention. As per de-Iranianizing, you can see that all over the Arab world with the fake name of Arabian Gulf and the fact that Saddam kicked out 500,000 Iranians and massacared many Kurds who are also Iranians. BTW can you prove that Ibn-Khaldun considered himself an Arab? Ibn Khaldun is a Tunisian, but he had very rough words for Arabs and he differentiates throughout his text between "mo'arrab"(arabized) and an "arab" (Arab-Bedouin).

--Ali doostzadeh 16:09, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I have also something to add about the origin of the name "Tehran". Tehran used to be a village till a few centuries ago. "Shamiran" was another one close to it located in a higher altitude, thus colder now a part of Tehran). The part "Shami-" in the latter name means "cold", and as far as I remember the other part of the word means "place". Tehran was a warmer place, so people used to move to there during colder months of the year. According to this information, they guess that "Teh-" in Tehran meant "warm". --Nimak 20 July 2006

[edit] Legacy of the Persian Scientist

Here is something that is so relevant to the discussion about Al Kwarizmi, and the ancient Persian city of Khwarizm (Transoxiana, modern Khiva, Uzbekistan). It says a lot about the Persian Scientists in Islam, like Avicenna, Al Biruni, Al Razi, Al Tabari, Al Tusi, Sibawayh, al-Farisi, Al-Hamadani, Al-Karaji, Al-Ghazali and others. As a historian, Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 AD) who was an Arab is ranked among the best in history; truly one of the most respected scholars produced by the Arabs. To understand why Arab nationalists, or pan-Arabists feel uncomfortable with Ibn Khaldun, one has to read a direct quote from his work, The Muqaddimah Translated by F. Rosenthal (III, pp. 311-15, 271-4 [Arabic]; R. N. Frye (p.91):

"…It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars…in the intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs…thus the founders of grammar were Sibawayh and after him, al-Farisi and Az-Zajjaj. All of them were of Persian descent…they invented rules of (Arabic) grammar…great jurists were Persians… only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus the truth of the statement of the propher becomes apparent, 'If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it' …The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them…as was the case with all crafts…This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khorasan and Transoxiana (modern Central Asia), retained their sedentary culture". [The Muqaddimah Translated by F. Rosenthal (III, pp. 311-15, 271-4 [Arabic]; R. N. Frye (p.91)][13]Zmmz 08:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thats why every muslim scientist is automatically persian until otherwise proven.

Its a good sign that you have admitted that Ibn Khaldun is Arab!! Jidan 13:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Ibn Khaldun was one of the very few scholars in the Islamic era that was actually an Arab, and not Persian.Zmmz 03:59, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another ethnic editing war

 * New York is an American city. Therefore New Yorkers are Americans, no matter where there ancestors come from. 
 * Baghdad is an Arab city. Therefore Baghdadi’s are Arabs, no matter where there ancestors come from.
 ** Al-Khwarizmi was a citizen of Baghdad. Therefore he is an Arab, no matter where his ancestors come from. IT'S THAT SIMPEL!!

Being an arab is not an ethnic term, its a culture term. It may have been 1400 years ago an ethnic term, but now its NOT.


The Iranians are really wasting thier time. If they want to be proud of themselves, then they should instead look for scientists that:

  • wrote in their language (NOT Arabic) or,
  • lived in their cities (NOT Baghdad) or,
  • ruled by their kings (NOT the Arab caliphates).


It's that simple! We can speculate about everything,e.g. was alexander the great Iranian? or arab? greek? turk? But who cares??? (maybe the Iranians do) Alexander is affiliated to the greeks, he is greek. Its that simple.

The problem is that Iranians want to start a "ethnic" war on every muslim scientist(e.g. Geber, Alhazen, Al-Farabi, etc). Most Arabs and Turks have agreed not to use ethnics, but instead to use just "Muslim" on all muslim scientists, but ofcourse the Iranians say: NOOOOOOOO, ....how dare you!!!. A scientific name for that behaviour is "inferior complex" .

Now, here we go AGAIN with another ethnic editing war....Thank you very much guys!!

Jidan 16:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


Uumm, I am not sure why would you even mention those scientists you did as Arabs too? Geber certainly may have been an Arab but, Alhazen, and Al-Farabi were all either Persian or Turks. At any rate, actually, no--I don`t know of anyone who has tried to claim the few Arab scientists as Persians. Ibn Khaldun for examle was an Arab historian; that is the only one I can think of right now. Furthermore, one just has to look at the history pages and links of these articles to see how many editors like you have tried to initiate changes in the origin of most of the Persian scientists, and on the other hand they will find no one has tried to claim Arab scientists asPersian. There is no need, those guys were Arabs, and unlike some editors, most users here actually do understand reason, and will never start meaningless wars about scientists who were from another country. There is no use to try to claim scientists from other countries; it`s really sad actually. But, just because it is sad, that does not mean you can go ahead and claim Persian scientists as Arab. It looks desperate. Just be proud of the Arab scholars you mentioned.Zmmz 04:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Jidan stop the bad language it is very annoying and childish. Second those scientists whose ethnicity are unclear are mentioned as just Muslim but those who are clear are mentioned by their ethnicity. Such as Biruni and Avicenna even by Britannic and I don’t think you want to claim you know more.( and don’t tell me some of the Arab editors including your good friend did not try to change that although we had backup from the most legitimate sources! Not all the problems are from the Persian side and you know it) also, definition of Arab in the Arab page is very ambiguous and wrong. Not every citizen of an Arab land is an Arab. People who speak Arabic as their native language and practice Arab culture and consider themselves to be Arab are Arabs and we have no source that claims Kharazmi was such. We have no source against it either which is why we can not mention any ethnicity at the moment. thank you for changing it to just Muslim.

Gol 17:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


Al-Farabi was definitely not an Arab. He was either a Turk or a Persian and both should be mentioned in his biography. Again, Jidan your definiton does not hold any ground. I live in NY and I consider myself Iranian and not American. Many people all over the world even in the mideast, China and India now write in English and some even solely in English. So there goes your first definition. The second definition is also false, since Baghdad was not an Arab city back then, but it was a major multi-cultural city with Arabs, Turks, Berbers, Zangs, Persians, Greeks and you name it. The third definition is also baseless, because the Vazirs of the Abbassid had more power and for the most of the Abbassid dynasty, it was the Iranian Daylamites and then the Seljuqid Turks that had the real power. Note who put the Abbassids in power, an Iranian by the name of Abu Moslem Khorasani. Note how according to all sources the Abbassids adopted a Sassanian model of ruling and did not follow the traditions of Ummayads. Note how many of the Abbassids had foreign mothers (probably the majority of them). The very fact that Al-Khawarazmi comes from Khawarazm (Ibn Nadeem), he used Persian dates, calendar and formulation, he was involved in astronomy/astrology (and astrology is definitely not an Arab or even Islamic orthodox tradition but it is a Zoroastrian tradition) is sufficient to make him a Persian. The chances of an Arab being familiar with Zoroastrian astrology, dates and calendar is zero. And chances of an Arab having an ephipet of Al-Majoosi is zero. The changes of an Arab being native of KHawarazm is also zero, since there has not been any evidence of even a single Arab colony in the region! Note how the other colleagues of Al-Khawarazmi, like Nawbakht were also Persian. The al-Majoosi part btw makes perfect sense if we consider the fact that he practiced the art of astrology, since this was a Zoroastrian practice. BTW the name Tehran is relatively new (probably at most from the Safavid dynasty and most likely from Qajar dynasty) and the old name is Ray (old Persian Ragha) and the people from there are called "raazi" like Zakariya raazi and Fakhruddin raazi. As per the spelling both تهران and طهران were used in Persian and since in Persian both T/t are pronounced the same, the government adopted just one convention. As per de-Iranianizing, you can see that all over the Arab world with the fake name of Arabian Gulf and the fact that Saddam kicked out 500,000 Iranians and massacared many Kurds who are also Iranians. BTW can you prove that Ibn-Khaldun considered himself an Arab? Ibn Khaldun is a Tunisian, he had very rough words for Arabs and he differentiates throughout his text between "mo'arrab"(arabized) and an "arab" (Arab-Bedouin). Again writing in Arabic does not make a Person Arab. Plus Al-Khawarazmi at least wrote some Persian (use of Persian days, calendar and formulation) for his astronomical/astrological observations. I am sorry, but Iranians and Turks do not consider themselves Arabs and perhaps Arabs were able to spread or impose their language in the Arab "world", but Al-Khawarazmi's Chorasmian(Iranian) legacy is of utmost important in the article. Specially since the world Algorism is a corruption of the word Al-Khawarazmi and people should know where Khawarazm was and what language they spoke.

--Ali doostzadeh 16:09, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am also sorry. But as long as you don't have a clear evidence that he is persian, you can't claim him persian. Ibn khaldun for example is Arab, because he wrote in his bioghraphy that he was an Arab! This is where we can be sure of an ethnicity. Jidan 17:26, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

The evidence is clear. His asl(root origin) is from Khawarazm and not Arabia, he used Persian dates and calendar and formulations, he was into zoroastrian astrology, one his ephiphets is Al-Majoosi(Zoroastrian). So his Chorasmian (Iranian/Persian) background must be mentioned in the article. These are all sufficient evidences unless you have something against these evidences from ancient sources. As per your claim, we do not have any text and writing from Khadijah (The Prophets first wife), indicating she was an Arab. But we know she was an Arab since her roots was in Arabia. Same from Khawarazmi. We know so because his roots are from Khawarazmia (as Ibn Nadeem has mentioned) and this is sufficient to make him Iranian unless you have counter evidence from ancient sources that Ibn-Nadeem lied about this issue! But you don't. Khawarazmia was never Arabic and there is absolutely not even one iota of evidence of even a single Arab colony there. The native son of Chorasmia Biruni clearly mentions that the people there are a branch of Persians and he has given the Months, Days and many other native words of Iranian origin in his chronicles. So it is simple. An Arab would not be into Astrology and the chances of an Arab using Persian days, years, formulations and calendar (meaning familiarity with Persian) is virtually null.

--Ali doostzadeh 18:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic name, Persian origin

The Arabic name and the Arabic text already implies that he was an Arab to the uniformed reader. That's why leaving it as "Muslim" is not a viable solution and almost the same as saying he was an Arab when overwhelming evidence suggest otherwise. Persian origin should be mentioned. --ManiF 18:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


The user ManiF has been caught changing the ethnicitys of many arabs to muslims, and arabs to persians. Some extrem examples are Ibn Khaldun who wrote that he was an arab and even traced his famly back to Adam!! Geber, the father of chemistry, from a prominent arab tribe, Alhazen, etc. Its really a shame that some people work so hard to make this encyclopedia reliable and usefull, and others use it for their nationalistic propaganda's. This mentioned user has ZERO credibility. Jidan 19:21, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] He was Persian

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Al-Khwarizmi

http://facstaff.uindy.edu/~oaks/MHMC.htm

http://pedia.nodeworks.com/A/AL/AL-/Al-Khwarizmi

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/al-khwarizmi

I can post hundreds of links that prove Khwarizmi was of Persian origin. His ethnic origin must be included in the article.

