Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni
Al-Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) generally known as al-Biruni, turn out to be a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath at some degree in the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of cutting-edge-day geodesy", and the primary anthropologist.
Al-Biruni have end up nicely versed in physics, arithmetic, astronomy, and herbal sciences, and moreover outstanding himself as a historian, chronologist and linguist. He studied nearly all of the sciences of his day and come to be rewarded abundantly for his tireless research in masses of fields of records. Royalty and one of a kind effective elements in society funded Al-Biruni's research and sought him out with precise responsibilities in mind. Influential in his very very very own proper, Al-Biruni end up himself inspired with the aid of the use of the students of diverse countries, which includes the Greeks, from whom he took thought on the identical time as he have become to the check of philosophy. A gifted linguist, he have become acquainted with Khwarezmian, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit, and additionally knew Greek, Hebrew and Syriac. He spent lots of his life in Ghazni, then capital of the Ghaznavids, in current-day important-japanese Afghanistan. In 1017 he travelled to the Indian subcontinent and wrote a treatise on Indian lifestyle entitled Tārīkh al-Hind (History of India), after exploring the Hindu religion practiced in India.[a] He became, for his time, an admirably unbiased creator on the customs and creeds of numerous international locations, his scholarly objectivity incomes him the identify al-Ustadh ("The Master") in recognition of his high-quality description of early 11th-century India.
In Iran, Abu Rayhan Biruni's birthday is nicely called the day of the surveying engineer.
Contents
Name
The name of al-Biruni is derived from the Persian phrase bīrūn (which means that 'outskirts'), as he changed into born in an outlying district of Kath, the capital of the Afrighid Khwarazmshahs.
Life
He grow to be born inside the outer district (Bīrūn) of Kath, the capital of the Afrighid dynasty of Khwarezm (Chorasmia) in Central Asia – now a part of the self enough republic of Karakalpakstan in the northwest of Uzbekistan.
Al-Biruni spent the first twenty-5 years of his life in Khwarezm wherein he studied Islamic jurisprudence, theology, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, remedy and philosophy and dabbled now not only within the place of physics, however additionally inside the ones of maximum of the opposite sciences. The Iranian Khwarezmian language, which have become Biruni's mom tongue, survived for numerous centuries after Islam till the Turkification of the location – as ought to 3 at least of the way of lifestyles and lore of historical Khwarezm – for it's miles hard to expect that the commanding determine of Biruni, a repository of a lot understanding, should have regarded in a cultural vacuum. He changed into sympathetic to the Afrighids, who have been overthrown by way of manner of the rival dynasty of Ma'munids in 995. He left his place of beginning for Bukhara, then below the Samanid ruler Mansur II the son of Nuh. There he corresponded with Avicenna and there are extant exchanges of perspectives among the ones students.
In 998, he went to the courtroom of the Ziyarid amir of Tabaristan, Qabus (r. 977–981, 997–1012). There he wrote his first important paintings, al-Athar al-Baqqiya 'an al-Qorun al-Khaliyya (really: "The final traces of past centuries" and translated as "Chronology of historical nations" or "Vestiges of the Past") on ancient and clinical chronology, possibly around one thousand C.E., even though he later made a few amendments to the book. He additionally visited the courtroom docket of the Bavandid ruler Al-Marzuban. Accepting the precise demise of the Afrighids on the arms of the Ma'munids, he made peace with the latter who then ruled Khwarezm. Their court docket docket at Gorganj (additionally in Khwarezm) have become gaining reputation for its amassing of fantastic scientists.
In 1017, Mahmud of Ghazni took Rey. Most pupils, which includes al-Biruni, had been taken to Ghazni, the capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty. Biruni become made courtroom astrologer and followed Mahmud on his invasions into India, living there for a few years. He changed into forty-4 years vintage on the identical time as he went at the trips with Mahmud of Ghazni. Biruni have become familiar with all things associated with India. During this time he wrote his have a have a look at of India, completing it round 1030. Along alongside along together with his writing, Al-Biruni additionally made sure to growth his observe to technological knowledge on the identical time as on the expeditions. He sought to find out a way to diploma the peak of the sun, and created a makeshift quadrant for that purpose. Al-Biruni modified into capable of make a bargain development in his have a have a study over the common travels that he went on at some stage in the lands of India.
Belonging to the Sunni Ash'ari university, al-Biruni notwithstanding the reality that additionally associated with Maturidi theologians. He changed into but, very critical of the Mu'tazila, in particular criticising al-Jahiz and Zurqan. He moreover repudiated Avicenna for his perspectives at the eternality of the universe.
