Khwārizmī, al-, Muhammad ibn-Mūsā (c. 780–c. 850)

Persian mathematician. He wrote a book on algebra, from part of whose title (al-jabr) comes the word ‘algebra’, and a book in which he introduced to the West the Hindu–Arabic decimal number system. The word ‘algorithm’ is a corruption of his name.

He was born in Khwarizm (now Khiva, Uzbekistan), but lived and worked in Baghdad. He compiled astronomical tables and was responsible for introducing the concept of zero into Arab mathematics.