No, the original Arabic numbers didn't use the "number of angles / corners" in the figure to determine their values. They also didn't look like that. (Read the article for some real history, however.)
(h/t +Les Jenkins)
No, This Viral Image Does Not Explain the History of Arabic Numerals
Your cousin’s Facebook friends are probably going nuts over this image that claims to show how the early history of Arabic geometric design informs how we write numerals today. “Each figure contains its own number of corners and angles,” reads the text. That’s half-true of the drawings in the image. The rest is patently false.
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People who read Arabic laughed at that meme.
I have a really nice picture of what they actually looked like.
Why can't we put images in comments?
+Chris Blackmore I wish we could (though you can always put links to images).
The article has some good renditions of the (actual) older versions of the numbers.
+Dave Hill A naked link is so bloody ugly, though.