A universal genius

in Central Asia

a thousand years ago

astronomer

historian
botanist

pharmacologist
geologist
poet

philosopher
mathematician

geographer
humanist

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Courier
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JUNE 1974

AL-BIRUNI

27TH YEAR

A universal genius who lived in Central Asia a thousand years ago By Bobojan Gafurov
10

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In the footsteps of a Muslim scholar

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Two youthful geniuses debate the nature of the universe

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Al-Biruni as he may have looked in his prime. An imaginary portrait to mark the thousandth anniversary of the birth of the great Islamic scholar in 973.
Photo APN

Few periods in man's history can boast the existence of one of those
rare intellectual giants whose genius not only embraces the knowledge
of his time but reaches out to uncharted, unknown frontiers. Such a

man was al-Biruni, born a thousand years ago, who ranks among the

greatest scholars of the Islamic world:

Astronomer, mathematician,
al-Biruni's contribution to
He had a

physicist, geographer, historian, linguist, ethnologist, pharmacologist

as well as poet, novelist and philosopher

human learning was unique.

Despite the political upheavals which

interrupted his work, his sheer output was prodigious.

scientific spirit in the full sense of the term and displayed a spirit of
understanding and respect for other cultures remarkable for his time.

His contribution was such that many scholars put him on a par with
or even higher than the great Avicenna. Yet unlike Avicenna, al-Biruni

is virtually unknown except to the rare specialist. The Unesco Courier

hopes that this special number will provide a small insight into the
extraordinary genius of this universal scholar and man of science.

Abu al-Rayhan Mohammed ibn Ahmad

CUMHURtYETl ro

250
KU RUS

AL-BIRUNI
A universal genius
Turkey

who lived

in Central Asia

LBU al-Rayhan

Mohammed

a thousand years ago

by Bobojan Gafurov

ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, the great Central Asian scholar, is one of those

intellectual giants whose stature continues to grow as we become more fully acquainted with their legacy. One hundred years ago, when alBiruni's Chronology of Ancient Nations
was published in Russian, only one facet of his many talents was apparent, that of an outstanding medieval his
torian. But as more of his works were

discovered

treatises on mathematics,

geography and astronomy and the more deeply they were studied, the higher al-Biruni stood out above the mass of his contemporaries.
Al-Biruni was so far ahead of his

BOBOJAN GAFUROV, of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, is director of the Academy's Institute of Oriental Studies and chairman of the Unesco-sponsored International Association for the Study of the Cultures of Central Asia (comprising

time that his most brilliant discoveries

seemed incomprehensible to most of the scholars of his day. He was the first to arrive at an amazingly simple formula for measuring the earth's

Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia! Pakistan and U.S.S.R.).

is the author of many works on Asian history and culture.

Of Tajik nationality, he

j? 973-1048 A.D. f* vfA-IVr

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1870-1940

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MILLENARY

OF

AL-BIRUNI

< ONE THOUSANDTH ANNNERSARY

Afghanistan

10^c^1.

INTERNATIONAL
Al-Biruni is claimed as a

CONGRESS
1973

QtT

^fe

ON MILLENARY OF AL-BIRUNI
NOV. 26 -DEC. 12.

PAKISTAN

son of many countries, but

as a universal scholar and

scientist he belongs to all nations

Here

and

every

age.

we show

commemo

rative
1973,

stamps
on the

issued
occasion

in
of

the 1,000th

anniversary

of

al-Biruni's birth, in Afgha

nistan, Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tur
key and USSR. Four coun tries, Afghanistan, Iran,
Pakistan

J3M8

Pakistan and USSR organi

zed symposia or congresses
on al-Biruni at the time.

Syrian Arab Rep.

circumference.

He thought It possible

the decline

that the earth revolved around the sun.

He developed the idea that geological eras succeed one another in cycles. "With the passing of time, the sea becomes dry land, and dry land the sea," he wrote, and on this brilliant hypothesis he based his theory of the earth's geological history.
What enabled
create works

of the Arab caliphate in Baghdad. New states arose on its ruins, and a pleiad of illustrious Central Asian scholars appeared, including Abu-Nasr al-Farabi and ibn-Sina (Avi
cenna).

Al-Biruni's

foster

father

was

Abu-

Nasr Mansur ibn-Ali ibn Iraq, or simply Mansur, a member of the Khwarizmian royal family and a distinguished math
ematician and astronomer. He intro

It was

during

this

period

that

al-

Biruni was born near Kath, the capital

duced al-Biruni to Euclidean geometry and Ptolemaean astronomy, which equipped the young scholar to study
astronomy.

of Khwarizm, on 4 September, in the

year 973. "In truth, I am not certain

al-Biruni to
made

move so
his name

far ahead of his contemporaries and to

that

known in the East as a symbol learning of the 11th century?

Khwarizm, in Central Asia,

of

of my genealogy, for I do not really know who my grandfather was. And how could I know who my grandfather
was, when I do not even know who

"Most of my days were blessed by gifts and privileges which were in creasingly bestowed on me," wrote al-Biruni, describing this period of his life. "The Iraq family nourished me
with their milk and their Mansur took

where

al-Biruni was born and grew up, had long been famed for its advanced culture. Its cities had magnificent
palaces, mosques and madrasahs

was my father?" he wrote in a poem which appears in one of his treatises.

it upon himself to rear me."

Al-Biruni studied the stars and

In his early youth, fortune brought

him in contact with an educated Greek who was to become his first teacher.

minerals,
heavens

probed
and

the

secrets
and

of the
read

the

earth

(religious colleges), and in this pros

perous, ancient state the sciences were

At

the

Greek's

request,
plants,

the

young
and

thousands of books in order to fathom

esteemed and highly developed.

The 10th and 11th centuries saw

al-Biruni

collected

seeds

fruit and this kindled his interest in the

natural sciences.

the meaning of history. He constructed a globe of the earth the first in Central Asia and was equally gifted
CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

AL-BIRUNI (Continued)

as

poet.

He

lived
and

through
witnessed

the
the
the

thing then known about the times of

Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the

He met and came to know people in

feverish
Samanid

final
fall
the

years
of

of the

powerful
feudal

many

different
close

walks

of

life
with

and
his

dynasty

Great.

maintained

contacts

rise

and

two

early

The book explains various calendar

fellow scholars.

We know from letters

empires

Karakhanid

and

Ghaznavid.

systems such as the Arabian,

Greek

written by al-Biruni in Khwarizm, in the year 997, to the 17 year-old Avicenna in Bokhara, that these young scholars

and
feudal wars and

Persian.
and with

The
political the

history
events history

of
is of

rulers,
inter culture,
not be

Social

conflicts,

heroes woven
of

discussed Aristotle's Physics and On

the Heavens, as well as the structure

barbarian

invasions

left

their

imprint

on his manuscripts, since science does

not exist in a vacuum, least of all the

customs and morals.

Ancient Nations

The Chronology
should

of

the

universe,

the

physical

laws

science of history.
been the violent
his first major

It might well have

social upheavals
in which

considered as a purely historical work, but as a partly historical and partly ethnographic study that retains its full significance to this day.
Soviet scholars of the 1930s referred

covering a free-falling object and in divisible particles (atoms). Al-Biruni

devoted his work, Questions and Ans

in
he

Khwarizm that suggested the theme of

work,

wers to these exchanges (see article page 27). Al-Biruni's letters reveal a deep

turned to the past for an understanding

of how society was evolving.