Mathematics, astronomy and invention of mins and seconds
Ninety-5 of 146 books appeared to had been written with the useful resource of Bīrūnī are committed to astronomy, mathematics, and related topics like mathematical geography. He lived all through the Islamic Golden Age, even as the Abbasid Caliphs promoted astronomical studies, due to the truth such studies possessed not best a scientific however additionally a religious size: in Islam worship and prayer require a expertise of the ideal instructions of sacred places, which can be determined as it have to be high-quality thru the usage of astronomical records.
In wearing out his research, Al-Biruni used a spread of numerous strategies set up upon the particular difficulty of have a have a study worried.
His critical artwork on astrology is generally an astronomical and mathematical textual content; he states: "I even have started with Geometry and proceeded to Arithmetic and the Science of Numbers, then to the shape of the Universe and in the end to Judicial Astrology [sic], for no man or woman who's well worth of the fashion and discover of Astrologer [sic] who isn't very well conversant with those for sciences." In the ones earlier chapters he lays the regulations for the final bankruptcy, on astrological prognostication, which he criticises. He changed into the number one to make the semantic distinction among astronomy and astrology and, in a later work, wrote a refutation of astrology, in contradistinction to the valid technological knowledge of astronomy, for which he expresses wholehearted assist. Some advocate that his reasons for refuting astrology relate to the strategies used by astrologers being based totally absolutely upon pseudoscience in preference to empiricism and moreover to a conflict between the views of the astrologers and people of the orthodox theologians of Sunni Islam.
He wrote an extensive announcement on Indian astronomy in the Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind generally translation of Aryabhatta's art work, in which he claims to have resolved the problem of Earth's rotation in a bit on astronomy that isn't extant, his Miftah-ilm-alhai'a (Key to Astronomy):
The rotation of the earth does in no way impair the fee of astronomy, as all appearances of an astronomic man or woman can pretty as nicely be defined in step with this idea as to the opportunity. There are, but, extraordinary motives which make it not possible. This question is most difficult to treatment. The maximum distinguished of every modern-day-day and ancient astronomers have deeply studied the question of the transferring of the earth, and tried to refute it. We, too, have composed a ebook on the hassle known as Miftah-ilm-alhai'a (Key to Astronomy), wherein we assume we have got surpassed our predecessors, if now not within the terms, at all events within the rely.
In his description of Sijzi's astrolabe he recommendations at modern-day debates about the movement of the earth. He carried on a extended correspondence and sometimes heated debate with Ibn Sina, wherein Biruni over and over assaults Aristotle's celestial physics: he argues through easy take a look at that the vacuum nation need to exist; he's "surprised" thru the weak spot of Aristotle's argument in competition to elliptical orbits on the concept that they might create a vacuum; he attacks the immutability of the celestial spheres.
In his main astronomical art work, the Mas'ud Canon, Biruni located that, contrary to Ptolemy, the solar's apogee (highest component in the heavens) have come to be cellular, not steady. He wrote a treatise at the astrolabe, describing the manner to apply it to tell the time and as a quadrant for surveying. One unique diagram of an 8 geared tool may be considered an ancestor of later Muslim astrolabes and clocks. More currently, Biruni's eclipse facts emerge as used by Dunthorne in 1749 to help decide the acceleration of the moon, and his statistics on equinox instances and eclipses emerge as used as a part of a examine of Earth's past rotation.
Al-Biruni modified into the person that first subdivided the hour sexagesimally into mins, seconds, thirds and fourths in one thousand at the equal time as discussing Jewish months.
Refutation of Eternal Universe
Like later adherents of the Ash'ari college, such as al-Ghazali, al-Biruni is famous for vehemently protecting the majority Sunni role that the universe had a beginning, being a robust supporter of creatio ex nihilo, particularly refuting the truth seeker Avicenna in a multiple letter correspondence.
Al-Biruni said the subsequent,
"Other people, except, hold this silly persuasion, that issue has no terminus quo in any respect."
He further said that Aristotle, whose arguments Avicenna uses, contradicted himself at the same time as he stated that the universe and depend quantity has a start at the same time as maintaining without delay to the idea that rely is pre-eternal. In his letters to Avicenna, he stated the argument of Aristotle, that there can be a change inner the writer. He similarly argued that setting forward there may be a trade inside the author need to suggest there can be a change within the impact (that means the universe has alternate) and that the universe entering into being after no longer being is that this sort of change (and so arguing there's no trade – no beginning – way Aristotle believes the author is negated).