I'm pretty sure you can, but are they all copies of the Wikipedia articles, just like three of the links above (see the small text at the bottom of those links). —Ruud 22:14, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New info

I'm still reading the Svat Soucek book on the history of inner Asia -- however, there was some info in there that contradicted stuff I brought up previously. Soucek says that the Arab settlers settled primarily in Khorasan, that is, the territories that had been under the control of the Sassanids. It was only later that the settlers pushed past the Oxus/Amu Darya and conquered lands that had been independent, including Khwarasm. Souckek says that there was almost no Arab settlement in Khwarasm. That reduces the chances that AK was of Arab descent IF we assume that he was from Khwarasm. It still leaves open the question of an origin near Baghdad -- it's possible that he could have been born to a man, or a family from Khwarasm, that settled near Baghdad.

Given the acrimony and the attacks, it's hard to say that I was wrong, but I have to follow truth where it leads me.

However, I do have increasing doubts about the claims that he was PERSIAN. Given that Khwarasm had been independent of the Sassanids and that they did not speak Middle Persian but a language related to Sogdian, I'm wondering in what sense the word Persian is being used. It seems to be related to irredentist claims to Greater Iran -- that is, nationalist claims that every area where a language from the Iranian branch of Indo-European is spoken should be part of a Greater Iran. I've noticed that many of the editors who are claiming AK as "Persian" are involved in other Iran-related articles where they feel that they are battling "Pan-Turks" and "Pan-Arabs". If there's something wrong with Turkish irredentism, why is Iranian irredentism better? Instead of trying to stamp Ak with the title "Persian", it seems to me that it would be better to be exact -- say that he was possibly a Mesopotamian native, and possibly an immigrant, or descendant of immigrants, from Khwarazm, a recently conquered Central Asian state that spoke a language related to Middle and Modern Persian. Zora 23:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

'Persian' in here could refer to people of the country, then called Persia. Since it was not called Iran then, it may sound confusing to say he was Iranian. --Kash 23:11, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
It's extremely confusing to use the words Persian and Iranian both for citizens of a state and for people who speak a language in the Iranian family. Citizenship presumably is an attribute of anyone living within certain geographic boundaries, regardless of descent, language, customs, whatever. Language is an attribute that varies independently -- as are religion, descent, and culture, incidentally.

Saying "he was Persian" evokes images of someone from Fars, not of a former "barbarian" from lands outside Sassanid control. That's why I'm suggesting that being more precise would help. Zora 23:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

He was Persian: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Al-Khwarizmi.html Dariush4444 23:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

It's extremely confusing to use the words Persian and Iranian both for citizens of a state and for people who speak a language in the Iranian family. Citizenship presumably is an attribute of anyone living within certain geographic boundaries, regardless of descent, language, customs, whatever. Language is an attribute that varies independently -- as are religion, descent, and culture, incidentally.

Saying "he was Persian" evokes images of someone from Fars, not of a former "barbarian" from lands outside Sassanid control. That's why I'm suggesting that being more precise would help. Zora 23:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

It's extremely confusing that you try feverishly to confuse the reader about the ethnicities of Persians Zora. Being Persian means being one who is Iranian by blood, or by birth, period. Through out its history, the Persian Empire allowed everybody else to speak their own languages and keep their culture, Iranians themselves, however, were and are always referred to those born and raised in Persia or in the Iranian states like Khwarizm, Khorasan, Mazandaran and others that to this day remain either part of Iran, or in the case of Khwarizm that became part of Russia after they invaded Persia in 1878, and now is Uzbekistan, still speak Persian, are mostly made up of Persians and keep the Persian culture alive. All one needs to do is type the word Uzbekistan in any major encyclopedia. Thank youZmmz 03:35, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


To Zora: First of all Soghd/Khawarazm were never barbaric lands. In Sassanid times, the Hephtalies and Turks were considered Barbarian. Of course the origin of Hephtalites is still not clear. Secondly the Sassanids did not consider practicioners of Zoroastrians as barbarians and Chorasmia was Zoroastrian land before Islam, as Biruni has mentioned. Thirsdly the state of modern Iran did not exist back then, so any user who has done the minimal research(you should not assume that everybody is stupid) will know that the term Iranian here is a ethno-linguistic term and does not refer to the citizen of modern Iran! Just like for example if we consider Homer a Greek poet (which he was), it does not mean that he was a citizen of modern Greece. In fact he was born in modern Turkey more likely, like many other ancient Greek notables. So the users are smart enough to distinguish these facts and there is no need for endless "ایرادات بنی اسرائیلی" bickering.
Finally the term Persian is fluid and the Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Chinese, Armenians and the Western World have used it for a variety of Iranian speakers. Just like for example originally the term German just referred to one Germanic tribe and for example Goths and Vandals were not "Germans", yet they are considered Germanic. It is the same issue here, and the definition of the word Persian, has different meaning in different contexs. For example geographically it could mean someone from Pars province or all of ancient Persian that was Iranian speaking land. Now the main issue about any ethnic identification is what a group considers itself. Besides the well known fact that the Chorasmians were Iranian speakers and had Zoroastrian heritage (Biruni), the greatest scholar of Khawarazmia, that is Abu Rayhan Biruni considered the people of Khawarazm to be a branch of Persians. That is best of definitions since a speaker and native of the land has spoken.


As per your "new information", it is not that new in my opinion and I have mentioned that there is no evidence of any arab settlements in Chorasmia many times. And no one has brought any proof either. (and hypothetically if there was, it was minimal and so by judacious probability, Al-Khawarazmi would be called of probable Persian/Iranian origin).
If there was any Arab settlements in Chorasmia, then Abu Rayhan Biruni who wrote extensively on the area would not say "The people of Chorasmia are a branch of Persians" and he would have mentioned any other fact. Further the Arab settlements during Ummayad times in Khorasan was of military nature and many of those Arabs were cleansed out of Khorasan after the Abu-Moslem revolt (see Roman sources, Shi'ite sources and many other sources on this, which is not relavent too this discussion). But the issue of Khorasan does not have much to do with Khawarazmia as this was way further North.

--Ali doostzadeh 02:27, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Please, don't put the words Khwarizmi and the b word in the same sentence again. As an Iranian, I find it offensive! --Kash 23:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More new info

I've tracked down the following article: [14] (for a machine-translation from Dutch to English see [15]). It was written By Prof. Jan P. Hogendijk (homepage publications background on Islamic mathematics) a professor in the history of mathematics at Utrecht University (where I study, he substituted at three or four of the classes which I followed). I agree that a number of people who have been active here are POV pushers, but we now have two sources by professors in the history of mathematics who specialize in Islamic/Arabic mathematics who state the he was Persian. —Ruud 23:26, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your work. Now I think the next step for us to find a way to make Khwarizmi alive again so we can take him as a witness on this talk page? --Kash 23:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Math professors are not necessarily experts on Central Asia, or social science. When they pronounce on ethnicity, they are going outside their area of expertise. Zora 00:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, not really, Math professors are most times qualified to prove another mathematician`s origins, because they read the math books who talk about these mathematicians` in the biography sections. But, at any rate, all these other proofs aside, a famous Arab historian, Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 AD) who was an Arab and is ranked among the best in history; actually is the best proof of them all. He said, ...the truth of the statement of the propher becomes apparent, 'If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it' …The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them…as was the case with all crafts…This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khorasan and Transoxiana (modern Central Asia), retained their sedentary culture". [The Muqaddimah Translated by F. Rosenthal (III, pp. 311-15, 271-4 [Arabic]; R. N. Frye (p.91)][16]. ThanksZmmz 05:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Agree with Zora. I've seen this problem before on wikipedia. I'm not implying Hogendijk is wrong. deeptrivia (talk) 00:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Except that Hogendijk is not just a math prof. but Professor in the History of Mathematics and specializes in Islamic mathematics and wrote the paper "Al-Khwarizmi's table of the ``sine of the hours" and the underlying sine table. Historia Scientiarum 42 (1991), pp. 1-12." Now I'm not saying he's right but I doubt we are going to find more reliable sources than him or on eof his peers. —Ruud 00:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

History of mathematics covers an enormous area and is focussed on mathematics, not ethnicity. The math professors are just slapping on a convenient ethnic label and focussing on what's important: sine curves! Zora 01:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The question is that are you a stronger authority? Funny how you made sweeping judgements on the use of Aryan in the Academia and you were proven wrong by Harvard Professors and many other Professors that used this term freely. The fact of the matter is that these Professors have much higher credentials than me and you. History of Mathematics is actually very detailed science. In fact check out the amount of references used by Prof. Oaks in his article. --Ali doostzadeh 01:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Another point I want to mention again and again and perhaps it did not sink in the first time for some of our dear readers. Astrology is considered "Haram"(unlawfull, sin) in mainstream orthodox Islam. (Do a google search on the word Astrology Haram) [17]. But in Zoroastrianism it was fully accepted, and inherent part of the Zoroastrian culture. It is no wonder people from Zoroastrian lands like Nawbakht, Biruni, Khawarazmi,.... practiced this art and were familiar with it. In fact the Muslim Arabs of Arabia did not have any writing on Astrology and virtually all of Islamic astrology (a contradicting term since astrology is Haram in mainstream Islam) is the continuiation and futher development of Zoroastrian Astrology. There is a saying of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH&HP): "The people who purely believe in fate, are the Majus(Zoroastrians) of the Ummah (Islamic nation)". Zoroastrians in old Hadeeths considered themselves a people who firmly believe in pre-destination and no degree of free-will. The stars and science of astrology was very important and thus in Zoroastrianism in order to read and understand this fate. Qazi Saa'ed Al-Andalusi (from Spain see my above notes) : The mosted noted traits of the Persians are the following: their great interest in the study of medicine and their profound knowledge of the positions of stars and their effect of the starts on the lower world. In medicine of course the example of Avicenna and Rhazes (Raazi) and many others are clear. But less has been written on Zoroastrian Astrology/Astronomy and this deserves a separate topic. I have already brought up important quotes from Al-Andalusi on the use of Persian terminology, dates and calendar in the calculating the positioning of Stars by Al-Khawarizmi. Most people today consider astrology as a psuedo-science (if even that) and mainstream Islam totally forbids it. But in Zoroastrianism, it was a major part component of the culture. So the title al-Majoosi (Zoroastrian) given by some sources to Al-Khawarizmi makes perfect sense in this context as well. Some of the Abbassids Caliphs who were more openminded and had Persian ancestory supported it. For example Al-Mamun who was the patron of Khawarazmi had a Persian mother. In fact the Caliph Mamun was trained and brought up under the Persian Barkamids. His wife was also a Persian by the name of Pooran (the daugher of the Persian scientist Hasan ibn Sahl). The interesting thing is that the next Abbassid caliph, that is Mut'asim was firmly pro-Turkic, because of his Turkic mother and he preferred Turks over Arabs/Persians. So I am not sure how with all this diversity and how with the fact that most of the Abbassid dynasty was either controlled by their Vaziers or later on by Iranian Daylamites and Seljuq Turks, one can call them just an "Arab dynasty"! The true Arab dynasty were the Ummayads.

--Ali doostzadeh 03:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Ok, so AL-K was aslo an astrologist. And since zorostrians were famous for that, Al-tabari(an orthodox muslim scholar) give him the title "al-majosi", although it is certain that Al-K was a muslim. This fitts very well with al-Tabari when he called him by the name: Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khawarazmi Al-Majoosi Al-Qutrubbulil. You have said yourself that Al-tabari testement is very important because he lived a genretion away from Al-K.In another words he could have gone to his son and asked him about his father. Well, then we would have also to take Al-Qutrubbulil serious. Qutrubbulil was a suburb of baghdad. This proves that Al-K was NOT born in Persia, although his ancestors may have been persians. Actually Ali, you have just proven that: Al-Khwarizmi is an Arab Mathematicain with persian ancestory. His ancestors may have been persian, but he was born in baghdad, lived his whole live in baghdad, wrote in the languaguage of baghdad. He was a citizen of Bahgdad and NOT persia.. And just like New yorkers are Americans without regard to their ancestors, baghdadi's are Arabs without regard to their ancestors. Jidan 09:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Again I disagee. For the one thousand time, Baghdad was not solely an Arab city back then. Baghdad was not a remote area of the world like Khawarazm. Even up to the 20th century there was a lot of Persians until Saddams pan-arabist racism supported by virtually all Arab countries, kicked them out. I even have one source thats says up to the 20th century, 1/3 of the population of Baghdad was Persian and even if that may not be correct, there was a lot of Persians in Baghdad before the era of Ba'athism and pan-Arabist nationalism. But baghdad during the Abbassid caliphate was full of Persians, Turks, Berbers, Zangs and etc. The Al-Majoosi part is good enough to make him a Persian. We have provided enough evidence he was Persian thoughout this article. Most of the Abbassid caliphates were either of mixed origin or puppets of Turkish and Iranian rulers with no power but a title (even less power than queen of England). But the Caliph Mamoon who sponsered Al-Khawarazmi and other astrologers was half Persian and married a Persian wife and he and the Perisan Barkamid family were the power of the government. There was large number of Persians left over from Sassanid period in Iraq as well. That is why there is a lot of Persian names like Anbar, Fallujah, Baghdad and etc. Plus Qutrubbulli could have been the place he moved into from Khawarazm as Ibn-Nadeem said his origin is from Khawarazm. The Al-Majoosi title is sufficient to make him a Persian. The comment like Baghdadids are Arabs without regards to their ancestory is emotional and unscientific statement. Today there are hundreds of thousands of Kurds (mainly Fa'ili Kurds) in Baghdad and none of them even consider themselves Arabs! Neither do the Armenians, Chaldeans, Assyrians and Turkomens of Baghdad consider themselves Arabs, but have kept their distinct identity. Saddam Hussein on the identity cards had two choices: 1) Arab 2) non-Arab. So even though he was very racist, he was sane enough to know that not all of Iraq and specially its capital is 100% Arab. BTW the term American has to do with citizenship paperwork, which did not exist back then. Neither did UN recognized borders! Citizenship and ethnicity are virtually two different things and the concept of citizenship did not exist back then If I were to take your analogy, then Jabbir Ibn Hayan who was born in Tus Khorasan would be Persian regardless of what you say and regardless of his ancestory. You can not have it both ways, the fact is Al-Khawarazmi is Persian (Al-Majoosi) and Jabbir Ibn Hayyan is most likely an Arab (someone mentioned an Arabic tribal title although since he was in Tus, I can easily claim that his ancestors were mixed with the locals and make up hundreds of small reasons). The fact is Arabs did not engage much in astrology and we have at least the name of 12 Persian scholars around the time of Mamun that did and here some of them: Mashallab ibn Atari (Persian Jew), Nowbakht Hakim, Farrokhan Tabari, Ahmand ibn Nahavandi, Rabban Tabari, Khawarazmi, Yahya ibn Mansur Tabari.. Virtually all these men came from Khorasan, Khawarazm, Tabarestan and none of them from Arabia or even Arabic parts of Baghdad. Astrology was forbidden by the Prophet Muhammadand the Arab muslims did not engange it until the former Zoroastrians whose culture was ingrained with it, revived it. --Ali doostzadeh 17:02, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


I thought for those who think Al Khwarizmi was in Baghdad all of his life, it`ll be intresting to note that he did go back to his native country, Persia many times. Encyclopedia Britannica says, Al-Hamadhani, often known as Badi' az-Zaman (“Wonder of the Age”), achieved an early success through a public debate with Abu Bakr al-Khwarizmi, a leading savant, in Nishapur. He subsequently traveled throughout the area occupied today by Iran and…[18].Zmmz 08:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Abu baker al-khwarizmi was a different person(our AL-K didn't have the name abu baker).hahaha. He was a theoligen and is famous for his book: رسائل أبي بكر الخوارزمي "the letter of abi bakr al-khwarizmi". Shows how deperate you are in trying to prove that AL-K is persian. Jidan 08:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


It was already mentioned that there is no proof he was born in Baghdad whereas Ibn-Nadeem clearly states he was from Khawarazm. Also Al-Khawarazmi since he was of the foremost astrologers spent time in the Khazars court as well. --Ali doostzadeh 17:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Aha...becarefull ali, you are now changing your words!! Through out the entire discussion you have stated how Important al-tabari's testement is, and you also convinced me in believing that. And now you simply want to disregard him!? All or most Al-Khwarzmi's books were written in baghdad and most dictated to the abbasid caliph or the vizier's. They were ALL arabic. Again, Al-Khwarzmi is a citizen of baghdad, born and died there. History is not what is right and what is wrong, it's what is less propable and most propable. Jidan 18:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
First of the concept of citizenship did not exist back then. Also you forgot to mention that many of the Abbassid Vazirs were Persian and the Abbassid Caliph Mamun is half Persian. Barmakids who were Vazirs of Harun and Mahdi for example were Persians. Fazl Ibn Sahl, who was the Vazir of Mamum, was Persian[19]. The whole concept of Vazir was actually taken from Sassanid courts as well and it is not seen in the Ummayad dynasty and the Vazirs of Abbassid times had many times mow power than the caliph, who was just a symbol. Now Mamun was half Persian and his wife Pooraan was Persian. In his Father Harun Al-Rashid's court, the Barmakid Persians were so powerful that Ahmad ibn Yaqubi remarks that they actually ran all the affairs of the empire. And it was Fazl Ibn Sahl who put the half Persian Mamun (grown up in Persian culture via the Barmakids) in power. So it is not wonder that Mamun collected all these Persian scientists and astrologers in his court and basically ruled like a Sassanid monarch with a Vazir and court astrologers and etc.
Now the term Al-Qutrubbuli is irrelavent since Al-Majoosi makes him Persian. But this term could mean that he moved to that region of Iraq from Khawarazm. That is there is no proof he was born in Baghdad, whereas Ibn Nadeem says his Asl(origin) is from Khawarazmi, Tabari just says Al-Majoosi (Zoroastrian) Al-Qutrubbuli without mentioning birth or death. So from the very strong term Al-Majoosi, his Persian extraction is universally clear and the fact that he practiced astrology makes this connection very reasonable. But from the term Al-Qutrubbuli (which could be a region ner Baghdad), nothing is known. Was he born there? Did he move there? How many Qutrubbuli's were there? Did have a big state there? No one can answer. But from Al-Majoosi all answers regarding his ethnicity is made crystal clear. Also being born in the multi-cultural city of Baghdad or multi-ethnic region of Iraq, does not say anything. Assuming he was born in Iraq (which there is no proof), He could have been a Zang(Black), Turk, Persian, Arab, Greek, Assyrian,Berber, Armenian, Chaldean.. from Iraq, but the Al-Majoosi (Zoroastrian) is sufficient to make him an Iranian. Al-Majoosi (Zoroastrian) part is all that is needed to make him Persian. So is the Al-Khawarazmi part since Khawarazms people were a branch of Persian. Baghdad and Iraq back then were multi-cultural cities and not just Arabs. He was not an Arab. He used Persian dates, calendars and formulations for stars, something virtually no Arab would be familiar with. He was astrologer, something Arabs did not have knowledge of at that time and did not engange in. Arabs would not use Persian based calendars and days and that is why his tablets/works had to be reformulated into the Hejri calendar by an Andalusian scholar later on, so that it may be of use. And again you can't have it both ways. Jabber ibn Hayan was born in Tus and so I can use your weak reasoning here and the fact is Tus was much much less multi-cultural than Iraq/Baghdad. --Ali doostzadeh 19:18, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Jabir ibn Hayyan was born in an arab colony in khorasan in a province of the arab empire in a famous arab tribe of Azd. You can go ahead and claim him persian. Jidan 20:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
See the discussion page for that. I have not seen any proof that he was born from the Azd tribe. Indeed his name and origin would not be so obscure in ancient sources, if that was so. --Ali doostzadeh 15:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Background of islamic civilization

On 8 June, A.D. 632, the Prophet Mohammed (Peace and Prayers be upon Him) died, having accomplished the marvelous task of uniting the tribes of Arabia into a homogeneous and powerful nation. ...In the interval, Persia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the whole North Africa, Gibraltar and Spain had been submitted to the Islamic State, and a new civilization had been established. The Arabs quickly assimilated the culture and knowledge of the peoples they ruled, while the latter in turn - Persians, Syrians, Copts, Berbers, and others - adopted the Arabic language. The nationality of the Muslim thus became submerged, and the term Arab acquired a linguistic sense rather than a strictly ethnological one. As soon as Islamic state had been established, the Arabs began to encourage learning of all kinds. Schools, colleges, libraries, observatories and hospitals were built throughout the whole Islamic state, and were adequately staffed and endowed...In the same time, scholars were invited to Damascus and Baghdad without distinction of nationality or creed...The old learning was thus infused with a new vigor, and the intellectual freedom of men of the desert stimulated the search for knowledge and science...


by George Sarton - (was a seminal Belgian-American polymath and historian of science)


Al-Khwarizmi was an Arab, who lived in baghdad the "Arabian Dream". Compare this to the persian Ferdowsi, how totally hated it and rejected it. Jidan 20:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for you, but Copts and Berbers and Persians today do not in any way or form consider themselves Arabs and are proud of thei pre-Islamic heritage! Funny it is indeed that some Egyptians who had at least 5000 years of civilizaiton are now more Arab wannabes than the Bedouins of Arabia. But Berbers and Persians have even kept their language and culture and there is a huge Berber separatist and nationalist movement in Algeria, Morroco and other regions. Copts through maintaing their religion have kept their separate non-Arab identity. Too bad both of these groups are treated very badly in the Arab World. +
As per you "Arabian deam", Baghdad was far from an Arab city back then, the Abbassid Caliphs were either lame ducks of Turks or Iranians or were of mixed descendant like Mamun and Mot'asem. And in the end, Astrology is not Islamic in any shape or form and it is pure unbelief for the mainstream orthodoxy. That is why all the astrologers of the court were former Zoroastrians who converted to Islam (nomially). The Vazirs of Harun Rashid (Yahha ibn Barmak) or Mamun (Fazl ibn Sahl), who are responsible for the "The golden age" of Abbassid and ran the affairs of the empire and were the main power brokers, were Iranians and not Arabs. Al-Mamun himself was half Arab and had a Persian.
As per Jabir Ibn Hayyan, I can insert a "wa" here before "Azdi". Or I can claim he was of a mixed background since Khorasan was predominately Persian and Persian speaking. Also where do you get the title "Azdi". Perhaps I can even define the word "Azdi" as a word and not a tribal designation. Also I have not found any reference for Azdi and some have subsituted the words "Al-Tusi, Al-Harrani, Al-Tartusi..". So his biography is not clear. Also I doubt if the guy had Arab blood, he would be a pure arab, since he was from Khorasan and the Arabs there after one/two generations assimilated. So all sorts of arguments can be played around. Or for example what "Arab colony" in Tus are you talking about and which source talks about an Arab colony in Tus? I have done some initial research and it looks like the title Al-Azdi is amongst the many and some have just mentioned Al-Tusi and others have mentioned Al-Tartusi and others Al-Harrani (Sabeans who were not Arabs).
The fact is you want to claim that AL-Khawarazmi was Arab because he moved to (or perhaps and probabiliy not was born in) Baghdad (which was multi-cultural). Yet someone that was born in Tus of Khorasani like Jabbir ibn Hayyan can be claimed as Persian by this method, specially since this area was not as diverse. So your method is not clear. Thankfully with "Al-Majoosi" and the detailed information on Khawarazm given by Biruni, no one can play any nationalist games. And that is why more and more Math Historians are writing Persian next to Al-Khawarazmi and probably within 10 years all references will be fully updated. Of course the so called "Arabian dream" really ended with the Ummayyad dynasty. The Abbassids were by all means multi-cultural, then came the short era of Daylamites and then in reality we have the realistic Turkic dream who controlled the Arab world for more than 1000 years until the Arabs with British/French help and support turned against the Ottoman Turks. The fact of the matter is virtually none of the great Islamic scientists came from the Arabian peninsula, they either came from Persiaa, Iraq, Andalusia, Egypt, Syria and etc.. Places that were predominately non-Arab and some of them became Arabized gradually(not Persiaa of course) and it is not even clear if these places had become Arabized during the early stage of Abbassids. --User:Ali doostzadeh 21:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

YOU:Baghdad was far from an Arab city

Baghdad was and STILL is an Arab city.

YOU: the Abbassid Caliphs were either lame ducks of Turks or Iranians or were of mixed descendant like Mamun and Mot'asem.

One reason why the abbasid caliphate was weakend rapidly.

YOU:The Vazirs of Harun Rashid (Yahha ibn Barmak) or Mamun (Fazl ibn Sahl), who are responsible for the "The golden age" of Abbassid and ran the affairs of the empire and were the main power brokers, were Iranians and not Arabs.

Did you know that the Barmaiks were NOT zorostorians and NOT persians at all!!! Harun al-rashid and before him Al-mansur were THE initors of the "goladen age" of the islamic civilazition and the middle-east.

  • I never heard of a persian ruler that swapped greek prisoners of war in exchange for books like Harun Al-rashid.
  • What is the persian Gundishapur compared to Bayt al-Hikma?
  • I have never heard of a persian ruler that allowed free education and open library's for everyone like Harun Al-rashid.
  • I have never heard of a persian ruler that would send messangers to china,india, and byzantine to find scholars and bring them back to bahgdad like Harun Al-rashid.
  • I have never heard of a persian ruler that encourged science as much as harun al-rashid and his son maamun.
  • I have never heard of a persian ruler that would make peace with all his neighbors even it meant terratory loose, just to be able to finance science, like Harun Al-rashid.
  • Arabic was a language of science and even replaced greek. Something that persian was never able to achieve not even under Cyrus, Darius, or Khosru, or even after Persia regained its independance.
  • I have never heard of a persian scientist that doesn't have an arabic name

YOU: As per Jabir Ibn Hayyan....

As i said you can go ahead and claim him as persian.


YOU:The fact of the matter is virtually none of the great Islamic scientists came from the Arabian peninsula, they either came from Persian, Iraq, Andalusia, Egypt, Syria and etc.. Places that were predominately non-Arab and some of them became Arabized (not Persian of course).

Arabs immagrated to these areas, before(e.g. akkad, babylon) and after the islamic conquest. Most of the Islamic scientists came from place's that were RULED by the arabs.

Im sorry that my words are harsh, but after you humilated the arabs I had no other choice. I have One question to you, what does this have to do with Al-Khwarizmi? Jidan 22:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not here to have heated conversation without proof. You claim that the Barmakids were not Persians? But you are wrong. Their Iranian background is a well know fact, see Encyclopedia Iranic [20] Britannica entery. I know enough Arabic to know that the word Barmak is not Arabic btw. I also already mentioned Fazl ibn Sahl who was Persian and was the Vazir of Mamun.[21].

I can pull all the necessary sources to show the Barmakids were not Arabs. And btw if Baghdad was solely an Arab city, then we would not have so much rememberence of Persians, Turks, Zanjis, Greeks, Berbers in the city, would we? Even before the era of pan-Arabist nationalism, a large portion of Baghdad was Persian speaking. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Fa'li Kurds were expelled from Baghdad in the last 100 years but still Baghdad is not a monolithic city.

As per what you have not heared, this is due to your own bias. Persian rulers that encouraged sciences, besides the Barkamid Vazirs, Sahl ibn Fazl, Mamun (half Persian), . you might want to remember the Samanids after Islam who gave patronage and full support to Abu Ali Sina and Abu Rayhan Biruni, two of the greatest names of Islamic history. In fact if we were to take the most famous Muslim scientist in the Western World, it would be without a doubt the celebrated Avicenna who was patronized under the Samanids. Note the Samanids were not in any way under the control of the Abbassids and at that time the Abbassids came under the rulership of the Persian Daylamites and by the way the Persian daylamites did encourage the sciences and I can bring a long list of scholars from their rule as well. Before Islam, we can mention the famous school of Jundi-Shapur. In fact there many scholars that were produced in the Samanid era. As per Cyrus the Great, his name really outshines.

And here is quote from Qazi Sa'ed Al-Andalusi who was not a Persian: The magnificient quality of the Persian kings, for which they became famous, is their superior political and administrative ability. This is specially true in the case of the Kings of Banu Sassan (Sassanids). Among them there were kings that surpassed all others in their nobility and their conduct, their ability to govern and exercise authority as well as their widely recognized fame Note you will never find a Persian ruler like Hajjaj or Saddam or King Fahd (whose family frequent gambling houses in France) and the Amir of Kuwait (who donates 10 million dollar to the Zoo of London while millions of Muslims are starving), but I am not going to throw cheap shots here. All I am saying is that you should research on Samanids, Daylamites, Sassanids and Achaemenids and etc if you want to see patronage of the sciences and the arts. Many of the great ancient Greek scientists btw came from the Achaemenid empire. So lets stay focused on the topic here. The Bayt Al-Hukama and GundiShapur both had a strong Persian presence. In fact you know very well that the Vazirs sometimes were even more powerful, than the Caliphs and either way one can not deny the Persianness of Fazl ibn Sahl and the Barmakids . Ahmad Ibn Yaqubi mentions that the Barmakids were the ones really running the affair of the empire (under Harun Rashid). Masudi mentions that Harun entrusted them with all the affairs of the empire. And as per the half Persian Mamun, his Vazir was Persian and he married a Persian wife named Pooran. So one can not deny the very strong Persian influence here and claim everything under Arabs. The Sassanids were Persians and the Ummayyads were Arabs, but the early Abbassids and their Vazirs are not just solely Arabs or Persians specially when you take into account their foreign mothers and their foreign vazirs and then the Iranian Daylamite and Turkic Seljuq control. BTW I can ask you the question why the sciences did not flourish under Ummayyad rule of middle east? And further I have lots of evidence from Masudi, Ibn Khaldun and etc. that the Barmakids were in full control of the empire. So the cooperation of both Arabs and Persians was responsible for flourishing of science under Harun and Mamun.

BTW I did not claim Jabbir ibn Hayyan as Persian! or Arab or Greek or Sabian. I just mentioned that different sources have given Al-Tusi, Al-Tartusi (could be Greek), Al-Harrani, Al-Kufi and etc and have given different names. (I have so far not seen any al-Azdi in any ancient source). Just refer to the page and I have already told my Iranian friends that there is no clear evidence on his ethnic background. As per Al-Khawarazmi, there is enough evidence to distinguish his Persian background since Khawarazm was Persian speaking land and he engaged in Astrology besides using Persian calendar, dates and having the title of Al-Majoosi. I personally believe the truth to be the most important. --Ali doostzadeh 00:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfC reply

Hi,

I read the RfC posted on this article which refers to the issue of whether al-Khwarizmi was Arab or Persian. I have no prior knowledge of this person, except that he is best known for his contributions to mathematics. As such, my opinion represents that of a casual reader.

This issue appears to be a moot point. Not much is known about his origins, and most of the evidence recently presented in the talk page is original research. Which means, of course, that if you were to come to a consensus one way or the other, you would inevitably have to cite an invalid set of sources.

Furthermore, al-Khwarizmi is best known for his contributions to mathematics. Mathematics transcends time and space. Regardless of your nationality, the language of mathematics is universal. If al-Khwarizmi were instead, for instance, an army general, then his nationality becomes vital knowledge. Seeing as how he was a mathematician, though, affirming his nationality one way or another is not particularly necessary.

In light of the above, I think the article should not, explicitly or implicitly, attempt to state his nationality. If you have any further comments, please leave a note on my talk page.