Al-Biruni completed his Chronology of Ancient Nations at the age of 27,
just before the 11th century was born.

to the Chronology again and again in

their research on ancient Central Asia.

respect for the ancient Greek philos ophers and show him to be already a mature youth. man of science, despite his In the year 1010, he was ad

Only in al-Biruni's work could they find an account of the Soghdian calendar, essential to their study of early

"My aim in this book,"

he explained,
eras."

mitted to the Academy of al-Mamun,

"was to establish as accurately as poss

8th century Soghdian documents; only

here could they find information about pre-Muslim Khwarizm, which archae

which

embraced

group

of famous

ible the time

human

span

of various

scholars, including the philosopher and

natural scientist Avicenna, the historian

His study begins at the dawn of the

race, moves on to the period

ologists were just beginning to study. Al-Biruni was no ivory tower scholar.

and
the

philosopher
mathematician

bn-Maskawayh
abu-Nasr Arrah.

and

of the great flood, and covers every

Photos B.

Fabritsky and I. Shmeliov Aurora Art Publishers,

APN,

Leningrad

Al-Biruni was born near the town of Kath, north-east of the ancient city of Khiva. Kath has vanished from the

map, but Khiva (today in Uzbekistan) still boasts palaces, religious colleges, mosques and burial monuments

that testify to the talent of its medieval architects and craftsmen. Shown here are two buildings in Khiva today: the Baths of Anusha-khan (opposite) and the mausoleum of Pahlawan Mahmud (above) whose great
dome covered with blue tiles dominates the city.

Whereas

European
in

natural
Khwarizm

science

Phaedo.

He was well acquainted with

intellectual doctors

game; highly

they

were

ac it

was
time,

in

state of stagnation

at that
were

the works of Aristotle, Archimedes and Democritus, and extolled what he con

complished sculptors and poets; their

scholars

were

reputed,

and

vigorously
traced by

advancing
scientists

along
of

the

path

sidered the best of Greek philosophy.

was even affirmed that the science of

antiquity.

Khwarizm's economic growth during the early feudal period had set the stage for a golden age of science in the early 11th century. Commerce with northern peoples the Khazars and Bulgars, the ancient
Russians, and the tribes of the Urals
and Western Siberia also influenced

The 11th century was a time of great

turmoil. The armed hosts of Mahmud

philosophy had originated In India.

In Ghazna, al-Biruni became ac

of Ghazna overran Khwarizm, in 1017,

quainted with Indian scholars who, like him, were exiled from their homeland.

taking
cluding

thousands
al-Biruni.

of
The

prisoners,

in

decade which
most difficult

His meetings and

them sparked his

conversations with
Interest in their

followed was to be the

period in the scholar's life, but at the

remarkable country.

For a period of

same

time

his

most

productive.

He

12 years, up to the year 1030, al-Biruni was totally absorbed in India. Many
and its

studied astronomy, collected materials

scientific
traditions

advancement.
of a thousand

Learning
year-old the

for a mathematics treatise, sought to

comprehend the influence of the moon

people

before

al-Biruni
and

had Sind
some
as

flourished in this fertile soil, with its

travelled to
books that

India,
could

especially to
coast,
serve

on the tides, and conceived his major

work on India, which represents the

southern

historians

independent

culture,

combining

"wisdom of neighbouring India with the perfect lucidity of far-off Hellas."

Al-Biruni's frequent references to

zenith of his scientific thinking.

Arabic
as a

a guide to

studying the country had

Al-Biruni's monumental

been written.

and
of

Persian

literature
The

prior

work
jective,
krit.

on

India,

however,
the

clearly
At

to al-Biruni's time had depicted India

land wonders. Indians

demonstrated a scientific, that is, ob approach to

visited

Greek philosophy and scientific thought demonstrate the encyclopedic scope of

his interests. He was familiar with

subject.

were knowledgeable in astronomy and arithmetic;

invented

the age of 45, he began learning Sans

He India several times,

they
chess,

were
which

said
in

to

have
an

Homer's Iliad and

studied Plato's

Odyssey, and had

Laws and

al-Biruni's

walked

on

its

soil,

breathed

its

air,

treatises,

time

was

already

considered

compared and marvelled.

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

AL-BIRUNI

(Continued)
14 Greek writers and used 40 Sanskrit

A true scientist, al-Biruni strove to

scholar an elephant loaded with pure

silver, al-Biruni replied: "This gift
Wise would seduce me from science.

share knowledge as well as to obtain

it. He translated Euclid's Elements

sources.

He

was

an

objective

re

searcher,

free

of

racial

bias,

with

and his own treatise on astronomy into

deep respect for the advanced culture

of another people.

men know that silver is soon spent but

science lives on. I would never

Sanskrit.

He also began a translation

of the Panchatantra into Arabic, as he

exchange During
succeeded Ghaznavid

the

perennial

wealth

of

considered the existing translation of

this immortal literary classic to be in
adequate. Al-Biruni's India became the major

the
his

reign

of

Mas'ud,
Mahmud,

who
as

scientific knowledge for the short-lived tawdry glitter of silver."

Al-Biruni's main interests were math

father,

ruler,

al-Biruni's

situation

improved.
sciences.

The

new

king

was

an
his

enlightened man who encouraged the

Al-Biruni dedicated

ematics, astronomy, geography, physics

and geodesy but in his last work, the

source for studying 11th century India.

It covered the caste

customs,

system,

philos
the

major work on astronomy, The Mas'udic

Canon, to him.
Biruni's

Pharmacology, he classified the physi

cal features of plants, animals and minerals, and compiled an alphabetical
list of medicinal herbs and their uses.

ophy, the exact sciences, religion, laws,

superstitions, legends,

In the opinion of aland suc

contemporaries

system of weights and measures, the written language and geography. In

cessors,

he

surpassed

his

ancient

mentor, Ptolemy, in this work.

Besides

Arabic

names,

al-Biruni

writing it, al-Biruni quoted 24 works by

When the grateful Mas'ud sent the

listed

about 900 Persian,

700 Greek,

400 Syrian and 350 Indian names in the to

Below, map showing im

Pharmacology. the
the

He

referred

to and
Un

Aristotle's works on biology, and also

writings
1st and

of
2nd

Dioscorides
centuries.

Galen, physicians and pharmacologists

portant cities and areas of

central Asia during the lifetime of al-Biruni. Right, the same region today, e ifrb racing Uzbekistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan
and India.

^
i^
Cf.
1

firA Sea
Tashkent
c
^y
jy

f
CHINA "
Samarkand

of

fortunately, the Pharmacology was not

completed, but even in the form it has
come down to us its values is selfevident.

1 Carmian Sea

.-

j-J
V

F
IRAN
vl
V V

j-J-Kabul f^T^y
kFGHANISTAjr IslarrWtf *"-Y'

Al-Biruni's contemporaries spoke of

him thus: "Except for two festive days each year, his hand never stopped

writing, his eyes observing, his mind

J
r

f
KaracVi

)
Delhi

J NEPAC""!

contemplating."
f

When he died in 1048,

his pen. They

V" " PAKISTAN/

4*i

at the age of 75, more than 150 works

had flowed from

include 70 on astronomy, 20 on math

INDIA

r 1

1 i

~~\

Oman Sea

<^~

A>

ematics and 18 on literature, including

translations,

and

bibliographies.

He

was famed as a cartographer, meteor

ologist, physicist, philosopher, historian

and ethnographer.

The boundaries on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by Unesco or the United Nations.

Only 27
down to

of or

his

works

have not

come been

us.

Whether the

rest were

destroyed

simply

have

found is not known.

Abu'l Faraj, the

Syrian historian and physician, wrote

of al-Biruni, the man he regarded as

his mentor:
exhaustive

"His works gre numerous,

and completely reliable.