Al-Biruni modified into pleased with the reality that he observed the textual proof of the faith without being induced through Greek philosophers which includes Aristotle.
Physics
Al-Biruni contributed to the creation of the scientific method to medieval mechanics. He superior experimental strategies to decide density, the use of a specific form of hydrostatic stability.
Geography and Geodesy
Bīrūnī devised a unique approach of figuring out the earth's radius via using the statement of the peak of a mountain. He carried it out at Nandana in Pind Dadan Khan (gift-day Pakistan). He used trigonometry to calculate the radius of the Earth using measurements of the peak of a hill and measurement of the dip within the horizon from the top of that hill. His calculated radius for the Earth of 3928.77 miles emerge as 2% higher than the real mean radius of 3847.Eighty miles. His estimate modified into given as 12,803,337 cubits, so the accuracy of his estimate in comparison to the cutting-edge price relies upon on what conversion is used for cubits. The precise duration of a cubit isn't clear; with an 18-inch cubit his estimate might be 3,six hundred miles, whilst with a 22-inch cubit his estimate is probably 4,200 miles. One brilliant problem with this approach is that Al-Biruni changed into not aware about atmospheric refraction and made no allowance for it. He used a dip angle of 34 arc minutes in his calculations, however refraction can generally adjust the measured dip mindset via using approximately 1/6, making his calculation handiest correct to inner about 20% of the real charge.
In his Codex Masudicus (1037), Al-Biruni theorized the lifestyles of a landmass alongside the superb ocean among Asia and Europe, or what's in recent times known as the Americas. He argued for its lifestyles at the idea of his correct estimations of the Earth's circumference and Afro-Eurasia's length, which he decided spanned quality -fifths of the Earth's circumference, reasoning that the geological methods that gave upward thrust to Eurasia want to in reality have given upward thrust to lands within the big ocean among Asia and Europe. He additionally theorized that as a minimum some of the unknown landmass ought to lie inside the recounted latitudes which people ought to inhabit, and consequently might be inhabited.
Pharmacology and mineralogy
Biruni wrote a pharmacopoeia, the "Kitab al-saydala fi al-tibb" (Book on the Pharmacopoeia of Medicine). It lists synonyms for drug names in Syriac, Persian, Greek, Baluchi, Afghan, Kurdi, and a few Indian languages.
He used a hydrostatic balance to determine the density and purity of metals and precious stones. He categorised gem stones thru what he considered their primary bodily homes, along aspect precise gravity and hardness, in location of the not unusual exercise of the time of classifying them with the aid of the use of colour.
History and chronology
Biruni's principal essay on political facts, Kitāb al-musāmara fī aḵbār Ḵᵛārazm (Book of nightly communique concerning the affairs of Ḵᵛārazm) is stated now simplest from quotations in Bayhaqī's Tārīkh-e Masʿūdī. In addition to this numerous discussions of historic sports and technique are found in reference to the lists of kings in his al-Āthār al-bāqiya and in the Qānūn similarly to some other place inside the Āthār, in India, and scattered for the duration of his extraordinary works. Al-Biruni's "Chronology of Ancient Nations" attempted to because it should be set up the length of numerous historical eras.
History of religions
Bīrūnī is extensively considered to be one of the maximum critical Muslim authorities at the statistics of faith. - a pioneer in the difficulty of comparative faith in his take a look at of, among wonderful creeds, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam. He assumed the superiority of Islam: "We have right here given an account of these items surely so the reader may have a look at through the usage of the comparative remedy of the challenge how thousands superior the institutions of Islam are, and the manner more glaringly this evaluation brings out all customs and usages, differing from those of Islam, of their vital foulness." However he emerge as happy every now and then to express admiration for exclusive cultures, and quoted straight away from the sacred texts of different religions at the same time as conducting his conclusions. He strove to understand them on their very very own phrases in place of in search of to show them incorrect. His underlying idea have turn out to be that every one cultures are as a minimum far off family of all different cultures due to the fact they'll be all human constructs. "Rather, what Al-Biruni seems to be arguing is that there is a not unusual human detail in each way of life that makes all cultures faraway family, however foreign places they may seem to each unique."
Al-Biruni divides Hindus into an knowledgeable and an uneducated magnificence. He describes the knowledgeable as monotheistic, believing that God is one, eternal, and all-powerful and eschewing all forms of idol worship. He acknowledges that uneducated Hindus worshiped a multiplicity of idols however factors out that even some Muslims (which incorporates the Jabriyah) have adopted anthropomorphic concepts of God.
