By: Prof. Ahmed Djebbar
University of science and technology Houari Boumediéne-Algiers, February 25,2024
The conference highlighted an underappreciated contribution of Islamic scholars: the development of combinatorial analysis to address challenges raised by linguists and grammarians.
We began by describing various combinatorial attempts to solve questions concerning Arabic metrics and lexicography. Subsequently, we present some incursions into the combinatorial domain, with a view to resolving problems relating to algebra and number theory.
The third section presents the contributions of mathematicians from al-Andalus and the Maghreb in establishing the first combinatorial results to resolve one of the problems raised by linguists in the 8th-9th centuries, and paving the way for new combinatorial practices in non-mathematical areas including philosophy and the science of Hadith.