There was no one, neither among his

colleagues,
versed
details."

nor to
down

this
to

day,
from the

so well
its main smallest

in

astronomy,

principles

Al-Biruni
claim him

had

vast

impact
but this

on
son

science in the East. of Khwarizm, one of

Many countries Central Asia's

as their own,

most brilliant civilizations, belongs to

all nations and to all time.

Bobojan Gafurov

Chess was first Asia and many

played in authorities

agree that it originated in India. In al-Biruni's day it was already a popular game
in Central Asia, and he may

himself
like the

have
ones

handled
shown

pieces
here of

carved ivory (4 cm. high), dating from the time when he lived. They were unearthed near the village of KurbanSheid, in Tajikstan, in a region once part of the Ghaznavid
Empire, in which al-Biruni

lived for many years.- Above, pawns with a knight In fore ground (rider's body and horse's head are missing). Left, knight and rook (?) flanked by pawns.

pfe-a& ^^^f^^^^

Photo

Bibllothtqu

Natloiwl*.

Pari*

THE

LONG
by Jacques Boilot

ODYSSEY
In the footsteps of a Muslim scholar through a world in ferment
FATHER
French

JACQUES
orientalist,

BOILOT,
devoted

distinguished
many years

has

to

the

study

of

al-Biruni.

His

'L'suvre

10

d'al-Biruni : Essai Bibliographique" is regarded as the standard bibliographical work on the subject. He is a member of the Dominican Institute of Oriental Studies (formerly the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology) in Cairo. His article is abridged from a study on al-Biruni published in the Dominican Institute's review, "Mlanges" (No 11,1972).

Photos Edinburgh University library, U.K. Miniatures al-Biruni's illustrated Sassanian above are on these pages are from two different manuscripts of Chronology of Ancient Nations. Opposite, copied and in Cairo in the 17th century, a miniature portraying the king Feroz addressing his court (1). The four miniatures from a manuscript probably made at Tabriz, Iran, dated

1307. They show the celebration of the autumnal equinox by the Hindus (5); a barbecue with roast fowl and game (4); a discussion between a sage and a peasant (2); and the birth of Caesar (3), an early pictorial representations of the surgical operation which
bears his name. Al-Biruni himself used the term "Caesarian".

kL-BIRUNI

is

one

of

the

greatest scholars of medieval Islam and probably the most original and
profound of all. poraries called Master). His Eastern contem him al-Ostadh (The

generalized syntheses by systemized deduction, or metaphysical speculation

in the strict sense of the term, but

Aral Sea, along the Amu-Dar'ya river,

the Oxus of the ancients (1).
The sultanate of Khwarizm had en

constantly on the look-out for positive facts carefully and critically observed,
trained to think mathematically, In terested in everything concretely related to human life, he appears at the beginning of the eleventh century like a champion of the scientific spirit as it is understood today.

How did his fame spread to the West

in the Middle Ages?

'His major works

joyed relative independence throughout its history but successive wars and changes in the course of the AmuDar'ya river brought about the de struction of one medieval city after
another. As a result, It Is difficult to determine the exact site of Kath, the

were apparently not translated into Latin, with the possible exception of a

few peripheral chapters dealing with natural magic, judicial astrology, talismanic art . . . The extraordinary features of his life as recounted by his Eastern biographers perhaps added to his
reputation. Early French texts speak of a "Matre Aliboron" that are

"He showed great religious tolerance and doctrinal objectivity. Above all,
he wanted to learn and understand.

city where al-Biruni was born in 973 A.D., beyond the fact that it was probably situated on the right bank of the Amu-Dar'ya river north-east of
the modern town of Khiva.

He was relatively unprejudiced but prepared to take a courageous stand

in defence of truth. He was one of

almost certainly alluding to "Master al-Biruni", scientist, doctor and man of

deep wisdom.

the

first

Muslims

to

study

the

phil

osophy and science of India sympath

etically, and in exchange he taught
those of Greece."

While al-Biruni's work is of great

value in itself and deserves serious

The second largest city in Khwarizm was Jurjaniyya on the opposite bank and to the north of Khiva. Today it is known as Urgench. On the right bank across from Urgench, a new town has risen not very far perhaps from ancient Kath, and its name, "Biruni",
commemorates the scientist's birth

study by historians of science, religion and philosophy, it is the Master's

mental outlook and the nature of his intellectual interests that scholars

So it Is al-Biruni the man we wish to

discover,

by

piecing

together

such

place.

facts as will help us to place him in

his setting and his time. This puts us in the latter part of the tenth century In Khwarizm, a central Asian country situated south of the
(1) Now part of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan, this region is in habited by Turkmenlan and Mongolian peoples, the Karakalpaks, whose lands form the Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Republic.
CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

today find stimulating.

11

Fifteen years ago we wrote: "Appar ently not much given to making

THE LONG ODYSSEY (Continued)

Al-Biruni very early began scientific studies and at the age of 17 he used a ring graduated in halves of a degree to observe the height of the sun at
the Kath meridian and thus calculate

Al-Biruni wrote a treatise describing

this

sextant
of

and
the

giving

detailed
made,

account

observations

the

latitude

of the
and

city.

Four years
and

based on information given to him by al-Khojandi in person. As the astron omer died about the year 1000, his
scientific discussions with the young

later he made plans for a series of

observations measurements,

had prepared an astronomical ring 15 cubits (8 metres) in diameter along

with other equipment.

al-Biruni in Ray, must have dated from shortly after the observations carried
out in 994.

There

is

reason

to

believe that

al-

At this time, civil war broke out in Khwarizm and al-Biruni, who was

Biruni

was

also

in

the

province

of

Gilan, along the south-west corner of

the Caspian Sea about this time. One of
his books Is dedicated to the Ispahbad

now 22, went into hiding and soon had

to flee the country.
In order to understand al-Biruni's

ceeded in reinstating himself in Gurgan

and al-Biruni followed him there.

long career from then on, we must take

into account the political situation in
the countries where he was to live. In

addition

to

what

is

now

Uzbekistan,

they comprised the northern part of present-day Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan

and northern India. Al-Biruni in the

("ruler" or "commander") of Jilan. In the Chronology of Ancient Nations which was finished by the year 1000, he speaks of having been in the presence of the Ispahbad of Jilan perhaps the same official who pro tected Firdausi, the epic poet of Persia,
from the wrath of Sultan Mahmud.

The major
written
book,

Chronology, al-Biruni's first work, seems to have been

at the Gurgan
of

court.
calendars

This
and

which

treats

course of his life was directly involved

with six princely dynasties.

Who was the prince that al-Biruni

In any event, al-Biruni was certainly back in Kath by 997. On 24 May in

eras, and fundamental problems in mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, was dedicated to 0aDUS about the year 390 of the Islamic calendar (1000 A.D.).
In it al-Biruni refers to seven other

that year, he observed an eclipse of

the moon in Kath, after arranging to have the great Muslim mathematician,
Abu' l-Wafa, observe the same

fled to for protection in 9957

not know with certainty.

We do

books that he had already completed, dealing with decimal numbers, the
astrolabe, astronomical observations,

It may have

been then that he went to the town of

astrology and history.

Ray, near present-day Teheran. In his Chronology of Ancient Nations he quotes a poem on the tribulations of poverty, and recounts that when he was living in Ray without royal patronage and destitute, a local astrologer scoffed at his views on some technical matter simply because
he was poor. Later, when his situation improved, the same man became

phenomenon
difference

in

Baghdad.
the

The

time

During

this

period

al-Biruni

was

between

respective

carrying on an acrimonious correspon

observations enabled the two scientists

to calculate the difference in longitude between the two points.

dence with a young prodigy, the brilliant philosopher and physician of

Bokhara, Ibn Sina, known in the Latin countries as Avicenna, who was seven

years his junior (see article page 27). Among the subjects on which they exchanged views were the nature and transmission of heat and light. AlBiruni was not yet 30 years old at the time and Avicenna was in his early
twenties.

HE short reign of the Samanid Mansur II began the same year,

997, and it was also about that time
that al-Biruni visited his court at the.

friendly. At that time, the flourishing Bowayhid dynasty, which had originated in the mountains south of the Caspian Sea,
extended its domain south towards the

Persian Gulf and west to Mesopotamia.

At

the

request
had

of

the
a

Bowayhid
mural

prince, Fakhr al-Dawla, the astronomer

capital city of Bokhara. The Samanid dynasty, a royal house of Zoroastrian origin, but early converted to Islam, ruled an area comprising all of modern Afghanistan, Transoxiana and Iran.
Meanwhile, 0aDUS, the Ziyarid ruler

In his book on geodesy, after de scribing the measurement of a degree along a terrestrial meridian, made at
the direction of the Caliph Ma'mun, alBiruni describes his own failure to

al-Khojandi

built

large

repeat the operation.

A suitable tract

sextant on a mountain above the town

12

of Gurgan,

city at the

south-east

of land had been chosen between Gur

of Ray. He used this "Fakhri Sextant" so named after the prince to observe the sun's transits throughout the year 994.

corner of the Caspian Sea, had been driven from his lands, and was trying to obtain support from Bokhara in an effort to return to power. He suc

gan and the land of the Oghuz Turks (on the deserts east of the Caspian) but the patron, presumably Oabus, lost
interest.

THE

TOWER

OF

QABUS

Al-Biruni lived at a time of great ferment in learning and the arts. About 1 000 A.D., he was living at Gurgan, in north-east Iran, at the court of Qabus, to whom he dedicated his first known major work, the Chronology of Ancient Nations. Left, the famous tower of Qabus. It was long believed to be the ruler's tomb, but recent investigation has revealed no trace of a burial chamber. Al-Biruni may have watched the tower being built, since elegantly carved
Arabic inscriptions at its summit and base record that Qabus ordered its construction in 1006 A.D. when al-Biruni

was 33 years old.

by Samanid

The region had been reputed since the

9th century for its pottery.

potters who

Below, platter and bowl shaped

worked in Transoxiana and in

Khorassan, countries in which al-Biruni sojourned for several years. Kufic Arabic inscriptions adorn platter (left); glazed bowl (right) bears a stylized bird motif.

Photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, U.S.A.

Photo Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, U.S.A.

The end of al-Biruni's stay at the Ziyarid court can be precisely estab
lished, for in 1003 he observed two

affairs, which caused fools to envy me and wise men to pity me."

On the

basis of the

measurements

made with this crude device he calcu

lunar eclipses from Gurgan, one on 19 February and the other on 14 Au gust. The following year he observed
a third lunar eclipse, but this time from Jurjaniyya, on 4 June. Thus in the interim, he had returned to his

Ma'mun, the Khwarizmshah, confided several difficult political missions to

al-Biruni, who carried them out skil

lated the latitude of the locality. On 8 April, 1019, he observed an eclipse of the sun at Lamghan, a town to the
north-east of Kabul.

fully
gold".

"with

tongue

of

silver

and

of

But Ma'mun was assassinated

Al-Biruni's Mahmud were

relations never

with cordial.

Sultan It is

homeland, high in favour reigning Khwarizmshah.

with

the

Thanks to the Khwarizmshah's liber

ality, al-Biruni was able to construct in Jurjaniyya an astronomical instru ment which in gratitude he called the "Shah's Circle". In all probability it was a large ring fixed on the plane of
the meridian.

by some of his troops in revolt and this gave the Ghaznavid sultan Mahmud an opportunity to march against Khwarizm with a large army. From its base In east-central Afghanistan the kingdom of the Ghaznavids was swiftly
expanding.
thousand

evident,

none

the

less,

that

he was

given official support for his work.

In

his Canon he relates that he determin

ed the latitude of Ghazna by a series

of observations made between 1018 and 1020 with an instrument which he

By 1020, Sultan Mahmud

miles north and south and

had carved out a realm extending a

twice as far east and west.

calls the "Yamini Ring". Yamin alDawla (Right Hand of the State) was
one of the titles conferred on Mahmud

by the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, and

in several places the monumental instrument was named,

Al-Biruni

speaks

in the Tahdid, his book on geodesy, and in his Canon on astronomy, of

15 observations of the sun's transit

according to custom,
patron.

after the
that

royal

over
first

the
one

meridian
at the

in
the

Jurjaniyya,
solstice

the
on

L-BIRUNI was among those deported by the conqueror to Ghazna

It

is

also

evident

al-Biruni's

interests in Sanscrit and the civilization

summer

in

Sijistan
to

(Afghanistan),
the

partly

no

of India were due to his forced

well into the Indian

resi
In

June

1016,

and

last

one

on

doubt

enhance

sultan's

court

dence in an empire that now extended

subcontinent.

7 December of the same year. It was probably during this period of pros perity and royal favour that he had a hemisphere ten cubits (5.4 metres) in diameter built to help solve geodesic problems graphically.
Meantime
in the

with his presence, but also In order to

get rid of an active supporter of the Khwarizmian pretenders. He was then 44 years old.

the

political
of

atmosphere
was

The following year we find him in a village south of Kabul, downcast and livinq in misery, but working hard on
the Tahdid. On 14 October 1018 he

1021 the conquering sultan the Ganges Valley almost Benares, and in 1026, by a south starting from Ghazna,
the Indian Ocean.

subjugated as far as daring raid he reached

sultanate

Khwarizm

becoming more and more tense. In the Tahdid al-Biruni writes: "I had enjoyed only a few years of peace when the Lord of Time (God) allowed me to return to my own country; but there I was forced to take part in public

wanted to measure the height of the

sun but had no instrument to hand.

So he was obliged to draw a calibrated arc on the back of a reckoning board and use it.with the aid of a plumb line, as a makeshift quadrant

Al-Biruni took advantage of these events to visit various parts of India and stayed there more or less volun tarily. We know that he journeyed to the Punjab and Kashmir regions, though no dates can be given for his
visits. He determined the latitudes of

13

a number of towns, and reports that

CONTINUED PAGE 16

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Seven years ago the existence of the mosque of Nouh-Goumbed with its nine domes, one of the early examples of Islamic archi
tecture in Central Asia, was unknown to modern scholars. Its

resting on six central columns.

The domes have fallen in, but even

imposing

ruins,

hidden

away

in

the

remoteness

of

north-west

Afghanistan on the site of the ancient city of Balkh, were studied

and

described

by

archeologists

only

in

1967.

In

this

region

al-Biruni set the scene of one of his romances, The Two Idols of Bamian (see page 30). Up to the 7th century, Balkh
was an important seat of Buddhist learning. After its conquest by the Arabs in 663, its fame as an intellectual and artistic centre

in its present state the mosque gives an impression of beauty and strength. This is in part due to the size of the six columns 1.56 metres in diameter (above) and to the manner in which the baked bricks are separated by small decorated interstices 4 to 5 cm. wide. The exterior (above left) is ravaged by time, but the interior decoration is well preserved (see ornamental detail below left). The floral and geometrical motifs are found on the
stucco carvings which cover the entire surface above the columns

in

an

infinite
on the

profusion of designs,
capitals. The

none

of which
features

is
and

repeated,
form of

15

spread
and

even wider and

travellers

its
and

splendours were
historians. The

recounted
nine domes

by
of

Arab
this

except

decorative

Chinese

construction enabled

archaeologists to

place the

mosque

in

the

almost square

mosque

were once

supported

on

pointed

arches

9th century and as "an architectural achievement without precedent".