Anthropology
Al-Biruni wrote approximately the peoples, customs and religions of the Indian subcontinent. According to Akbar S. Ahmed, like modern-day-day anthropologists, he engaged in big participant statement with a given employer of people, learnt their language and studied their primary texts, presenting his findings with objectivity and neutrality the use of bypass-cultural comparisons. Akhbar S. Ahmed concluded that Al-Biruni can be taken into consideration because of the truth the primary Anthropologist, others, but, have argued that he can on occasion be considered an anthropologist in the traditional revel in.
Indology
Al-Biruni's reputation as an Indologist rests more often than no longer on texts. Al-Biruni wrote an encyclopedic artwork on India known as Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind min maqūlah maqbūlah fī al-ʿaql aw mardhūlah (variously translated as "Verifying All That the Indians Recount, the Reasonable and the Unreasonable" or "The ebook confirming what relates to India, whether or no longer rational or despicable") in which he explored nearly every element of Indian lifestyles, together with faith, facts, geography, geology, technological statistics, and arithmetic. During his journey thru India, military and political facts were not Al-Biruni's primary interest: he determined as a substitute to file the civilian and scholarly factors of Hindu existence, studying manner of existence, technological statistics, and religion. He explores faith inside a rich cultural context. He expresses his motive with simple eloquence: He additionally translated the Yoga sutras of Indian sage Patanjali with the name Tarjamat ketāb Bātanjalī fi’l-ḵalāṣ men al-ertebāk.
I shall no longer produce the arguments of our antagonists so that it will refute such of them, as I consider to be within the wrong. My e-book is nothing however a easy ancient file of statistics. I shall vicinity in advance than the reader the theories of the Hindus precisely as they may be, and I shall aspect out in reference to them similar theories of the Greeks in order to show the relationship cutting-edge amongst them.
An example of Al-Biruni's evaluation is his summary of why many Hindus hate Muslims. Biruni notes inside the beginning of his e book how the Muslims had a tough time mastering about Hindu knowledge and life-style. He explains that Hinduism and Islam are clearly awesome from every different. Moreover, Hindus in eleventh century India had suffered waves of unfavourable attacks on a selection of its towns, and Islamic armies had taken severa Hindu slaves to Persia, which – claimed Al-Biruni – contributed to Hindus turning into suspicious of all foreigners, now not simply Muslims. Hindus taken into consideration Muslims violent and impure, and did no longer need to proportion something with them. Over time, Al-Biruni received the welcome of Hindu students. Al-Biruni gathered books and studied with the ones Hindu students to become fluent in Sanskrit, discover and translate into Arabic the mathematics, era, remedy, astronomy and different fields of arts as practiced in 11th-century India. He have become stimulated with the aid of way of the use of the arguments supplied by means of manner of manner of Indian college students who believed earth have to be globular in shape, which they felt modified into the handiest manner to sincerely offer an purpose of the difference in daytime with the aid of manner of range, seasons and earth's relative positions with moon and stars. At the same time, Al-Biruni have turn out to be moreover essential of Indian scribes, who he believed carelessly corrupted Indian files while making copies of older files. He furthermore criticized the Hindus on what he observed them do and now not do, for instance finding them bad in hobby approximately records and religion.
One of the right elements of Hindu life that Al-Biruni studied become the Hindu calendar. His scholarship at the priority exhibited tremendous self-discipline and focus, now not to mention the difference in his approach of the in-depth studies he finished. He evolved a manner for changing the dates of the Hindu calendar to the dates of the 3 unique calendars that have been common inside the Islamic countries of his time period, the Greek, the Arab/Muslim, and the Persian. Biruni additionally hired astronomy inside the willpower of his theories, which have been complex mathematical equations and clinical calculation that allows one to transform dates and years the various unique calendars.
The ebook does not restrict itself to tedious information of battle because Al-Biruni found the social manner of life to be greater important. The artwork consists of research on a massive array of topics of Indian manner of life, which encompass descriptions in their traditions and customs. Although he tried to live away from political and military information, Biruni did simply document important dates and stated actual web sites of wherein good sized battles took place. Additionally, he chronicled memories of Indian rulers and suggested of methods they dominated over their human beings with their useful actions and acted in the interests of the kingdom. But, his info are brief and with the useful resource of and huge really list rulers with out relating to their actual names. He did no longer pass on approximately deeds that every one performed all through their reign, which continues consistent with Al-Biruni's project to try to live far from political histories. Al-Biruni furthermore defined the geography of India in his work. He documented great our our bodies of water and high-quality herbal phenomena. These descriptions are useful to trendy modern historians due to the reality they are able to use Biruni's scholarship to discover powerful locations in modern-day-day India. Historians are capable of make a few suits on the same time as moreover concluding that advantageous areas seem to have disappeared and been replaced with considered considered one of a kind cities. Different forts and landmarks were able to be located, legitimizing Al-Biruni's contributions with their usefulness to even modern records and archeology.
