ARAB TRADERS

Joseph Stanovsky PhD Arab traders have always performed magnificently. These traders traveled great distances and returned home with goods to sell, treasures to admire, stories and with ideas. They travelled by caravan and ship to distant places and preferred not to create or cause conflicts. Hence, they often returned to trade at places previously visited. The Arab traders were usually welcomed. They also collected verbal and written ideas. The books and tracts collected were often written in strange and unusual languages. The Arabs controlled much of Spain for 781 years; they invaded Spain from Morocco in 711. The traders stored many of their treasures and magnificent books at Al Hamra, a building built of red bricks by Arabs in Grenada. The Arab occupation ended at the close of the 15th century after which there were many changes in Spain. In addition to the expulsion of Arab occupiers one important change was the deportation of Jews from Spain. This religious minority had two choices; four months to leave Spain or stay in Spain by converting to the religion of the King and Queen of Spain. For many years Toledo had been home to contented Christians, Jews and Moslems. Except for the multi-religious friendships fostered in Toledo, most Jews and Moslems did leave Spain. It is known that a group of Jews moved from Spain to Rhodes, an island close to the South East coast of Asia Minor (Turkey). Where, and how many of the expelled Arabs moved to is not generally known. After 1492 both the spoken and written language of Spain changed. It was a change to eliminate or alter the influence of the Arabs in Spain. These language changes varied from small to large but the commodities and words introduced by the Arab occupiers remained. The Arabs had introduced many food items and descriptive words. Consider, for example, the names of constellations (the star patterns) and names of individual stars, numbers, sugar, tea, many spices, tobacco, bandits, alcohol and magazine (a place to store goods, words and gunpowder). An example of language change follows: where an Arab might say Wadi (to describe a waterway--wet or dry) in the revised Spanish it is a form of Guadi. The Library at Alexandria was destroyed on orders of Theodsius (who ordered him?). The dastardly deed was actually performed by troops of the Governor of Alexandria and the Christian followers of the Bishop of Alexandria.. One estimate says a million books were destroyed by these militant Christians in 391 i.c.e. One book that went missing at Alexandria was the Geometry of Euclid. The mathematics of Euclid was later recovered from a book in an Arab Library, put in Spain by Arab traders. At about the time the foreigners were deported from Spain, Christopher Columbus sought ways to circumvent the purchase of goods and spices from Arab traders. Columbus received the help he needed for this venture from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (the name of a color in France). Instead of discovering a route to the Spice Islands, Columbus found an island in the Caribbean, delivered diseases to the Carib Tribe Natives that were fatal. On his return to Spain, Columbus brought many treasures to Ferdinand and Isabella, all stolen from the island citizens of a New World. The Arab traders brought the zero from the Hindi and added it to their number system. The Arabic numbers of the East became the numbers of the West. Even though Arabic numbers used in the East are similar in form (in Arabic script only the 1 and 9) to the numbers of the West, the numbers are applied differently. The specific application difference is determined by the language they are embedded in. That is, whether a language is written from right to left or the other way round. The differences attributable to language mode are demonstrated in the following test sentences labeled (A) and (B). In both language modes the number 2.5 is written in the same way. The Library is 2.5 kilometers west. (Written and read from left to right) (AA) .tsew sretemolik 2.5 si yrarbiL ehT (Written and read from right to left) (BB) In (A), a reader must stop his reading progress as he approaches the number. A readers eye must jump to the decimal, read the value of the fractional units (tenths) and afterwards go back to reading at the beginning of the number. In (B), a reader directly locates the decimal and the fractional units (tenths) followed by the units and continues reading using a smooth eye motion. Arabic is read from right to left (consonents only). It is reasonable to conclude that a sentence containing Arabic numbers is easier to read when the language mode is written from right to left.