THE LONG ODYSSEY (Continued from page 13)

while he was living at Fort Nandana, he used a nearby mountain to calculate

the diameter of the earth. Nandana

serious

ailments.

In

his

distress,

he-

questioned several astrologers about; how much time he had left to live.;
Their
with

had been taken by Mahmud in 1014. It controlled the route by which he, the

replies
one

were

at total
and

variance
were

another

some

Moghuls after him, and Alexander the Great long before penetrated the Indus Valley.

obviously
towards

absurd.
the end

In
of

point
his

of

fact,,
year

61st

Al-Biruni spent a long time in Ghazna itself and made many astronomical observations there, including transits
of the sun across the meridian at the

(possibly his 61st lunar health began to improve.

year)

his

One night he dreamt that lie was

observing the new moon and when its crescent disappeared he heard a voice predicting that he would be able to gaze upon it 170 times more. As It
turned out, he lived longer than 170 more lunations (14 lunar years).

time

of the

summer solstice

in

1019,

an eclipse of the moon on 16 Septem ber 1019, and equinoxes and solstices up to the winter solstice in 1021. It was then that he completed his treatise
Shadows.

It was during the reign of Mawdud,

son of Sultan Mas'ud, (1040-1048) that al-Biruni wrote Gems, his book on
precious and semi-precious stones and on metals. Following this period, even though his sight and hearing were failing, as he himself tells us in his
last book, he carried on his research

pioneer

In 1024, the ruler of the Turks along the Volga sent an embassy to Ghazna.
The Turks had trade relations with the

inhabitants of the polar regions,

and

al-Biruni was able to add to his know

ledge of those countries by question ing the envoys. One of them stated
in the sultan's presence that some
did not times in the far north the sun

assiduously with the aid of a Greek

assistant.

set for days.

ed, but

Mahmud

at first con
him that

His final work was the Pharmacology which s a tribute to his prodigious
erudition. Al-Biruni tells us that he

scientific

sidered this as heresy and was enrag

al-Biruni convinced

It was perfectly plausible. In 1027, the year that the treatise

finished, a Chinese and

Chords was

Uighur
Ghazna.

Turkish

legation

came

to

was over eighty years old (lunar years?) when he was still working on this compilation, which brings us down to the year 1050 or later. The date of his death, as given by Ghadanfar.
December 1048 Is therefore

From this
Far East

mission, al-Biruni

obtained
about the

geographical

information
he later

which

inexact. Ultimately, he survived his third Ghaznavid patron and lived

included In his Canon.

longer than the time predicted in his

dream.

Sultan Mahmud died in soon afterwards al-Biruni

1030, and completed

his encyclopaedic book, India, but he did not dedicate it to any particular patron. Within the year (1030) the
sultan's eldest son, Mas'ud succeeded
to the crown and then the situation of

Al-Biruni was Persian by birth. He was brought up In the Khwarizm dialect

and later used Neo-Persian as his

his most famous completely.

scientist

changed

spoken tongue, but out of choice he preferred the Arabic language as an instrument of thought and a means of expression in his intellectual life, both
for his scientific treatises and his

purely literary works.

Thus his writings constitute a monu

Al-Biruni put the final touches to his third major work, the Canon of Astro nomy, and dedicated it to the new sovereign in florid terms.
In this book he takes issue with

ment in the history of ideas and doc

trines within the Arab world before

forming part of the general history of human thought, as a contribution from

the Arabic-speaking world where they came into being and first acquired their
fame.

by Mohammed
Salim-A tchekzai

Ptolemy's system on several points. He holds, for example, that the sun's apogee is not fixed, and while he accepts the geocentric theory, he
shows that the astronomical facts can

In point of fact, al-Biruni, personally

and well ahead of his time, was a

also be explained by assuming that the

earth revolves round the sun.

According to one chronicler, Mas'ud

offered the Master an elephant-load of
silver coins for this work, but al-Biruni

promoter of mutual understanding and fruitful cultural exchange between the

East and the West though he may

declined

the

gift.

Nevertheless

he

was provided with the means to con

tinue his scientific and literary studies

not have thought of himself as such through the active mediation of the Arabic language and the profoundly
humanistic values Inherent in it.

as long as he lived.

By virtue of his scientific method,

which makes him a model for the

It may have been because of this change of regime that he was able to
re-visit his native country. He made at least one trip back, for in his

Eastern world even today and ensures

him the gratitude of Western science,

he was a forerunner; and in his apti

16

Bibliography he writes that for over forty years he had sought a certain
Manichaean work, a copy of which he finally procured in Khwarizm. Al-Biruni recounts that after the age
of 50 he suffered from a number of

tude for inter-cultural understanding, he formed a connecting link between East and West, just as his work is a manifestation of their underlying unity and fraternity.
Jacques Boilot

MOHAMMED SALIM-ATCHEKZAI, of Afgha nistan, Is professor of Afghan language and

literature
Paris.

at
Mr.

the

New

Sorbonne
has

University,
made a

Salim-Atchekzal

special
culture.

study

of

Afghan

civilization

and

1.

The earth and

the heavens

I^Uji.

measured

with amazing precision

2. Al-Biruni's
on India :

book

an unprecedented
effort

to

understand

a people
and their culture

*' ' \1

Photo

British

Museum,

London

This diagram, reproduced from one of al-Biruni's treatises on astronomy, illustrates the different phases of the moon. The sun is represented by the black disc at the top.

FTER

the

dismemberment

the author of the Book of Kings, epic

masterpiece of Persian literature.

The

Mas'udic

Canon

is

an

almost

of

the

Empire

of

Charlemagne,
a sombre

the
The

complete

encyclopedia

of astronomy
It consists

Christian West was at a low ebb.

tenth
when

century was

period

Al-Biruni was one of the many scholars and philosophers who were
drawn to the court of Sultan Mahmud

and of the related sciences.

conditions favoured
nor the

neither the
of

of 11 volumes dealing simultaneously with cosmology, chronology, geography

and mathematics as well as astronomy.

growth of great political empire-building

movements dissemination

(998-1030) in Ghazna, where he was employed as the court astronomer.

Avicenna's Canon of Medicine is justly

famous, but the sheer scale and the
intrinsic value of the Mas'udic Canon

philosophical ideas.
In the Muslim East, however, the

tenth century was a time of brilliant intellectual progress. The empires of the East, linked by a vigorous faith, attracted to themselves a great number of scholars who made a unique contri bution to the cultural heritage of
mankind.

This mixture of astrology and astron omy was not, however, enough to satisfy the thirst for knowledge of a man with such an enquiring mind.
Al-Biruni's works, both before and

place it in the same category.

In compiling the works of his pre decessors, al-Biruni corrected many of
their mistakes, both theoretical and

after his arrival In Ghazna, show him to have been a man of many and varied
interests. He carried out research in

experimental.

He never made a formal

almost all the subjects known at that

In the empire of the Samanids (8191005), with its capital in Bokhara, the talents of poets such as Rudaki and Daqiqi and of scholars such as Rhazes and Avicenna, flourished, while Ghazna, the capital of the empire of the Ghaznavids (977-1186), which stretched from western India as far as Khwarizm,

time. Among astronomy was

point around

the pure sciences, naturally the pivotal

which all his other

break with the geocentric system which was universally accepted In the Middle Ages. He was, however, aware of the existence of the heliocentric system
from the works of Greek astronomers

interests revolved.

like Asistarchus

of

Samos,

and

also

The extent of his knowledge, particu larly in astronomy, may be judged from
two main works: the Mas'udic Canon

from the teachings of certain sages

whom he had met in India.

and the Kitab al-Tafhim (a book of in

structions on the elements of the

Al-Biruni hesitated for many years between the two systems and in fact
remained undecided until his death; it is important to stress, however, that
NEXT PAGE

17

was

the

home

of

many

poets

and

scholars such as 'Unsuri and Firdausi,

science of astrology).

