Cryptography has its origin among the Arabs. How, you may ask? Read on…
David Kahn notes in “The Codebreakers” that modern cryptology originated among the Arabs, the first people to systematically document cryptanalytic methods.1 One of these people was the polymath Al Kindi. He detailed the process of encrypting messages with simple letter encryption. Another important Islamic polymath here is Al Farahidi.
Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (known as Al-Farāhīdī) was born in Basra, modern day Iraq 110 AH/718 CE, Oman. At that time, Iraq was the cultural and scientific center of the world, with Baghdad as the largest city in the world.2
As well as being a grammarian and the most prominent linguist, he was also a pioneer in the field of cryptography influencing the later famous Al Kindi. Al Farahidi wrote the “Book of Cryptographic Messages” which was the first book on cryptography and cryptanalysis. He lived in the 7th centure CE.
“He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language — and the oldest extant dictionary — Kitab al-’Ayn (Arabic: كتاب العين) — “The Source”,[2] introduced the now standard harakat (vowel marks in Arabic script) system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ (study of prosody),[3][4][5] musicology and poetic metre.”3
Abu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (known as Al-Kindi) was a muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician, and musician. He was the first of the Islamic Aristotelian philosophers and is hailed as the father of Arab philosophy.4 Being influenced by Al Farahidi, he explanation of cryptoanalysis which is the method of breaking down encrypted code.
“In the field of mathematics, al-Kindi played an important role in introducing Indian numerals to the Islamic world, and subsequently, relabeled as Arabic numerals, to the Christian world, along with Al-Khwarizmi. Al-Kindi was also one of the fathers of cryptography. Building on the work of Al-Khalil (Al-Farahidi) (717–786), Al-Kindi’s book entitled Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages gave rise to the birth of cryptanalysis, was the earliest known use of statistical inference, and introduced several new methods of breaking ciphers, notably frequency analysis. Using his mathematical and medical expertise, he was able to develop a scale that would allow doctors to quantify the potency of their medication.”5
Not only that, but the numerical system we use today for just about everything ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ) were brought together by the man you see in the picture above (Al Kindi) and the man you see bellow. Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (known as Al Khwarizmi).
Numbers are not physical properties, but more like a language making us able to express things in the real world. Before this system was introduced and adopted in Europe (the Hindu-Arabic numerical system), western Europe used roman numerals which represented the values above, but in an unpractical manner: I-2-II-3-III-4-IV-5-V-6-VI-7-VII-8-VIII-9-IX-10X… It was ot practical for higher mathematics.
Al-Khwarizmi is the man of which the name algorithm comes from. He was one of the most influential mathematicians the world has ever seen. The Persian polymath not only produced influential works in mathematics, but also astronomy and geography. Around 820 CE he was appointed as the astronomer and head of the library of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.6
The total numerical system we know very well and use today were a collective creation. It was first recorded by Indian mathematicians and then worked and developed upon by the prominent Arabs and Muslims. It is that work of the Arabs and muslims which was later introduced to the rest of the western world. 7 As such it is called the Hindu-Arabic numerical system.
The emergence of Islam is something which several historians see as the prime factor for the Islamic Golden Age. It revolutionized the world by accelerating or creating most of the modern day sciences. From the canon of medicine produced by Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna) which accelerated the science of medicine and treatments, to “Ilm al-jabr wa l-muqābala, “The Science of Restoring and Balancing” which introduced Algebra to the world. Al-jabr is the word Algebra comes from. 8 At the same time, the value for zero 0 “sifr” (in arabic) also came from the works of these polymath and the entire system of Data science and computers operates on ones 1 and zeros 0.
In the first page of the “Islamic Golden Age” and under “causes” you find this passage:
“The various Quranic injunctions and Hadith (or actions of Muhammad), which place values on education and emphasize the importance of acquiring knowledge, played a vital role in influencing the Muslims of this age in their search for knowledge and the development of the body of science.”9
Algebra and Algorithms were all introduced by the Arabs as a direct consequence of the emergence of Islam, since Islam emphasizes on learning (seeking knowledge), education and to question reality. Some argue that the need for calculations and higher mathematics came in order to calculate the correct inheritance of each person (after someone has deceased) according to Quranic principles. Here the Quran uses fractions, and in many scenarios one has to calculate according to how many family members, which family members and so forth. This resulted in quite complex breakdowns and creative mathematics in order to get the correct inheritance of each person according to the family members.
In courts and caliphates, the intense rivalry and danger in war caused the leaders to encrypting their messages so that the enemy couldnt interprate their next move. This where cryptography has existed for thousands of years, long before Arabs played any role in society.
“Cryptography is technique of securing information and communications through use of codes so that only those person for whom the information is intended can understand it and process it. Thus preventing unauthorized access to information. The prefix “crypt” means “hidden” and suffix graphy means “writing”. In Cryptography the techniques which are use to protect information are obtained from mathematical concepts and a set of rule based calculations known as algorithms to convert messages in ways that make it hard to decode it. These algorithms are used for cryptographic key generation, digital signing, verification to protect data privacy, web browsing on internet and to protect confidential transactions such as credit card and debit card transactions.”10
Modern Cryptography was first mentioned and explained in detail by the polymath Al Kindi and bellow is his passage bellow from his book written around 1000 years ago.
“One way to solve an encrypted message, if we know its language, is to find a different plaintext of the same language long enough to fill one sheet or so, and then we count the occurrences of each letter. We call the most frequently occurring letter the “first”, the next most occurring letter the “second”, the following most occurring letter the “third”, and so on, until we account for all the different letters in the plaintext sample. Then we look at the cipher text we want to solve and we also classify its symbols. We find the most occurring symbol and change it to the form of the “first” letter of the plaintext sample, the next most common symbol is changed to the form of the “second” letter, and the following most common symbol is changed to the form of the “third” letter, and so on, until we account for all symbols of the cryptogram we want to solve.”11
Here Al Kindi explains the process of decrypting and encrypted message. Likely the first practical uses of cryptography and cryptanalysis was when rulers and kings wanted to protect secret messages from spies and enemies. By encrypting them with secrets methods it could remain “coded” form.
“In Sassanid Persia, there were two secret scripts, according to the Muslim author Ibn al-Nadim: the šāh-dabīrīya (literally “King’s script”) which was used for official correspondence, and the rāz-saharīya which was used to communicate secret messages with other countries.”12
The word “Crypto” come from the Greek word “Kryptos”, the same word cryptography comes from. “Kryptos” means to hide or “secret”. All of what is mentioned above is important modern technology and especially in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. The method of cryptographic encryption through algorithms shows itself as more important in the age of the algorithms.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cryptography
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khalil_ibn_Ahmad_al-Farahidi#Cryptography
4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Kindi
5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Kindi
6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi
7:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system#Glyph_comparison
8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra
9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
10: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/cryptography-and-its-types/
11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Kindi#Cryptography
12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography
