Skip to main content

Secondary sourceArtifact1983

Soviet 1983 commemorative stamp for al-Khwarizmi

Unknown author · 1983

A Soviet postage stamp issued in 1983 marking the 1200th anniversary of al-Khwarizmi's birth.

A commemorative stamp honoring al-Khwarizmi on the 1200th anniversary of his birth.

Ask Al-Khwarizmi about this sourceView the original(opens in new tab)
Scan of a Soviet Union 1983 postage stamp with a brown and blue portrait of a bearded man in a white turban. Text reads 'Почта СССР 1983', '4 к', '1200 лет', and 'Мухаммед аль-Хорезми'. Decorative gold border.
Soviet Union commemorative stamp for al-Khwarizmi, issued September 6, 1983.

About this source

What it is

This is a Soviet Union postage stamp issued on September 6, 1983, marking the 1200th anniversary of al-Khwarizmi's birth. It shows a portrait-style design of a bearded man in a white turban, with his name and the anniversary written in Russian.

Why it matters

This stamp shows how al-Khwarizmi was honored centuries later as a founding figure of mathematics, recognized well beyond the regions where he originally worked. Commemorative stamps like this reflect how nations choose to celebrate historical scientists and shape public memory of their achievements.

Look closer

  • Why might the Soviet Union choose to commemorate a 9th-century Persian mathematician?
  • What can you tell about how the artist imagined al-Khwarizmi's appearance, since no contemporary portrait exists?
  • What does the stamp's design and wording suggest about who it was made for?

This artifact is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Al-Khwarizmi on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Al-Khwarizmi sources

Meet the AI Al-Khwarizmi →
Manuscript title page in Arabic script with a decorated gold-and-brown border. The large heading reads the title of al-Khwarizmi's algebra work, with smaller lines of text beneath in a calligraphic hand, on aged parchment.Book

Primary source

Al-Jabr

Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi · c. 820

Open manuscript of two facing pages covered in handwritten Arabic script in brown ink on aged, yellowed paper, with small geometric diagrams drawn in red ink with labeled letters near the bottom of each page. The page edges are dark against a black background.Book

Primary source

Algebra Manuscript, Bodleian MS. Huntington 214

Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi · 1342

Black-and-white scan of a medieval Latin manuscript page. A large decorated initial D with ornate knotwork sits at upper left, and the text begins with 'DIXIT algorizmi' in dense handwritten script. A folio number 104 appears at top right.Book

Secondary source

Dixit Algorizmi

Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

Two facing pages of an Arabic manuscript with black ink text in the margins and a colored diagram in the center: a blue and red river system with branching channels and lakes, a green rectangular panel on the left, and a brown curved shape on the right. Labels in Arabic are written along the diagram.Artifact

Primary source

Earliest Extant Map of the Nile

Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

Scanned black-and-white manuscript page of medieval Latin tables with columns of Roman numerals, headed 'Tabula de cognoscendo motu medium centrum solaris'. Handwritten marginal notes and a column of dated entries appear at the bottom.Document

Secondary source

Zij Manuscript, Corpus Christi College MS 283

Ready when you are

Start chatting with Al-Khwarizmi now.

20 messages free · No credit card · Available in 50+ languages.

Trial Humy for freeGet a quote for institutions