Thank you,

 Cdcon  21:04, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


Actually he contributed far more than just mathematics. He contributed to Geography, Astrology, Astronomy and also Mathematics. I agree that such a person is universal, but his origin as his name indicates is Khawarazm and as his ephiphet indicates Al-Majoosi (Zoroastreian). So he was of Persian origin as most scholars and serious math historians are acknowledging these days. The issue here is like removing the title "English" from Newton. The people of Khawarazm were Khawarazmi originated from, were not Arabs. Indeed they were Chorasmian speaking Iranians and this should be mentioned. Because many other scholars also came from Chorasmia.
Here is another comment from a casual reader. I do read and contribute to history articles but don't know much about this area in this period. It seems that the place he came from and language he spoke are "notable" facts about him, so should be included. I suggest that you deal with them thoroughly so that readers who are interested have all the verifiable details in front of them and can make up their own minds about how to interpret them. Firstly the city where he was born, with a reference. And if there is any doubt, include both sides of the doubt, each referenced. Then his parents, where they came from, if there are verifiable references for this. Then say in what country/empire/cultural area his birth area fell into at the time with wikilinks to the relevant pages, perhaps also a map. Finally you could say that today different countries are proud of his contribution and claim them as one of their own - again with references. Perhaps it is a bit like "English" and Newton, but you know Newton could also be called "British", so maybe we should have an argument about that too. Itsmejudith 11:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of "Persian" without qualifiers is irredentism

I think I'm starting to get my bearings here -- we're dealing with Irredentism, the claim to Greater Iran, to be composed of all people speaking languages related to modern-day Persian. This claim is in head-on collision, in various articles, with Pan-Turkism and Arab nationalism, not to mention the claims of smaller groups like the Kurds and the Azeris. The proponents of Iranian irredentism are concerned to smear out any differences between languages, or between language, descent, and culture. It's all "Persian", and can then be claimed as part of Greater Iran. Claiming the glories of the past is important too, which explains disputes on various articles in which famous historical figures are declared to be ethnically "Persian".


Instead of using the term Persian, which erases all differences, I specified that Khawarizm was part of the old Transoxania, which was outside Sassanid control, that the inhabitants spoke a language related to Middle Persian, and that they were influenced by Persian culture. I could add that they were also influenced by China, India, and Greece, but that would be beyond the scope of this article. If other editors remove all that careful specification and replace it with just "Persian", they're destroying information. Zora 01:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


As I expected, an anon restored a claim to "Persian ancestry" and edited the material I added to say that Transoxania was part of the Sassanid empire. Go to the WP article on Transoxania; it points out there that the Sassanid frontier was the Amu Darya/Oxus. Transoxania was Turan, depicted as the eternal opponent of Iran in the Shahnameh.


Speaking a language is no longer accepted as proof of ancestry. A language can spread far beyond narrowly genetic grounds -- as is the case of English in the modern age, and was the case for Indo-European languages millenia ago. We don't know much about the ancestry of the Khwarizmians, or Chorasmians, or whatever they're to be called, but we do know that they spoke an Indo-European language and had absorbed elements of Persian culture. So let's just stick with what we know and leave the arguments about language=ancestry to a more relevant newsgroup, OK? Zora 01:55, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Zora ,lets keep it simple, he was a Persian , not anything else but a Persian and a great Persian at that. Persia get the credit on this one.--CltFn 03:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Just what do you mean by Persian, then? That's the problem. It's a slippery word with no firm definition. As for getting "credit" -- that's the problem, the drive to divvy up the achievements of the past and claim them for one or another of existing groups today. Zora 04:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Oh well Zora, I remember in the Rumi article, you got very offended that I added the word Persian next to Muslim, and you said let`s just call him Muslim, this is not a sports game where we can pick sides, it doesn`t matter if he was Persian, he belngs to all of us. It seems you tirelessly question the meaning of the term Persian, and somehow make it seem into some sort of wishy-washy, undefinable word, or at best one that has many alternative usages. I think, to my shock, most notably you even mentioned it here[22], and also you keep mentioning it in the Persian people, and Iran articles. Nevertheless, [yet again], in good faith, I provide you with a very clear definition of the word: here is a link to the Merriam-Webster dictionary that defines the word as, Persian; Function: noun 1 : one of the people of Persia : as a : one of the ancient Iranians who under Cyrus and his successors founded an empire in southwest Asia b : a member of one of the peoples forming the modern Iranian nationality 2 a : any of several Iranian languages dominant in Persia at different periods b : the modern language of Iran and western Afghanistan -- see INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.[23] ThanksZmmz 07:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's see, the Chorasmians weren't ancient Iranians, since they were living much much later, they aren't Iranians now (they're Uzbeks), they didn't speak a language dominant in Persia, and they didn't speak the modern language of Iran and Western Afghanistan. OK, guess they weren't Persians :) Zora 08:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Now as per this user (at least Jidan argued with fact), the words Spanish,German, Greek, Indian, English, French, Arab, Jewish and Chinese (is it just Mandarin speakers?) etc. are slipperly as well.

Dang right. Some are more slippery than others. Chinese is a good example. Are the Uighurs Chinese? What about the Tibetans? What about the Miao? They don't speak Chinese and they form somewhat separate populations, genetically. They don't even necessarily want to be part of China. So, are they Chinese? Old empires, messy boundaries. Zora 08:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


Well, the problem is you`re playing tune-def, but here it is again for the 1000th time,

  • Three centuries after Al Khwarizmi` death, and four centuries into the Arab invasion, the genuis scientist and historian Al Biruni wrote, ل خوارزم ... کانوا غصنا" من دوحه الفرس

"the inhabitants of Khwarezmia are Persian".

  • The most respected historian of Islamic era, an ethnic Arab himself, the great Ibn Khaldun, 1500 years ago said about Khwarizmia in Transoxiana, ...the truth of the statement of the propher becomes apparent, 'If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it' …The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them…as was the case with all crafts…This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khorasan and Transoxiana (modern Central Asia), retained their sedentary culture". [The Muqaddimah Translated by F. Rosenthal (III, pp. 311-15, 271-4 [Arabic]; R. N. Frye (p.91)].
  • But, finally and most importantly Zora, you are absolutely wrong when you say Uzbeks are not Iranian (the English word Persian is used interchangablly in this case, see the dictionary reference). In fact, Uzbeks to this day speak Persian. Not I, not you Zora say that, rather this a direct quote from Columbia Encyclopedia, The Uzbeks, a Turkic-speaking group who have a Persian culture and are mostly Sunni Muslims . Now, this is after centuries of them being under Russian rule, since in 1878 the territory known as Khwarizm, later Uzbekistan that was a province in Iran, was given-up to the Russians, by Iran. This means since the birth of the country of Iran, this territory was a province of Iran, and under numerous invasions it stayed a province, and closely knit, to Iran. All any reasonable reader has to do is, search under Khwarizm, and then Uzbekistan in a major encyclopedia Zora, like I did in Encyclopedia Britannica--not in one of your books written with controversial authors.[24]Zmmz 09:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


As per your issue with Sassanid boundary, a good chunk of ancient Greek scientists were not from mainland Greece, but Achaemenid controlled Greek areas. So the issue here has nothing to do with the boundaries of Sassanid dynasties, as they were not the only Iranian dynasty (take the Iranian Kushans for example). Now as per your other issue, please stop using the word "we", when you did not do any real research on the issue or you are just starting. We have a sufficient materials on the Khawarazmian language from Biruni, Zamakhshari and etc. and by all accounts and all scholars, it is classified as an Iranian language. So it is just not an Indo-european language. It has a classification under Iranian languages and Prof. Mackenzie amongst many other linguists have done their share in collecting all resources related to this language. [25]. See his five series article the Chorasmian glossary (BSOAS) which is more than 70 pages and has listed close to 1000 Chorasmian works and yes we do know a lot about the ancestery of Chorasmians, their customs, their celebration and their language and etc. thanks to Biruni, Zamakhshari and other natives of Chorasmia. More importantly, Abu Rayhan Biruni has clearly and unequivalently stated that the people of Khawarazm are a branch of Persians. Simple as that. He has mentioned their Zoroastrian customs as well and how when the Arabs came, they killed the priests, and burned important writings. Also it is what the natives considered themselves and were considered by others, which is most important. Until you have not read Biruni's work, please do not pass yourself here as an expert on Chorasmia and consult the result experts like the writings of Prof. MacKenzie. You have ignored the universally accepted fact that Chorasmian is classified as an Iranian language and not just an indo-European. Also many times you have ignored what the greatest scholar from Chorasmia himself, Biruni has said about the region. The most important aspect of any ethnic identifier is what a group people think of themselves. Biruni has made the issue clear.

--Ali doostzadeh 06:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

You're mixing up language and self-identification. Also, Biruni was writing 150 years later than AK, after the rise of the Samanids and the rehabilitation of the Persian language (as Dari) and the rebirth of literature in the Persian language. I'm not at all sure that earlier Chorasmians would have identified themselves as Persian -- after all, they had been fighting the Sassanids for centuries. I'd have to do more research to be clearer on the subject, however. Zora 08:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Nope you just do not have Biruni's book and are mixing everything up. Biruni was a native Khawarazmian and the people that at the time of Biruni spoke Khawarazmian and not Dari. This has nothing to do with Samanids. He also gives information on Soghdians and their calendar and days as well. Now best proof of continuation of Khawarazmian besides Biruni's work is the work of Zamakhshari who wrote in Khawarazmian and has given us the main bulk of Khawarazmian vocabulary. In fact Biruni has given the names of days, calendars, months and some other vocabulary from Khawarazmia and shows clearly it is not standard Dari Persian although very related (closer than German and English). As per Chorasmians, they never fought Sassanids, because they were either under Sassanids, Parthians, Hephtalies, or Gok-Turks or other groups. So do not make up stuff like "had been fighting sassanids for centures", when you have absolutely no proof except just distortion. And even if they did (which they did not and you showed absolutely no proof whatsoever), it doesn't mean anything because N. Korea and S. Korea have been fighting as well. So were East Germany and West Germany and China and Taiwan and different Greek states like Athenians and Spartans. The Samanid empire btw had even non-Iranian turks in their empire and Biruni is not referring to the population of the empire. He is saying the "Ahl-e-Khawarazm" (the people of Khawarazm) are a branch of Persians.