CONTINUED

SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATION

(Continued)

he always maintained that there was absolutely no contradiction between the heliocentric hypothesis and the laws of astronomy. As he himself said:
" I have seen the astrolabe called

"Besides,

the

rotation

of the

earth

does in no way impair the value of astronomy, as all appearances of an astronomic character can quite as well be explained according to this theory
as to the other. There are, however,

Al-Biruni compiled a table of the latitudes and longitudes of the 600 most
important towns and localities in the Islamic world; this enabled him to

determine with scientific accuracy the

direction of Mecca, to which Muslims

Zuraqi invented by Abu Sa'id Sijzi. I liked it very much and praised him a great deal, as it is based on the idea entertained by some to the effect that
the motion we see is due to the Earth's

other reasons which make it imposs

turn

to

pray.

When

constructing

ible. This question is most difficult to solve. The most prominent of both
modem and ancient astronomers have

mosques, builders could thus place the mihrabs (semicircular niches In the

movement and not to that of the sky.

By my life, it is a problem difficult of

solution and refutation . . . For it is the

same whether you take it that the Earth is in motion or the sky. For, In both
cases, it does not affect the Astronomi

deeply studied the question of the moving of the earth, and tried to refute it. We, too, have composed a book on the subject called Miftah-ilm-alhai'a (Key to Astronomy), in which we think we have surpassed our predecessors,
if not in the words, at all events In the
matter."

wall indicating the direction of Mecca) correctly.

cal Science. It is just for the physicist to see if it is possible to refute it." Al-Biruni was throughly familiar with the astronomical works of Ptolemy and other Greek astronomers. In geometry,
his work Is based on that of Euclid and

For the purposes of cartography, he invented a special system of stereographic projection, remarkably simple to use, whereby the part of the globe to be represented is projected on the great circle of which the point of vision is the pole.
Al-Biruni astrologers was severely critical of and their unscientific
Thus it was

In his measurements of the circum

ference of the earth, he was only 110 km. out by comparison with modern
measurements. He studied the sun

approach to their work.

of Archimedes and Theon (4th cen tury A.D.), but he was also acquainted with the work of the great Indian astronomer Brahmagupta (6th to 7th centuries A.D.) and the astronomi
cal works of the Indian, Tabahafara

during the eclipse and ways of measur ing the illuminated parts of the moon. He described the various phases of the
dawn and the of dusk the the and new carried moon. out He observations

that he came to write a treatise which

he called A Warning Against the Art of False Predictions by the Stars. In the
Mas'udic Canon, he denounced the

studied
He

the

astronomy

of

the

stars.
bodies

(7th century A.D.).

In his book on India, al-Biruni quotes

classified

celestial

alleged "secrets" of astrologers' pre dictions, pointing out that, although they were supposed to be dictated by
the influence of the celestial bodies on

a passage from Brahmagupta's book concerning the rotation of the earth:

"The followers of Aryabhata maintain that the earth is moving and heaven resting. People have tried to refute them by saying that, if such were the case, stones and trees would fall from
the earth. "

(planets and fixed stars) by order of magnitude (in fact by their luminosity.) He noted stars' positions and observed their apparent motion around the poles.
His list included 1,029 stars.

human

lives,

one

prediction

often

contradicted another.

He was
served the

also

geologist

and
of

ob
the

stratified

structure

He learned about trigonometry from

India, and was the first to establish it
as a science distinct from that of astronomy.

rocks, noting that:

"We have to rely upon the records of the rocks and vestiges of the past to infer that all these changes should have taken place very long ago and
under unknown conditions of cold and

But, says al-Biruni:

"Brahmagupta does not agree with

them, and says that that would not necessarily follow from their theory, apparently because he thought that all heavy things are attracted towards the
centre of the earth . . .

He was the first geometrician to use the radius of the circle as unity, an idea which immenseley simplified
calculations. medieval He wrote of the the best account arithmetical

heat: for even now it takes a long time

for water and wind to do their work.

And changes have been going on and

observed and noticed within historical
times."
CONTINUED PAGE 42

systems used in India and on methods

of extracting the cube root.

RAMPARTS OF
Part

GHAZNI
of the remains of ancient of the

fortifications

Ghaz

na (today Ghazni), in
nistan.

Afgha

It was here that al-Bi

runi spent many years at the

court of the Ghaznavid em

perors.

(See also back cover).

18

SB*

r<sfii

TfiCourier

AL-BIRUNI

r
SSV
Tj>*Ar

UiF
Portrait of al-Biruni by the Iranian artist Azarguin based on recent historical research.
Va

sm

^*

MINIATURE ANTHOLOGY
Selections from works by al-Biruni

including many translated into English for the first time

Al-Biruni is believed to have written at least 150 works (180 according to some

K&ll

authorities) by the time of his death about 1050 A.D. The actual number is uncer tain since roughly four-fifths of his writings have vanished. Al-Biruni himself
recorded 113 titles in a bibliography he prepared in 1036 when he was 63 years

of age. In this special supplement, the "Unesco Courier" presents passages from the writings of al-Biruni, including many translated into English for the first time. Those we present here have been chosen not only to show the originality and encyclopaedic scope of his thinking, but in particular his narrative talents and the scientific approach he made to every subject. Highly technical and scientific material has naturally been excluded. The passages published are taken from: Alberuni's India (translated by Edward C. Sachau, 2 volumes, London, 1888); The Chronology of Ancient Nations (translated by Edward C. Sachau, London,

1879); Al-Biruni's Book on Pharmacy and Materia Medica (translated by Hakim

Mohammed Said, Karachi, 1973); The Determination of the Co-ordinates of

&>2

Cities (Geodesy); The Mas'udic Canon on Astronomy; Gems, and Bibliography

of the Works ofal-Razi.

isss.

^mm^mmBm^m^L.

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K
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' Photo Bibliothque Nationale, Paris

INTELLIGENCE

AND REASONING
Some believe that science is of recent

can be seen to this day. The waters of the Red Sea flowed in at high tide
and receded when the tide was low.

However,

when

the

level

of

the

Red

afloat. Breathing air in and out through the tube, the diver could then stay under water as long as he wished, even through the entire day.
Gems

origin, others that it is as old as the

world. The former affirm that its tech

aaa

niques were taught by "initiation" and go so far as to maintain that every technique was revealed and implanted by a particular prophet. But there are
others who think that man discovers

techniques with the help of Intelligence and that it is reasoning which enables the mind to acquire understanding . . .

