[edpc]

The word "algebra" is named after the Arabic word "al-jabr" from the title of the book al-Kitab al-mu ta ar fi isab al-gabr wa-l-muqabala, meaning The book of Summary Concerning Calculating by Transposition and Reduction, a book written by the Persian Muslim mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-warrizmi; in 820.

They jumped the shark after algebra

[js1138]

Math came from India after the Arab conquest. Don't give Islam credit for things it didn't invent.

[agere_contra]

a book written by the Persian Muslim mathematician

As you say - a few generations after the IslamoBorg arrived, the mighty Euphrates civilisation gave us no more science and no more art. They were reduced to repetitive calligraphy and the crushing weight of Allah.

[The_Reader_David]

I've seen translations of the core part of al-Warrizmi's text, and even it is derivative. They happened to get lucky enough to conqueror parts of the Roman Empire where Diophantus' work was preserved, and India where there was a (thin) mathematical tradition among the Hindus. Put the two together, have one bright fellow think about it for a few months, and you get ibn Musa's results.

The text is tedious with repeated Muslim pieties inserted into the mathematics.

Truth be told, the biggest advance the Muslims gave the mathematical world, and probably the scientific world as a whole, was an intuitive classification of the 'wall paper groups', undertaken for purely aesthetic reasons due to the Sunni prohibition on figurative art. (Decorating everything with caligraphed verses form the Koran gets boring after a while.)