In the eighth century A.D. during the reign of the second Abbaside Caliph, Al Mansoor a party of the Indian Vedic physicians had reached Baghdad and had got admittance at the court of Al Mansoor. A certain physician of this party was a specialist in astronomy and he had Brahmaguptas’ book “Siddhanta” with him. Al Mansoor, having learnt this, ordered an Arab philosopher, Ibraheem Algazari, to translate the “Siddhanta” into Arabic with the help of the Indian scholar. It is said that the Arabs learnt about the Indian numerals in connection with this translation, and having seen its overwhelming advantage, they at once adopted it in Arabic. Like Latin, in Arabic also there were no specific symbols for counting figures. Every number and figure was expressed in words. In cases of abbreviations various letters were made use of, which were given certain numerals values. At that time Indian numerals put before them a very easy way of counting. They became famous as Arabic numerals. And after reaching Europe they took that form in which we find them in International numerals at present.