Sea was measured, the project was abandoned, for the Red Sea is higher than the Nile of Egypt and it was feared that its waters would engulf that river. During the reign of Ptolemy III, Archi medes completed the unfinished wor without causing the slightest mishap. A Roman king blocked the canal, how ever, in order to bar the way to the
Persians who threatened to invade
of the

THE NATURE OF GOD

. . . Some Hindu scholar calls God

a point, meaning to say thereby that the qualities of bodies do not apply
to him. Now some uneducated man

reads this and imagines that God is as small as a point, and he does not

Egypt. When one discovers, by reasoning, a law or principle, one must proceed from the general to the particular. At the same time, experiment and reflection allow us to compare one thing with another and so obtain knowledge in
detail...

find
The Determination

out what

the

word point

in

this

Co-ordinates of Cities (Geodesy).

sentence was really intended to express. He will not even stop with this offensive comparison, but will describe God as much larger, and will say "He is twelve

SCUBA DIVING
IN 1000 A.D.

fingers
Praise

long
be to

and
God,

ten

fingers
is far

broad."
above

who

measure
is limitless and successive

and

numberl
hears

Further,
what we

if

an

Time

generations traverse only stages. Each passes on its heritage to the next, which develops and enriches it. That is the true metempsychosis, not the soul, which simply passes from one body to another. Bibliography of the Works
of al-Razi

Someone from Bagdad has told me that pearl divers have recently discover ed a method for overcoming the problem of breathing under water. They are thus able to dive from morning till evening, for as long as they like... The device is a leather sac<< which the diver passes
over his head and which extends to

uneducated

man

have

mentioned, that God comprehends the universe so that nothing is concealed from him, he will at once imagine that this comprehending is effected by means

of

eyesight;

that

eyesight

is

only

just below his chest. He attaches it very firmly just beneath the lower ribs
then he dives and breathes the air

possible by means of an eye, and that two eyes are better than only one; and in consequence he will describe God as

having

thousand

eyes,

meaning

to

describe his omniscience.

Alberuni's India

ANTIQUITY'S
SUEZ CANAL

When the Persian kings conquered Egypt they tried to cut a canal through
the isthmus to link the two seas [the Red Sea and the Mediterranean]. Sea going vessels would thus have been
able to sail direct from west to east.

contained in the bag. But a heavy weight is needed to draw the diver, with his air supply, towards the bottom and to keep him down. It would be more advantageous to fix to the upper part of the device a leather tube shaped
like a sleeve, the seams of which are

'

THE

ENCOMPASSING OCEANS

The northern regions are uninhabited

because of the cold and the snow, but
we find that the shores of the sea,

The first king to dream of such a canal

was Sesostris, whose idea was taken

hermetically sealed by wax and tar. The length of the tube should corres pond to the depth of water in which the diver has to work. The upper end of the tube should be fixed into a large

called the Sea of the Varangians (Bal tic Sea), which leads off the Encircling
Sea to the north of the lands of the

Slavs (1), are inhabited.

These folk live on the shores of the

vessel
the

through
to the

an
One

opening
or

pierced
keep

in
It

up by Darius. A waterway of consider able width was dug, of which traces

bottom.

more

bladders

attached

vessel

would

sea In localities parallel with regions which are beset by cold and snow, yet

;Mf

'iv^-

Left, map of the world, from a treatise by al-Biruni on astronomy, drawn in Tashkent The north is at the
bottom. Below, the same map reversed with the north at the top to facilitate indentification of different regions : 1. Caspian Sea, 2. China, 3. India, 4. Persian Gulf, 5. Red Sea, 6. Black Sea, 7. Mediterranean, 8. Egypt, 9. Morocco, 10. Andalusia, 11. Baltic Sea, 12. The

" Encircling Ocean ".

Photo S.A. Davldov - APN, Tashkent

the cold in those places, though severe,

is not so extreme.

Both

these

regions

are

located
is

water

then

rose

up

and

covered

it.

beneath the zenith of the Sun, Moon and

Stars, for which reason their climate

Furthermore, there are among these folk fishermen and hunters who put far out to sea during the summer days and, following the Azimuth of the North Pole, reach places where the Sun at the
summer solstice never descends below

As concerns the Encircling Sea to the East [Pacific Ocean] it is often

shrouded in darkness and is a place

mild and their waters gable.

are easily

navi

of frequent calms, where navigation is

most dangerous.

As concerns the Encircling Ocean to the West [Atlantic Ocean], it Is an enormous mass of water, but there are
many shoals and shallows in it where
the water becomes viscous, like a mud

It is believed that these two seas, the

one to the West and the one to the

the horizon; observing this with their own eyes, they then boast among their kindred that they have been In places where there is no night at all. As concerns the impossibility of the
inhabited regions continuing uninter ruptedly to east and west, there Is no excess of heat or cold to prevent this, but habitability comes to an end because the dry land emerged from the oneness

of the waters by the will

of God

as

spring, so that navigation Is difficult and its paths are unknown. It was for this reason that the great Hercules set his signs and pillars opposite Andalus, so that sailors might be deterred from the ambition of sailing beyond them. The place where they were set up was then probably dry land which has since been covered by the waters.
A worthy traveller recounts in sage to Khamza ibn al-Hasan hani (4) the wonders which he the West. He recalls having through a narrow strait, the strait a mes

East of the dry land [the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans] are not Joined together.
But those who have sailed these seas

and have suffered shipwrecks because of the storms recount things which lead us to believe that they may be joined.
Recent evidence has furthermore

well as from natural causes. The dry land must therefore be a separate part
without continuation and it must be

bounded
Hence

by the

encompassing waters.

it must have boundaries both to

al-lsfasaw In sailed [Straits

strengthened these suppositions and indeed given them the character of truth. Ship's timbers have been found bound together In the Encircling Sea near its confluence with the Syrian Sea. But it is only In the Indian Sea that timbers

are lashed together In this way (because

of the many magnetic stones which are there and are a danger to shipping) and
not in the Western Sea, where the

the east and to the west.

of Gibraltar] connecting the Syrian Sea [Mediterranean] with the Encircling Sea
the south of
The side shores of were visible and on both the on side the of

The

sea

which

lies

to

the dry land I assume to be a sea out of the encircling sea to the China, stretching along the parallel tb China, then to India
Persia, and then to the land

leading East of Equator and to

of the

Andalus

ships' timbers are not lashed together but fastened with Iron nails. The pre
sence of these timbers in the Western

Tangier and Further Sus (5).

Into the waters of the Strait

He looked
and saw

Sea is proof that they arrived there by

(1) Slavs who settled on the shores of
the Baltic the Pomeranians and the

Arabs, and ending in a gulf of the Sea of Kulzum [Red Sea]. In every place
it is called by the name of the country off whose shores it passes.

In Its depths a mighty bridge of rock, and one of those present affirmed that It had been built by Alexander. But
the Andalusians
the land

exclaimed:
of the

"The

devil

Novgorodian Slovenes. (2) A name not found In other sources, It may refer to the Cape (Ras) Khafun, the extreme eastern tip of Africa. (3) " Ethiopians "
groes.

take your Alexanderl

taken

Could built

he

have
to

Andalusians

Similarly, the sea which runs out of the Encircling Sea to the west of ZinJ by the headland known as Rasun (2), stretches southward from the Equa tor parallel to the land of the Negroes
and the Sofala of the Zinj (3).

build

this?

This was

of

old

by

Hercules I "

East

African

Ne

I believe that "Hercules' crossing" mentioned in Ptolemy's "Geography" is nothing other than this bridge. It was
undoubtedly once above water, but the

(4) Famous philologist. (5) As-Sus

10th

century

historian name

and of

al-Aqsa,

medieval

part of Morocco.

*m!$.

some

waterway

connecting

it

to

the

Likewise
that she

physicians
the

are

well

aware
of sick

Indian Sea.

This could not have happen

affects

humores

ed by way of the Sea of Kulzum for

between it and the Syrian Sea there
lies an isthmus.

people, and that the fever-days revolve parallel with the moon's course. Phy
sical scholars know that the life of

Nor is it easy to envisage a junction

animals
moon,
and

and
and

plants

depends

upon
know
in

the
that

between

the

two

by

way

of

the

sea

experimentalists
of wine

been deposited, the prospectors purloin them, then remove the glass, so deceiv ing the eagle into believing that it has regained its young thanks to fetch ing the diamonds. The glass is then replaced, and the eagle flies off in search of more gems.
Gems

which lies to the north.

