Arabic numerals: the digits 0 to 9
In English, “Arabic numerals” means the digits you are reading now: 0 to 9. This page is about them. If you came for the Arabic words for numbers, start at numbers in Arabic; for the digit shapes used in Arabic writing, see Eastern Arabic numerals.
Updated 8 October 2026
Two ideas in ten symbols
The digits matter less than the system behind them. A place-value system lets ten symbols write any number, because a digit’s position multiplies it by ten each step to the left; and a sign for nothing, zero, keeps the places straight. Both ideas were in use in India before they reached the Arab world.
From India through Baghdad to Pisa
- By the 6th century
Indian mathematicians write numbers with nine digits and a place-value system. Brahmagupta’s Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (628) gives rules for calculating with zero as a number.
- 8th and 9th centuries
Indian astronomical works are translated in Baghdad. Al-Khwarizmi writes a book on calculating with the Indian numerals, about 825.
- 12th century
Al-Khwarizmi’s arithmetic is translated into Latin as Algoritmi de numero Indorum. The Latin form of his name gives English the word algorithm.
- 1202
Leonardo of Pisa (Fibonacci) publishes Liber Abaci, which teaches "the nine Indian figures" and the sign 0 to Latin readers, with merchants’ arithmetic as the selling point.
- 15th to 16th centuries
Printing settles the shapes of 0 to 9 in Europe close to the ones used today.
What Arabic calls them
Arabic has its own words for a digit (رقم, plural أرقام) and for a number (عدد, plural أعداد). The digit shapes used in Egypt and the East are called أرقام هندية, Indian numerals, after their origin; the shapes 0 to 9 are often called أرقام عربية, the same name English uses. The Arabic word for zero, صفر, is the source of the English words cipher and zero.
Arabic numerals on this site
The worksheets and the chart print figures in the digits 0 to 9, and the answer keys accept the Eastern Arabic shapes too. For the number words that go with each digit, see Arabic numbers 1 to 10 and 1 to 100.
Questions
What are Arabic numerals?
The ten digits 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9, written in a place-value system where a digit’s position gives its value. They are called Arabic numerals in English because Europe learned them from Arabic books, though the system began in India; scholars often say Hindu-Arabic numerals for that reason.
Why are they called Arabic if they came from India?
Because of the route. Latin scholars in the 12th and 13th centuries met the digits in Arabic mathematical works and in translations of them, such as al-Khwarizmi’s, and named them after the people they learned them from. Arabic writers, for their part, called the digits Indian: أرقام هندية.
Do Arabic speakers use Arabic numerals?
Both sets are in use. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia write 0 to 9 as English does. Egypt, Sudan, the Gulf, the Levant and Iraq mostly use a second set of shapes, the Eastern Arabic numerals, alongside 0 to 9 in many contexts. The Eastern Arabic numerals page shows both sets and where each appears.
What is the difference between Arabic and Roman numerals?
Place value and zero. In 207 the 2 means two hundreds because of where it stands, and 0 holds the empty tens place. Roman numerals add up letters (CCVII) and have no zero, so long numbers take many symbols and written arithmetic is awkward. That difference is why the Indian system replaced Roman numerals for calculation in Europe.