Abu Ja far Muhammad ibn Musa al Khuwarizmi wrote a work entitled Kitab al jam wa’l tafriq bi hisab al hind (Treatise on Addition and Subtraction According to the Indian Calculation), of which Latin translations are known only from the 12th century onwards. He states: “We have decided to explain the Indian way of calculating with the help of nine characters and to show how, thanks to their simplicity and conciseness, these characters can express all numbers. (…) [he then points out the Indian origin of the nine digits and the] tenth figure in the form of a circle [and recommends] not neglecting their use so as not to confuse the positions.” This is probably the first Arabic testimony in favor of the Indian origin of modern numeration.
