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Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. This article's factual accuracy is disputed. This system remained in use through the European Middle Ages, being presented in slightly modified form by Luca Pacioli in his seminal Summa de arithmetica (1494). Several pedagogical poems dealt exclusively with finger counting, some of which were translated into European languages, including a short poem by Shamsuddeen Al-Mawsili (translated into French by Aristide Marre) and one by Abul-Hasan Al-Maghribi (translated into German by Julius Ruska ).Ī very similar form is presented by the English monk and historian Bede in the first chapter of his De temporum ratione, (725), entitled "Tractatus de computo, vel loquela per gestum digitorum", which allowed counting up to 9,999 on two hands, though it was apparently little-used for numbers of 100 or more. Books dealing with dactylonomy, such as a treatise by the mathematician Abu'l-Wafa al-Buzajani, gave rules for performing complex operations, including the approximate determination of square roots. Furthermore, it ensured secrecy and was thus in keeping with the dignity of the scribe's profession.
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Similarly, Al-Suli, in his Handbook for Secretaries, wrote that scribes preferred dactylonomy to any other system because it required neither materials nor an instrument, apart from a limb. The polymath Al-Jahiz advised schoolmasters in his book Al-Bayan (البيان والتبيين) to teach finger counting which he placed among the five methods of human expression. Some of the gestures used to refer to numbers were even known in Arabic by special technical terms such as Kas' (=القصع ) for the gesture signifying 29, Dabth (=الـضَـبْـث ) for 63 and Daff (= الـضَـفّ) for 99 (فقه اللغة). The gesture for 50 was used by some poets (for example Ibn Al-Moutaz) to describe the beak of the goshawk. When an old man was asked how old he was he could answer by showing a closed fist, meaning 93. Poets could allude to a miser by saying that his hand made "ninety-three", i.e. The practice was well known in the Arabic-speaking world and was quite commonly used as evidenced by the numerous references to it in Classical Arabic literature. In Arabic, dactylonomy is known as "Number reckoning by finger folding" (=حساب العقود ). In one tradition as reported by Yusayra, Muhammad enjoined upon his female companions to express praise to God and to count using their fingers (=واعقدن بالأنامل )( سنن الترمذي). The earliest reference to this method of using the hands to refer to the natural numbers may have been in some Prophetic traditions going back to the early days of Islam during the early 600s. It was later used widely in medieval Islamic lands. The Greco-Roman author Plutarch, in his Lives, mentions finger counting as being used in Persia in the first centuries CE, so the practice may have originated in Iran.
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Finger positions used for counting up to 9999 from Luca Pacioli's 1494 Summa de arithmetica, based on the earlier Arabic system.Ĭomplex systems of dactylonomy were used in the ancient world.