--Ali doostzadeh 17:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, for me I am endlessly fascinated that the incredibly respected, and immensely famous Arab historian, Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 AD) who is ranked among the best in history; actually gives a lot of information about Khwarizmia in Transoxiana, and the role of Persian scientists during those times. He said, ...the truth of the statement of the propher becomes apparent, 'If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it' …The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them…as was the case with all crafts…This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khorasan and Transoxiana (modern Central Asia), retained their sedentary culture". [The Muqaddimah Translated by F. Rosenthal (III, pp. 311-15, 271-4 [Arabic]; R. N. Frye (p.91)]. ThanksZmmz 05:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Al-Khwarizmi himself was of Persian stock, his ancestors coming from Khwarezm, in distant Transoxania. The Banu Musa, al-Mahani, and a host of others in the intellectual circle of ninth century Baghdad, were also Persians. [26] It would be appreciated that whoever changed the wording to "Central Asian" to please refrain from doing so. Ridiculous. SouthernComfort 15:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The History books in Uzbekistan have him as being born in what is now Uzbek lands, which, yeah would've been Persian then.. Thats why I added Central Asian.. I hope I didn't overstep a mark. --Irishpunktom\talk 15:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

No, Irishpunktom you did fine. Zmmz 22:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] yazdegard calendar

http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN1556432690&id=A8PzaQZwzZQC&dq=jabir++corbin&lpg=PA46&pg=PA44&sig=cIhkKYzppMd4ms9_upsOTSh9k6k quote: Muhammad ibn Musa Khawarizmi (died 847), the "father of arab algebra", who brought this science to Baghdad, was a Persian whose native Khwarizm (khiva today) is very far from Arabia. He calculated his astronomical tables using the Yazdgard calenda(632). It was not unt the year 1000 that maslma al-Majriti converted them into Hejira years. Khawarazmi also bore the surna Majusi, indicating a Mazdean(Zoroastrian) origin. --Ali doostzadeh 23:08, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Response from Prof. Len Berggren

Zidan mentioned an article about Khawarazmi by Prof. Len Berggren: http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/html/id.phtml?id=15655

I emailed Professor Len Berggren last week and he finally responded. His email address is: berggren@sfu.ca and this is his webpage: http://www.math.sfu.ca/~berggren/main.html

Here is his email after I enquired about this mistake and told him that AL-Khwarizmi is Persian..

Dear Ali Doostzadeh, Thank you for your letter. You are, of course, right and I make the same point myself in a book I published (with Springer-Verlag) in 1986, titled Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam. I write, on p. 6, speaking of the early period of Islamic science, that "the Central Asian scholar Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi came from the old and high civilization that had grown up in the region of Khwarizm . . . near the delta of the Amu Dar'ya (Oxus) River on the Aral Sea." (This book has been translated into Farsi, by the way, and is available in Iran.) The article you wrote to me was one I wrote at a time when I was not as aware of the wide ethnic differences within medieval Islam as I was when I came to write my book. Anyway, happy "Nau Rooz" and I wish you success in your researches. I was very impressed with the sources you have gathered and I look forward, when I have finished teaching this term, to having the leisure to read them carefully. Yours sincerely, Len Berggren''

I can forward this email to anyone that is interested (send me an email here alidoostzadeh@yahoo.com) or they may contact the Professor himself to verify it, if they wish. So Professor Len Berggren has totally recounted his oversight since at least 1986. This should also be a good general lesson that googling an article does not necessarily mean that the writer of that article has not corrected any errors.

--Ali doostzadeh 08:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hijacking Al-Khwarizmi's background

For the longest time , some editors have been trying to Islamize or Arabize this article , making claims that he was an Arab or a Muslim . He was neither , he was Persian and a Zoroastrian. it is intellectually dishonest to keep trying to claim otherwise. --CltFn 15:28, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

i'm guessing you are referring to Tabaris' referring to him a of the Magi? He was not arab, but he was Muslim, from a family which had been Magi/Zorostrian untill the Arab invasion of Persia. His name was Muhammad, an arab name, and the name of the major Prophet of Islam. His sons name was Abddullah, Slave of Allah - Allah being the Arabic for God, but universally understood as how Muslims refer to God. He was the son of Musa, the arabic for Moses, a Prophet in Islam, Christianity, Judaism and other associated religions - but not Zoroastrianism. --Irishpunktom\talk 16:15, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Read the preface to his Algeba, makes it pretty clear he was a Muslim. —Ruud 16:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense , Karen Armstrong and Bernard Lewis say the same thing in their books, that does not make them Muslims. Its is actually original research on your part to make that conclusion. Indeed every kid in the Muslim world is being fed that lie by quasi-scholars trying to forge a revisionist Islamic history. Furthermore due to the sloppy way the Europeans have labelled anyone in the Middle East as " arabs" or as Muslims it has been easy to pass off that travesty to the world.--CltFn 23:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
It's not OR, the references say exactly the same, MacTutor, EB, ...
The reference you use are innacurate , just because on some web sites it says something does nto make it true.--CltFn 00:09, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not about the truth, it's about backing claims up with reliable souces. —Ruud 00:14, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like you are going down the same road as Bush with the weapons of mass destruction claim for Iraq. Its the same middle ages mentality that claimed that the world was flat because of the reliable sources of so many authorities insisting on it--CltFn 00:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Well if you don't like WP:V, which is on of the four pillars Wikipedia is built on, you are better of contributing to http://wikinfo.org? —Ruud 00:49, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes , I guess I my allusion to Bush was correct.--CltFn 01:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

CltFn, explain to us, won't you, why a Zoroastrian would be called Muhammad, and why his son would be called the Slave of Allah? --Irishpunktom\talk 00:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Well since you asked for my opinioin , I will answer with my own conclusion , its very simple , at that time if you did not give some sort of pretense of reverence to Islam you would loose you head, old boy. That is why most of the scholars at that time had to include lines in each of the their chapters to make it look that they were with Islam and not heretics. It was imposible to write anything without those inclusions if you wanted to keep your life. Freedom of speech was never a strong point in the Muslim world was it--CltFn 00:52, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
You're probably right, but unless you can find a reliable source to back that claim up... —Ruud 00:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, thats interesting, but an incredibly unsubstantiated assesment you will agree. Why now, do you believe him to be Zoroastrian, for he could easily have been without any faith --Irishpunktom\talk 00:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
The dude asked for my opinion , I gave it to him , and I do not need to substantiate my opinion , I have not inserted that into WIkipedia have I . In anycase if you wanted to see this for yourself read any of the sholarly works of that time. --CltFn 01:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not saying you had to, I'm just saying its not. Again though, why you believe him to be Zoroastrian?--Irishpunktom\talk 01:01, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
al-Tabari gave him the epithet al-Majusi, meaning he was a Zorastian priest, but their is some dispute about this epithet referring to him. And he practiced astrology which was forbidden by the prophet but practiced by the zorastrian persians, although the abassid rulers (muslim arabs) of the time seemed to be quite fond of it. —Ruud 01:06, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
You beat me to it , R Koot as i was just about to say the same thing.--CltFn 01:08, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Tabari? - Is that it? As stated above, Tabari gave his the title al-Majusi, "Of the Magians" which implies that he came from a Zorostrian background, not that he was a preist... and as Ruud demonstrates, the use of Astrology proves nothing. --Irishpunktom\talk 09:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
The practice of astrology is Haraam, so saying that he was an orthodox Muslim is a contradiction. --CltFn 03:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The use of Astrology was, and is, widespread in the Muslim world. You are objecting to him benig termed Muslim, not "orthodox Muslim".. or have you changed your position ? --Irishpunktom\talk 23:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I do not see any compelling evidence from primary sources that indicate that he was a Muslim. However there are primary sources around that describe him as a Zoroastrian priest. So then the question becomes why would a free thinker like he was convert to Islam ,if he believed in Astrology which is absolutely forbidden in Islam? As a Zoroastrian priest he could be respectful of other faiths, just like catholic priest can talk respectfully of Islam without being Muslim. In the end no one can really prove nothing on this topic for lack of clear evidence , so it is best to no characterize him beyond what we know which is that he was a Persian mathematician , astronomer etc, And yes there were astrologer in the region , that does not mean that astrologers can be Muslim. Go try to be an Astrologer in Afghanistan someday , see how long you get to live--CltFn 04:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
He praises Allah, recites from the Qur'an, is named after the last Prophet of Islam and never mentions anything to do with Zoroastrianism... nothing compelling? Also, there are loads of Muslims astrologists, in India there was Babur and Humayun, in Al Andalus there was a school dedicated to the subject, Scholars descended on the "Caliphates" Baghdad, including Al-Kindī. The idea that a study of Astrology proves that one is a Non-Muslim is absolute nonsense. --Irishpunktom\talk 16:25, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Practicing Astrolology , strongest evidence that Al-Khwarizmi was not Muslim

It is forbidden in the Qu'ran to practice Astrology. --CltFn 18:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, lots of things are forbidden in Islam, and yet that didn't (and doesn't) stop Muslims from taking part in those activities. Drinking alcohol, for example, which is still widespread in Iran (even though most who drink still consider themselves Muslim) and having premarital relations and so forth. Magic, alchemy, astrology, and the occult arts in general were quite widespread in the Islamic world during the Middle Ages, particularly in Persia. But all those who engaged in such activities still considered themselves Muslims - whether they were actually religious or believed in the religion is another story and cannot be known. SouthernComfort 20:58, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Astrology was popular amongst Muslims of Persian origin since it was the continuation of their culture. Biruni, Khawarazmi... and others. The fact is Astronomy and Astrology became intertwined due to the Persian influence. Khawarazmi was not Zoroastrian but had Zoroastrian ancestors. For example no one doubts that Biruni was Muslim and he proudly proclaims so. Yet he did not shun astrology. Islam was a major factor in the scientific contributions of Persians. --Ali doostzadeh 23:20, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense ,in Islam the practice of astrology is Haraam , all muslims knows that and he who does so has fallen into disbelief. So to state that he was both an astrologer and a Muslim is a contradiction, and blasphemy. But oh I forgot, we are not trying to make sense in this article , we are trying to bend the facts to weave some tall tale of ethno centric hogwash to feed to the ignorant masses who would not know better. And why would a free thinker like Khawarazmi from a Zoroastrian family convert to Islam yet not believe in its fundamental tenets and continue to study Astrology--72.153.155.166 23:54, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Again read the argument before repeating the same thing. Actually his name is Muhammad ibn Musa. Plus as I mentioned Biruni who was a devote muslim did practice astrology. A good amount of Muslim rulers (specially Iranian and later on Turkic) also had court astrologers (a continuiation of the Sassanid tradition). More than being part of Zoroastrianism, it was part of the Persian culture. In fact the whole astrology probably crept into Zoroastrianism or perhaps pre-Zoroastrian Iranian culture. Also for example take Nowruz, which by all means is a Zoroastrian or even pre-Zoroastrian tradition, but 99% people who celebrate it are Muslims. In fact by the majority of Muslims specially Sunnis it is considered Bid'at and sometimes Haram, since according to them, there is two holidays Qurban and Fitr with accordance to Hadeeth. BTW all the quotes about Persians and Astrology was dug up me in this page. And Qazi Al-Andalusi mentions it as a Persian tradition but not stricly Zoroastrian. --Ali doostzadeh 18:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
There are star signs in certain Indonesian, Arab, and other Newspapers from Muslim lands. Some of the greatest works in Astrology were from Muslims, including volumes of work from Al Andalus. For a comparrison, Nostradamus was a Monk, yet he dabbled in prophetic Astrology, mostly, it must be said, using methods passed on to Europe via Muslims. --Irishpunktom\talk 09:49, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


Not again. I have Mormon relatives who gamble and drink. They may not be "good" Mormons but Mormon is what they are. Sources backing up the assertion that he was a muslim -
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9045366 - Encyclopedia Britannica
http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/islam/learning/khwarizmi.html - University of Calgary
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/khwarizmi - Merriam-Webster Dictionary
http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/innoalgebra.html - PBS
There were a number of Arabic & Islamic citations as well, but I add only the above to stave off possible accusations of citing POV sources. Longshot14 00:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


By the way. Al-Kindi was also an Astrolologist. And he was Arab and Muslim. There goes another myth down the drain.Jidan 15:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Change the title to "Al-Khwarizimi" Please!

