I refer to the letter Whimsical interpretation of Islam wrong where the writer stated: '... allow me to point to one (out of many) very significant contributions of Islam to science, the Arabic numeral system (as it is still called until today).

'Should Muslims decide to claim patent on this system, Muslims would not have to rely on oil revenues to become rich. This is because the basis of all that is known as science and technology today is based upon this numbering system. Without which, the entire scientific world would cease to exist.'

I would like to clarify that the Arabic numeral system, also known as Hindu-Arabic numeral system, is actually based on the Indian numeral system that originated from India between 400 BC and 400 AD .

The Arab mathematicians rediscovered this numeral system and reintroduced the concept to the world. The West subsequently adopted it and it eventually became the modern numbering system. The Arab mathematician Al-Kindi, who wrote four volumes, 'On the Use of the Indian Numerals' (Ketab fi Isti'mal al-'Adad al-Hindi), also referred to it as Indian numerals.

And to claim that it is '... the basis of all that is known as science and technology today is based upon this numbering system. Without which, the entire scientific world would 'cease to exist' is not correct, even if the numerals originated from India.

This will be a discredit to all the scientists and mathematicians (whether they are Muslim or non- Muslim) that had helped to accumulate the knowledge that built the science and technology that we know today.

What the Hindu-Arabic numeral system did was to simplify the representation of numbering, which of course, was an important milestone that shaped modern mathematics.

However, by claiming that without these numerals, the entire scientific world would 'cease to exist' is a bit of a stretch of one's imagination. If Arabic numerals did not exist, the scientific world would still exist. Maybe, scientific concepts would not be represented in Arabic numerals, but in different mathematical representations.