Al-Jab’r W’al-Muqabala

In the earliest age of the gods, existence was born from non-existence.
The Rig Veda.

8th Century AD: The rulers of Islam conquered nearly half of the Europe and Asia. Their boundaries are drawn from China in the east to Spain in the west. The Indian subcontinent succumbed to never ending bloody battles resulted in ruthless killings and gruesome murders.

Baghdad being the heart of the empire and the cultural crossroad, the region flourished because of massive wealth and enormous quest for knowledge. The scholars of Baghdad in the House of Wisdom learned Indian Vedas, Upanishads, Western philosophy, Aristotelian doctrines etc.

Nothing can be created from nothing
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 99-55 BCE

Mathematics was one of the important subjects they dealt. The Islam and the west followed Aristotle’s theory of mathematics which never had Zero. In fact Aristotle was feared about the concepts zero, void, and nothingness. Since he never knows Zero, he never understood Infinity. There was a chaos among the Aristotelians while subtracting a number by itself. No one dared to discover the answer.

Where there is the Infinite there is joy, there is no joy in the finite.
The Chandogya Upanishad

Zero was deeply rooted in the Indian culture and it had an enormous importance with a spiritual meaning. Even the Hindu god Shiva had an incarnation called Nishkala, whom he is shapeless, formless and attribute less. Being nothing is everything is the scenario even today in Indian spirituality.

Does man forget that we created him out of the void?
The Koran

Even though Islamic scholars followed Aristotelians, they were not quite satisfied. The problem of zero always exists in their mind but Prophet Mohammad being the messiah was aware of the reality. One among those scholars was Al’ Khwarizmi, the renowned mathematician of medieval world and the hero of modern day mathematics who paved way for the birth of zero through his book al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa-l-muqābala. Means “The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing”, the modern world got the words Algebra from Al’Jabr and Algorithm from Al’Khwarizmi.

Punch of 11^th Century AD: Interestingly the debate on Aristotle or Al’Khwarizmi continued until the Muslim philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazali declared adhering Aristotelian doctrine should be punishable by death.

Being omnipotent, god can create vacuum. There exists void!!!

Gowri Shankar 1978 - 20... AD

It is unfortunate; I wasn't there to explain Aristotle. He would have accepted my theory without hesitation.