How do you pronounce this Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Kwārizmī? Where is the guide for pronounciation of ū, ā, ī? As far as I know major Encyclopaedias use the term Al-Khwarizimi, plain and simple as in Encyclopaedia Britannica. Moreover, it isnot Kwa at the beginning, rather Khwa with Kh being pronounced as ch in German Achtung. Heja Helweda 05:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

See Arabic transliteration and DIN 31635. The ﺥ/Ḵ/Kh is probably the most problematic letter in the Arabic alphabet as there is no letter in the English language which resembles the sound, unlike the German ch or the Dutch g. —Ruud 19:05, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Please don't move the page. If I may be a stereotypical ignorant English speaker for a moment, these funny letters are completely nonsensical. Macrons on the vowels are one thing, but the underscored K and dotted H? Don't do that. It's perfectly fine to use those in the article (at least the first time...maybe not every time), but not in the article title itself. Adam Bishop 21:16, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Uhh... if you're not really interesed in a 1-1 transliteration between Arabic/Latin you can just ignore those diacritcs, it isn't IPA (that's non-sensical). —Ruud 21:30, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I suppose the article will be at Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi in the near future,

  • Tried to put straight all double (triple, quadruple,...) redirects; made some of these redirect to Algebra and Algorithm instead - maybe best to check I didn't make any errors there... note however that it is not possible to make a redirect to a section title (I encountered one trying to redirect to the #Algebra section of our mathematician).
  • Please see wikipedia:naming conventions (Arabic): pending the ratification of that guideline, it's considered disruptive to go "solo" with one's own preferences: rather try to move that guideline to "accepted" – which is what I'll do now, for avoidance of future adventures like Ruud's with this page, giving a lot of people a lot of work.
  • If not agreeing with the present page name consider following the WP:RM procedure.

--Francis Schonken 22:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Article in Persian does not discuss his ethnic background

I find all these heated discussions over Al-Khwarizmi's Persian background a bit misleading. The Persian article on Al-Khwarizmi, does not mention his ethnic origin,

Persian Text from Persian Wikipedia:

از زندگی خوارزمی چندان ا طلاع قابل اعتمادی در دست نیست الا اینکه وی در حدود سال 780 میلادی در منطقه خوارزم آسیای میانه زاده شد شهرت علمی وی مربوط به کارهایی است که در ریاضیات مخصوصاٌ‌ در رشته جبر انجام داده به طوری که هیچیک از ریاضیدانان قرون وسطی مانند وی در فکر ریاضی تاثیر نداشته‌اند اجداد خوارزمی احتمالاٌ اهل خوارزم بودند ولی خودش احتمالاٌ از قطر بولی ناحیه‌ای نزدیک بغداد بود

Translation:

There is not much reliable information about the Al-Khwarizmi's life, except that he was born around 780 CE in the Khwarizm region in Central Asia. His scientific fame is due to his works in Mathematics and in particular Algebra and none of the medieval mathematicians had the same impact as his on the mathematical thought. His ancestors were probably from Khwarizm, but he himself was likely from Qutr bulli, a region near Baghdad.

I suggest to include these info. in the English version as well. There is no mention of him being from a specific ethnic group in the Persian article.Heja Helweda 05:57, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Persian Wikipedia is just like English Wikipedia, a user-submitted encyclopedia. Regardless, people of Khwarizm were Persian, as indicated by al-Biruni's quotes cited on this page. --ManiF 06:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks ManiF. The Persian wikipedia article pretty much assumes Iranian background, and there is no quarrels about it within Iranians to have a discussion on the issue. Here is a comple article on Khawarazmi in Persian:

[27]

We had this discussion he, the Majoosi ephiphet in his title is clear indicator of his background and so is the name Khawarazmi, both making him Iranian. Birunis quotes the people of Khawarazm being a branch of Persians plus the Yazdegardi Zoroastrian calendar (Arabs would not be at all familiar with such a calendar) and the use of astorlogy which was a Zoroastrian practice that crept into Islam.

--Ali doostzadeh 18:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Wasnt his mother from tabarestan?--Zereshk 23:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Al Jabr

Please allow me to bring your attention to the vicious attempts of a certain R.Koot to delete the whole article about a very historically significant book without a slightest trace of discussion or votes for deletion. Mukadderat 23:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks like your the one that's deleting information [28]. —Ruud 23:11, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The information irelevant to the person is moved into the article about the book [29] you happily deleted without bothering to preserve its content. Mukadderat 23:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
No, I did not delete that article I made it into a redirect because what is currently in that article is simply a large part a copy of the text I origianlly wrote for/in this article. —Ruud 23:17, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I am afraid you are either didn't bother to read the article you deleted or pulling a red herring [30]. Mukadderat 23:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I notice that Adam Bishop moved this page to the accent-free spelling it has now from Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḵwārizmī with the comment “moved Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḵwārizmī to Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi: give me a break, please use regular English letters for titles of articles)”. I disagree. Other names are located in at their full spelling. For example, it's Paul Erdős not Paul Erdos and Kurt Gödel not Kurt Godel. —Ben FrantzDale 23:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree (mostly because it creates an inconsistency between the title and his name mentioned in boldface at the start of the article), however see the look a few topics up. —Ruud 23:22, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, Hungarian and German use the same alphabet we do, so a dieresis is not really an unusual or unrecognizable part of the alphabet (although, yes, I know the thing on Erdős is not a dieresis). But this name was not originally written in a Latin script. Why is ḥ preferrable to h, or Ḵ preferrable to Kh? What is Ḵ anyway? Adam Bishop 00:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
A K-underdash. Without de diacritics two of the letter in the Arabic alphabet would be mapped to the Latin "h" (and two to the "d", two to the "t", "s", "z") so using diacritics has at least two advantages: make figuring out how a word is pronounced easier if you are willing to spent some time learning and make it possible to derive the original Arabic wrom the transliteration. Proper transliteration as almost always used by academic sources so I see little reason why Wikipedia shouldn't (and appears to be done more and more as Wikipedia grows). I don't really see why if we use diacritics in the articles, why we shouldn't use them in article titles? —Ruud 00:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't know how to pronounce these either. Like Ruud says, I think it's preferrable to have the page title match the bolded text. I stumbled upon this page because of a change on a page on my watch list, Quadratic equation. There Bduke removed the redirect by making it say [[Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi|Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḵwārizmī]]. It seems undesirable to require that every link to this page look like that. Having a redirect from the accent-free version to this page is useful for someone searching but if people agree that Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḵwārizmī is the most-correct spelling, then I don't see why that shouldn't be the title of this page as well as the text in pages that link here. —Ben FrantzDale 00:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Please allow me to disagree with some arguments:

"if you are willing to spent some time learning and make it possible to derive the original Arabic wrom the transliteration":

This is not the purpose of the title. The purpose of the title as far as I undertand is to quickly identify/recognize the subject you are looking for. Once you have found the subject, you don't have to "derive" anything: the "original Arabic" is right here, in the article. Now, recalling that this is an English language encyclopedia, we must use rule number one: most common title of the subject. Also, please don't forget that on many computers many these non-English characters are unrecongnizable boxes and the name is virtually unreadable. So I am afraid, the insistence to write in a "most correct" way is driven not by the convenience of readers, but rather a national pride. Now, you may say "you can have a redirect from English spelling". And I can say two things back: (1) in categories you see the main title and (2) there are quite a few "pipe warriors", who run around and replace redrects in texts with "corect" titles. Mukadderat 16:26, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

My vote is strongly for Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḵwārizmī. It's more linguistically correct. --LakeHMM 02:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

We should use the most common and recognizable spelling, not the "linguistically most correct". The Britannica uses Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi,[31] so should we. The fashion in transliteration systems may change next week. Septentrionalis 19:20, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Erdős would be indicated by this test; Goedel might be preferable to Gödel, but it's close. Septentrionalis 19:22, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Just because the "fashion in transliteration systems may change next week" doesn't mean we should stick to the oldest, inaccurate transliteration. Just because something's been done a certain way doesn't mean it's the best way. Also, the Coup d'état article has the accent even though most English writers would probably write it without one. Why? Because it's the correct way. --LakeHMM 00:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Islamic mathematician"

_ _ The link [[Islamic mathematics|Islamic mathematician]] is very bad, for a superficial reason and a very deep and misleading one.
_ _ The words iSLaM and muSLiM are much more closely related that non-Semites are likely to appreciate, bcz the three consonants mark them as inflections of a common root (S*L*M), all revolving around the concept of submission. In Arabic, "Islam" literally means "submission" and "Muslim" means "one who submits". Thus Islam, Islamic, and Islamist are all focused on the religion and the associated culture and beliefs. A Muslim is an individual person adhering to Islam.
_ _ The term "Islamic mathematics" refers to a body of scholarship (drawing especially on and advancing beyond pre-Islamic Indian math and ancient Greek math), that was at one time the most advanced math in the world, and which is one of the important layers underlying virtually all of modern math. The term should be used in the article, bcz (whether or not he adhered to Islam), he participated in, and advanced, Islamic mathematics; when i finish this, i'm going to try and find a pretty good way to use it, even if it takes a lot of colleagues to settle on a more carefully refined way of doing so.
_ _ One of the things at issue about this article is whether the subject of the bio was a Muslim or not. If it were clear that he was, and if it becomes clear, it might be appropriate to describe him in the lead 'graph as a "Muslim mathematician", meaning a Muslim who advanced mathematics (tho i personally doubt it). "Islamic mathematician" doesn't mean that, nor does it mean "participant in Islamic mathematics" (as the piped lk suggests). It's just a bad phrase that has no good usages (and i guess we're lucky for the fact that unless (i suppose) someone has a special role in Islam (an Islamic official, an Islamic scholar whose pronouncements convince Muslims about what Islam requires), Islamic is not an adjective that describes you).
_ _ The deeper issue i referred to is that the relationship between his beliefs and this mathematics is highly PoV. My own PoV is that Islamic mathematics is historically important bcz like any monotheism, Islam can be used for consolidating existing societies, welding otherwise diverse societies together, and motivating warriors, which tends to create levels of wealth and power that provide the means and motivation for advances in the arts and sciences; mathematics was ripe for Islamic culture to make its mark in that field, and he was the bright guy, or towering genius, who was there at the right time. Another PoV was expressed, IIRC on this talk page, some time ago: his being a Muslim made him capable of becoming the mathematician he was. I doubt either that PoV or my own can be verified, and i doubt this article is going to calm down until more editors admit that their PoV's can't be verified.
_ _ There's plenty of room in the article for describing the existence of differing PoVs, which clearly exist, about his ethnicity and his personal or public adherance to various belief systems. There just isn't room in the lead 'graph for that; and saying "Isalmic mathematician", and thus confusing participation in the mathematical life of a dominant culture with personal belief in the dominant belief system (let alone with that producing personal excellence in math) is a serious error, in the lead or elsewhere.
--Jerzy•t 16:48, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sogdian is a more proper term

