section_path: History/Middle Ages/Transmission to Islamic culture
section_name: Transmission to Islamic culture
paragraph_text: Transmission to Islamic culture
  
  The Arabic -language inheritance of science was largely Greek, followed by Hindu influences. In 773, at Al-Mansur 's behest, translations were made of many ancient treatises including Greek, Roman, Indian, and others.
  
  In AD 813, astronomical tables were prepared by a Persian mathematician, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, using Hindu numerals; and about 825, he published a book synthesizing Greek and Hindu knowledge and also contained his own contribution to mathematics including an explanation of the use of zero. This book was later translated into Latin in the 12th century under the title Algoritmi de numero Indorum. This title means "al-Khwarizmi on the Numerals of the Indians". The word "Algoritmi" was the translator's Latinization of Al-Khwarizmi's name, and the word " Algorithm " or " Algorism " started to acquire a meaning of any arithmetic based on decimals.
  
  Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi, in 976, stated that if no number appears in the place of tens in a calculation, a little circle should be used "to keep the rows". This circle was called ṣifr.