Abū Kāmil Shujāʿ ibn Aslam

Who was Abū Kāmil Shujāʿ ibn Aslam?

Abū Kāmil, Shujāʿ ibn Aslam ibn Muḥammad Ibn Shujāʿ was an Egyptian Muslim mathematician during the Islamic Golden Age. He is considered the first mathematician to systematically use and accept irrational numbers as solutions and coefficients to equations. His mathematical techniques were later adopted by Fibonacci, thus allowing Abu Kamil an important part in introducing algebra to Europe.

Abu Kamil made important contributions to algebra and geometry. He was the first Islamic mathematician to work easily with algebraic equations with powers higher than, and solved sets of non-linear simultaneous equations with three unknown variables. He wrote all problems rhetorically, and some of his books lacked any mathematical notation beside those of integers. For example, he uses the Arabic expression "māl māl shayʾ" for .