Just like we use either the name of modern day countrys or their ancient regional names when speaking of events and persons. Persians are an Iranian people related to other Iranians such as Parthians, Bactrians, and so forth. Now unless someone can show that khwarizmi's ancestors actually migrated from Persia proper (Persia is a very very different concept than Persian empire), into Khwarizm, I suggest that we keep the reference of his nationality as Sogdian. Both Persian and Sogdian are occidental references afterall. To say that Persia included a vast region including Bactria, Sogdia is absolutely irrelevant. Because than we might as well consider other closely related dynasties/peoples like Medes, Bactrians, Parthians, scythians, sarmaians as persian as well. Neither does speaking a langauge mean much. Elseways Avicenna might as well be considered Arab (and many occidental texts do faultfully call him an Arab because of his works in arabic) and the Mughal (mongol) emperor of south asia as persian.

This is for the sake of integrity of information. omerlivesOmerlives 15:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any sources explicitly calling him Sogdian? —Ruud 16:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


Hi Koot. I doubt that I would find much sources referring to him as Sogdian. The region his parents migrated from Was Sogdia, but I guess we could still use Chorasmian the english rendering of Khwarizm if not Sogdian to describe his origin. Alternatively, search in google scholar would abundantly refer to him as an Arab given the fact his works were in Arabic.

In any event, we have no reason to believ he was Persian. The region he was from in central asia was home to eastern iranian languages like bactrian, saka, sogdian and so forth. Modern day dialects spoken in the region which desended from middle pahlavi namely dari and tajiki (which ae mutually intelligible from modern persian) made its way into the region much much later under the sassanians. That is the reason many witers calous of historical accuracies would call him Persian, just like for arabs europe was synonymous with Al-room (Rome). Besides If speaking a language makes one part of another nationality than this criteria makes him an arab since the definition of arab DOES mean that; where as for one to be a persian familial descent is also important.

He was for Khwarizm not Persia. He spoke a dialect of middle pahlavi mutually intelligible from persian because persian had made inroads into the region. He was not ethnic persian. I would prefer the intro as something like " Alkhwarizmi was a muslim mathematician and philosopher from Chorasmia a region centered around modern day Uzbekistan..." OR

"...AK was a Sogdian muslim math. in modern day uzbekistan.." OR simply

"AK was a Chorasmian muslim math. and phil."

TYhanks omerlivesOmerlives 04:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

You have to take into that there is also the possiblitly that he was born in Baghdad, so I'm very hessiant to make his etnicity any more specific than Persian. A more extensive discussion would belong in the "Biography" section. —Ruud 14:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Koot. I see what you're saying, however, Baghdad is not Persia any ways. I mean mesopotamia/Iraq/babylon et al was not persian seat of rule only a vital province anywyas (cept under Sassanids. Majority of the population element was mixed but largely non persian such as Medes (possibly ancestral to Kurds), assyrians, Chaldeans, jews, babylonians (aramaic speakers) etc..until the peninsular Arabs conquered it and Arabic became the lingua Franca. Besides the Abbasids (Caliphs of baghdad) were still sunni Arabs. And look at Khwarizmi's last name it is a good indication from whence the name came unless we want to beleive his family was one of arab traders who settled in central asia and then migrated back. Such things were not uncommon and many arab s Jilanis, Wastis etc..did venture forth mostly as traders or refugees then back. But that is speculation. But saying he was persian is as inaccurate and insensitive as saying Avicenna was Arab. I think it is not unreasonable to have the intro state that "AK was a Chorosmian muslim math. and phil." omerlivesOmerlives

I understand your concerns but as you can see from the discussions above al-Khwarizmi's etnicity is a heavily disputed subject. Stating one without backing it up with external sources, no matter how well argumented, is not going to work. Just rembered, how paradoxical it may sounds, Wikipedia's task is not documenting the most accurate version of the truth, but only reporting on previously published material. —Ruud 19:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

But wiki claims to be an encylcopedia and that implies a policy of fact sifting and scholarship for empirical accuracy. If he criteria is arbitrarythen we might as well refer to him as an Arab, what bars us from doing that? and even so, why not refer to him as Chorasmian which in the absence of data does sound accurate than either Persian or Arab. If you want I can cite numerous articles that call AK a Chorasmian. We have followed this pattern throughout wikipedia have not we? If need be I can can give you many examples of that as wel. Why refer to someone as that when it is wrong to do that? By calling him Persian the picture of his ancestry is not one from central asia but someone from persia or someone who emigrated from Persia. omerlivesOmerlives 19:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

We indeed sift facts from scholary sources. One of the pillars of Wikipedia is that we, as editors, do not add our own facts. Therefore the lack of accuracy of Wikipedia, would in fact reflect a lack of accuracy in scholarly knowledge. Looking at it more pragmatically, I would not object to calling him Chorasmian, but this would imply the two citations refering to him as Persian would have to be removed. This wil without a doubt result in the etnicity debate to start all over again. It may also be intersting to note that the student's edition of Encyclopedia Britannica does call him an Arab, while the academic edition refrains from giving an etnicity at all. —Ruud 20:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Then I suggest we remove the Persian reference altogether and simply refer to him as a muslim philosopher where he was purpotedly born and where his last name emanates from just like many other articles. I dont have objection on people like Alrazi and omar khayyam for example who are well documented persians. But calling others such as AK as Persian is as inaccurate as calling Zoroaster Persian or present day "persian" speaking (but actually dari and tajiki dialect) peoples of central asia as persians because they dont refer to themselves as such. If the policy is to reflect accuracy vis a vis academic knowledge (or the lack of it), then the reference to ethnicity should be removed. And you are quite right both Brittanica, Encarta, American heritage dictionary etc. refer to him as Arab. Encyclopediae Americana, Columbia, World History and Islam are silent and only refer to him as muslim and place of origin (not birth) as Khwarizm. omerlivesOmerlives 21:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

This is what I proposed a few months, however a case can be made that he was Zorastrian and only Muslim by (forced) conversion and a large number of people are insistent on inserting the words "Arab" or "Persian" if an etnicity is absent. —Ruud 21:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

He was muslim by force? That is interesting but irrelevant. I beleive he was born into a muslim household. And I beleive we have a strong case to not to include any particular ethnicity in light of what we have. This is not an exclusive case. There are others like this as well in wikipedia. If people insist than that is more out of national pride, ethnocentrism and phobia (especialy of iranian nationalists towards anything arab) than scholarship I beleive. One can claim that early european christians (including statesmen, architects etc..) were pagans and only forced by Constantine to become christian but that assertion is hollow, irrelevant not to mention totally POV. I have not come across any historical text refering to AK as a zoroastarian. Arabs refered to peoples with titles such as marya al qubti (marya the coptic-- a muslim woman of high social stature) did not mean she was a coptic orthodox or south asian origin like ganga al hindi or syed ridha al-hindi or mohammad al hindi mean that persons were hindu.....neither does the epithet majusi as in Ali ibn Abbas al majusi or Abu-Lu'lu'ah al majoosi or mullah Baqir majoosi mean these folks are/were zoroastarians. I say this because you probably allude to the purported al majoosi in Al khwarizmis extended name as indication that he was zoroastarian. He was not. The best thing in light of this controversy the best option is the obvious : Chorasmian physician and let the reader read the entry about Chorasmia and its historicity and do further research on his/her own. This is in adition to the fact that most sources place his birth (in addition to origin) in CHorasmia. And a disclaimer: I am not an arab or persian either. omerlivesOmerlives 23:11, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

As long as you add a citation, I will not prevent you from changing Persian into Muslim. If someone else decided to challange your change do not expect me to defend it though. Arguing this, arguably minor detail (al-Khwarizmi was mainly a mathematician, his etnicity/religion only help the reader to get a general idea of the time and place where he lived, in my opinion), has cost me too much time already in the past few months. Time better spent on writing the interesting part of his biography. —Ruud 01:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but such is the natue of things. I have read a few posts prior in this discussion. It may seem fickle to you, but for many however this does seem to be an important detail, just like the debate whether Alexander was slavic, Illyrian, greek etc...People object to him being called Arab, and I beleive it is a valid objection, but neiher was he Persian. If his ethnicity is in question we go with the right one. omerlivesOmerlives 01:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

We already discussed his ethnicity. He is an Iranian Chorasmian. Chorasmian is an Iranian language like Soghdian, Pahlavi, Avesta...See the entery on Chorasmian. But Al-Biruni who is another Chorasmian clearly also states that the Chorasmians are a branch of Persians(Iranians). Al-Majoosi denotes Zoroastrian ancestry. Also Al-khawarizmi used zoroastrian dates and calendar as we discussed. --Ali doostzadeh 05:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maps

Those maps indicate South America? Not only 15th century Florence, but also 9th century Baghdad had detailed knowledge of the coast of South America? Does the insanity of this even need to be pointed out? Adam Bishop 23:24, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Most of the information in that section comes from [32], but I have some doubts about it's reliability. Would love to see a copy of "Hubert Daunicht. Der Osten nach der Erdkarte al-Huwarizmis : Beiträge zur historischen Geographie und Geschichte Asiens.", though. —Ruud 23:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
The whole theory was apparently coined by one Paul Gallez in America Del Sur En Los Mapas Antiguos, Medievales Y Renacentistas. I'm going to remove most claims, unless it can be confirmed that this is an accepted theory. —Ruud 23:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
It's in the library here, I could look it up if you want...but yeah, some guy on the Internet is probably not a reliable source :) Adam Bishop 23:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
See these two posts on the maphist list: [33] [34]. Definitly something we do not want to deal with in this article, if at all. —Ruud 01:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)