page_title: Arabic numerals
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Arabic numerals / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Gwalior zeros
context_page_description: Arabic numerals are the ten digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. The term often implies a decimal number written using these digits. However the term can mean the digits themselves, such as in the statement "octal numbers are written using Arabic numerals."
  Although the Hindu–Arabic numeral system was developed by Indian mathematicians around AD 500, quite different forms for the digits were used initially. They were modified into Arabic numerals later in North Africa. It was in the North African city of Bejaia that the Italian scholar Fibonacci first encountered the numerals; his work was crucial in making them known throughout Europe. European trade, books, and colonialism helped popularize the adoption of Arabic numerals around the world. The numerals have found worldwide use significantly beyond the contemporary spread of the Latin alphabet, intruding into the writing systems in regions where other variants of the Hindu–Arabic numerals had been in use, such as Chinese and Japanese writing.
  The term Arabic numerals may be intended to mean the numerals used in Arabic writing, such as the Eastern Arabic numerals.
context_section_description: The decimal Hindu–Arabic numeral system with zero was developed in India by around 700. The development was gradual, spanning several centuries, but the decisive step was probably provided by Brahmagupta's formulation of zero as a number in 628. Prior to Brahmagupta, zero was in use in various forms but was regarded as a 'blank spot' (sunya sthana) in a positional number. It was only used by mathematicians (ganakas—people doing calculations) while the general populace used the traditional Brahmi numerals. After 700, the decimal numbers with zero replaced the Brahmi numerals. The system was revolutionary by limiting the number of individual digits to ten. It is considered an important milestone in the development of mathematics.
  The numeral system came to be known to the court of Baghdad, where mathematicians such as the Persian Al-Khwarizmi, whose book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals (Arabic: الجمع والتفريق بحساب الهندي‎) was written about 825 in Arabic, and then the Arab mathematician Al-Kindi, who wrote four volumes, On the Use of the Indian Numerals (Ketab fi Isti'mal al-'Adad al-Hindi) about 830, propagated it in the Arab world. Their work was principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle East and the West.
  In the 10th century, Middle-Eastern mathematicians extended the decimal numeral system to include fractions, as recorded in a treatise by Syrian mathematician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi in 952–953. The decimal point notation was introduced by Sind ibn Ali, who also wrote the earliest treatise on Arabic numerals.
caption: The numeral "zero" as it appears in two numbers (50 and 270) in 9th century inscription in Gwalior, India.[6][7]
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