The dispassionate account of Hinduism given via Al-Biruni end up wonderful for its time. He said that he become completely aim in his writings, closing impartial like a proper historian have to. Biruni documented the whole lot about India simply because it happened. But, he did be conscious how a number of the money owed of information that he have become given through natives of the land won't were dependable in terms of entire accuracy, however, he did try and be as sincere as feasible in his writing. Dr. Edward C. Sachau compares it to "a magic island of quiet, impartial research within the midst of a worldwide of clashing swords, burning towns, and plundered temples." Biruni's writing became very poetic, which can also additionally lessen some of the historical fee of the artwork for modern times. The loss of description of warfare and politics makes the ones factors of the picture genuinely misplaced. However, Many have used Al-Biruni's paintings to check statistics of statistics in special works which can have been ambiguous or had their validity wondered.
Works
Most of the works of Al-Biruni are in Arabic regardless of the reality that he reputedly wrote the Kitab al-Tafhim in each Persian and Arabic, showing his mastery over each languages. Bīrūnī's catalogue of his private literary manufacturing as a high-quality deal as his sixty 5th lunar/63rd sun 12 months (the end of 427/1036) lists 103 titles divided into 12 classes: astronomy, mathematical geography, mathematics, astrological elements and transits, astronomical contraptions, chronology, comets, an untitled beauty, astrology, anecdotes, religion, and books he no longer possesses.
Selection of extant works
- A Critical Study of What India Says, Whether Accepted by using using Reason or Refused ; or Kitāb al- or Alberuni's India (Translation) – compendium of India's faith and philosophy.
- Book of Instruction within the Elements of the Art of Astrology (Kitab al-tafhim li-awa’il sina‘at al-tanjim); in Persian
- The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries– a comparative take a look at of calendars of cultures and civilizations, (together with severa chapters on Christian cults) with mathematical, astronomical, and ancient statistics.
- Melkite Calendar, or Les Fetes des Melchites – Arabic textual content with French translation extract from The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries.
- The Mas'udi Law – encyclopedia of astronomy, geography, and engineering, devoted to Mas'ud, son of Mahmud of Ghazni of the eponymous call.
- Understanding Astrology – a query and answer style ebook approximately arithmetic and astronomy, in Arabic and Persian.
- Pharmacy – on capsules and medicines.
- Gems – geology manual of minerals and gem stones. Dedicated to Mawdud son of Mas'ud.[citation needed]
- Astrolabe
- A Short History
- History of Mahmud of Ghazni and his father
- History of Khawarezm
- Kitab al-Āthār al-Bāqīyah ‘an al-Qurūn al-Khālīyah.
- Risālah li-al-Bīrūnī (Epître de Berūnī)
- Persian paintings
Biruni wrote maximum of his works in Arabic, due to the fact the medical language of his age, however, his Persian model of the Al-Tafhim is one of the maximum crucial of the early works of technological understanding in the Persian language, and is a rich deliver for Persian prose and lexicography. The e-book covers the Quadrivium in a detailed and professional fashion.
Legacy
Extraordinarily, following Al-Biruni's demise, at some stage inside the the rest of the duration of Ghaznavid rule and the centuries following, his artwork grow to be neither built upon, nor even referenced. It changed into most effective centuries later (and inside the West at that), that his works have been yet again have a study and reference made to them – most importantly inside the case of his ebook on India, which have become applicable to the British Empire's interest in India from the seventeenth century.
A movie about his lifestyles, Abu Raykhan Beruni, changed into released within the Soviet Union in 1974.
Lunar crater Al-Biruni, at the a long way facet of the Moon, as visible with the aid of the usage of Apollo 14
The lunar crater Al-Biruni and the asteroid 9936 Al-Biruni were named in his honour.
Biruni Island in Antarctica is referred to as after Al-Biruni.
In June 2009, Iran donated a pavilion to the United Nations Office in Vienna—placed inside the applicable Memorial Plaza of the Vienna International Center. Named the Scholars Pavilion, it talents the statues of four super Iranian college college students: Avicenna, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Zakariya Razi (Rhazes) and Omar Khayyam.
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