[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Karaji
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharaf_al-D%C4%ABn_al-%E1%B9%A...
It’s similar to the way we call all of the mathematicians of ~ 500 BCE – 500 CE “Greek”, even though most of the later ones were Roman citizens living in Egypt or elsewhere.
Or the way we call Mesopotamian mathematics generically “Babylonian”, even though most of it was from other cities, and some of the relevant developments lumped in are from before Babylon per se existed, done by people of a different ethnic group who spoke a different language.
Or the way Soviet scientists are often called “Russian”.
The Persian mathematicians living in Persia in the times after the Islamic conquest simply weren't Arabs, exactly like the Greeks weren't Romans after the Roman conquest.
One doesn't get the new ethnicity by being occupied.
We unfortunately don’t have too many biographical details about most of the famous “Greek” mathematicians, so it’s generally not precisely known what their background was.
In the middle ages, there was greater Persia and two Iraqs (Iraq al-Arab to the west and Iraq al-Ajman to the east which is today's western and central Iran).
If we are being pedantic, either the polymaths in question were Persian (which they are) or Iraqi Arabs, not Iranians. In fact, Persian empire also encompassed parts of modern day Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan, until they came under the Turcko-Mongol rule.
Refs:
Anyway, “Persia” (Persis) comes from the Greek version of “Pars”. Persians call their language “Farsi”, from the Arabic version, “Fars”. These all have the same origin, and date back millennia.
>Nor were all these mathematicians Arabs, but for convenience we will call our topic "Arab mathematics".
>The regions from which the "Arab mathematicians" came was centred on Iran/Iraq but varied with military conquest during the period. At its greatest extent it stretched to the west through Turkey and North Africa to include most of Spain, and to the east as far as the borders of China.
"Arabic Mathematicians" has some justification as (I suppose) most of these guys were publishing in the Arabic language. But to then switch to ethnic designator Arab is plain wrong.
Perhaps so, and "Persian math" doesn't take much to say.
But then, the distinction between Arabic and Arab is subtle enough that I wouldn't notice at a glance. (Other ethnicities don't even get a different adjective for language, e.g. Russian, French, etc)
It's hard to change language around things like that. For instance, Igor Sikorsky (of the Pan-Am Clipper, and later helicopter fame) is know as a Russian-American inventor, even though he was born, educated, and flourished as an aviator in Kiev, Ukraine (then a part of Russian Empire). Sikorsky's father was a Russian Nationalist. Should we call him a Ukrainian-American given all that? I would, but's a subject of contention over a hundred years after his Ilya Muromets (first 4-engine bomber in production) took flight.
For better or worse, though, we use language to get a point across. "Russian aviation" and "Russian rocketry" gets a certain notion across very fast, even though many key contributors to that notion, like Sikorsky and Korolev (of Sputnik and first-man-in-space fame, among other things) were born, raised, and educated in Ukraine[2].
Perhaps it's the same with "Arab math".
But as I have noticed many people don't feel comfortable to reference a religion, so they go with race.
But find it interesting that we label these scientist based on their origin, not the place that gave them all the reasons to become all they were capable of becoming..
This is like saying Sergey Brin is a Russian entrepreneur.
Perhaps you're not familiar with the history of that part of the world, but the individuals that I named were Persian speakers, who lived in a region that is called the Greater Iran today, and wrote most of their work in Persian. But in all fairness, Arabic was the lingua-franca at the time so they wrote books in Arabic too.
A better example would be to call Grigori Perelman an American mathematician because he published his work on arXiv [1].
But if he spoke Enlgish, had an English name, lived his professional life in America. and most of his major works were in Enlgish.
I'd supposed you'd call him an "Anglophone" academic, which is the sense that Arab is used in.
And yet they are called Arab mathematicians.
he spoke arabic. Most of his major works were in arabic, in Baghdad. and he has an arabic name.
From Wikipedia: Arabs are a population inhabiting the Arab world.
Also from Wikipedia: Persia, present day Iran, is not part of the Arab world.
Believe me, it's the same here in North-Africa and Arabs are really loathed. But again, it's a nomination that's often mistaken for an ethnicity.
I think it's pretty fair to call these dialects of Arabic the predominant languages.
If a Russian, scientist, lived and studied in USA, to which country would you attribute his work or achievements, Russia or USA
For those who would like to read a little more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Iran
so I will stick to saying colonial as it accurately points to the western world as opposed to Africa or Asia for example
On that note, "India"/Hindustan/Hindu/etc. are somewhat similarly colonial-rooted names, ironically popularized by the Iranians.
But "Persian" is not something that foreigners imposed. It was originally the name of a particular Iranian nation that took over the empire thousands and of years ago. Their name then stuck around in some contexts long after that dynasty was gone, which is why the language is called "Farsi" (anglicised to "Persian").
Not sure where you got this from, here in Morocco, calling a Berber an Arab is a pretty sure way to piss him/her off.
Plus Most of them were not born in Iran proper.