In such a case,

she influences marrow and brain, eggs

the sediments casks

the timbers, after being broken up in the Indian Sea, would have had to drift

and

jugs,

that she

excites

the

minds

out of it through an eastern strait linking the seas (6) and would then have had
to drift around those parts lying to the
north beneath the zenith of the Polar

of people who sleep in full moonlight, and that moonlight affects linen clothes
which are exposed to it.
Peasants know how the moon acts

THE GREAT ART OF THE HINDUS

In every place to which some particu
lar holiness is ascribed, - the Hindus

Star or through the other northern quarters of the Earth lying opposite the
dry land.

upon cotton,

fields etc.,

of and

cucumbers,

melons,

even make the times

This cannot be what happened.

Espe

for the various kinds of sowing, planting, and grafting, and for the covering of the
cattle depend upon the course of the moon. Lastly, astronomers know that mtorologie occurrences depend upon the various phases through which the moon passes in her revolutions.
Alberuni's India

construct ponds intended for the ab lutions. In this they have attained to

cially when it is considered that those who speak of the joining of the seas point out that the level of the eastern waters is higher than that of the western waters, just as it was discovered when the land was being surveyed that the
waters of the Sea of Kulzum are higher than those which run into the Syrian
Sea.
land.

a very high degree of art, so that our people (the Muslims), when they see
them, wonder at them, and are unable
to describe them, much less to construct

anything like them. The them of great stones of bulk, joined to each other strong cramp-irons, in the

Hindus build an enormous by sharp and form of steps

The

conclusion

must be that the

DIAMONDS AND THE EAGLE

(or terraces) like so many ledges; and

these terraces run all around the pond,

seas are linked to the south of the dry

i&i
The Determination

reaching
man's

to

height
On

of

more
surface

than

stature.

the

of the

stones between two terraces they con

of the Co-ordinates of Cities (Geodesy)

(6) AI-Blrunl may have known or conjec
tured about the existence of the
Straits.

struct staircases

rising

like

pinnacles.

Thus the first steps or terraces are like

Behring

roads (leading round the pond) and the pinnacles are steps (leading up and down). If ever so many people descend
to the pond whilst others ascend, they
do not meet each other, and the road

SMART SCHOLARS Once a sage was asked why scholars always flock to the doors of the rich,
whilst the rich are not inclined to call

is never blocked up, because there are

so many terraces, and the ascending person can always turn aside to another
terrace than that on which the descend

at the

doors

of scholars.

"The

schol

ars", he answered, "are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are

ing people go. By this arrangement all troublesome thronging is avoided.

Alberuni's India

%t>S.*

ignorant of the nobility of science."

Alberuni's India

THE PROPERTIES

OF CHINESE TEA
'SPEAK THE TRUTH"
It is said that chah is a Chinese

That man only is praiseworthy who shrinks from a lie and always adheres to the truth, enjoying credit even among
liars, not to mention others.

word

and

Is

meant

for

herb

which

Al-Biruni

related

the

story

of

It has been said in the Koran, "Speak the truth, even if it were against yourselves" (Sra, 4, 134); and the Messiah expresses himself in the Gospel
to this effect: "Do not mind the fury of kings in speaking the truth before them. They only possess your body, but they have no power over your soul."
In these words the Messiah orders us

the eagle which collected dia monds. Many similar legends describing how precious gems were obtained in this way
flourished in the East. A num

grows at high altitudes there. It also grows in Katha and Nepal. Several varieties of it are distinguished on the basis of its colour: some are white,

while the others are green, violet, grey

and black.

ber

were

recorded

In

the

"Thousand and One Nights", and

so reached the West, where

White tea is the most excellent variety

of the herb; its leaf is slender and

fragrant,

and

exerts

its

effect on
It is rare

the
and

to exercise moral courage.

Alberuni's India

they inspired engravings such as this, which appeared in "Hortus Sanitatis", published at Mainz, Germany, In 1491.

body
all

comparatively

more

swiftly than

the

other varieties.

not easily available, followed with regard to availability by the green, violet, grey
and black varieties.

Many strange and unlikely tales are told about diamond mines and the way

POWER OF MOONLIGHT
That the moon has certain effects on

these precious stones are obtained.

It

is said for example that the diamond is called the eagle's stone. . The origin

moist substances, that they are appar ently subject to her influences, that,
for instance, increase and decrease in

The people (of China and Tibet) cook it, and preserve it In a cube-shaped vessel after desiccating it. Tea has the characteristics of water but is especially benefical in overcoming the influence
of tippling. considerable the effect of For this reason it is taken quantities liquor of than wine, this and herb.

of this name is that diamond prospec

tors are said to cover the nest in which

to Tibet where people habitually quaff

ebb and flow develop periodically and parallel with the moon's phases, all this
is well .known to the inhabitants of

eaglets are lying with a piece of glass. The eagle can see its young but, unable
to reach them, it goes in search of

there Is no better mdecine for negating Those who transport it to Tibet accept
nothing in barter but musk.

seashores and seafaring people.

diamonds, which it places on top of the glass. When a goodly number have

%agaEB&^^

In

the

book,

Akhbar

al-Sln

it

has

Ironstone.
this

Yet,
no

we

have

never

seen
it

Thus, In summer, an observer in Bul

been stated that thirty bags of tea cost

a dirham, and its taste is sweet coupled with sourness. On boiling, however, the sourness disappears. The people (of China and Tibet) drink it. It is said that they drink it with
hot water and believe it to be a chola-

stone and

one has

described

to us.
that

In an anonymous work, it is said

best lodestone Is a reddish

the

gogue [promoting the flow of bile] and blood purifier. A person who travelled to the place of its occurrence in China has stated that the king of that country resides in the city of Yanju. A big river like the Tigris traverses this city.
Both sides of the river are studded

black, followed by lodestone the colour of fire. Some say that the most sought after lodestone Is more plentiful in the Zabtara region, on the eastern confines of the Roman Empire, than anywhere
else on earth.

gar looking In the direction of the sun rise or sunset sees a part of the sky corresponding to that magnitude, whilst the same part of the sky is not visible in Aden, being situated In a circle be neath the very Pole. Similarly, a part of the sky of similar magnitude is visi
ble at sunrise and sunset In winter, when

it is not visible in Bulgar.

This being the case, we may assert
that a line traced on the Earth in the

It is said also that the hulls of ships

built for crossing the Arabian Gulf are

bound with palm fibres threaded through holes drilled in the planks, while the boards of ships sailing on the Medi
terranean are secured with iron nails.

with wine sellers' tenements,

kilns

and
clan

direction of latitude, that is to say a meridian, must of necessity be either straight, or a concave or convex curve. As regards the probability of its being a straight line... the facts themselves refute such a hypothesis, so that the
surface of the Earth cannot be flat in

Z&

shops.
and do

People flock there to drink tea,

not take Indian cannabis

The

avoidance

of

nails

in

the

former

destinely. The king of the place receives the capitation tax, and the public cannot transact the sale of tea, since both
tea and wine are in the possession of

case is explained hidden lodestone

by the presence of reefs in the Gulf,

the king. He who transacts business in salt and tea without the king being aware of it is awarded the punishment
due to a thief.

which could constitute a grave danger for ships built with iron fixings. This is a far-fetched argument, however,
because the ships that cross the Ara bian Gulf cannot dispense with anchors

this direction. As to the meridian being concave, if It were, the height of the Pole, that is to say the number of stars permanently visible in the far
south,
and

and are always ments, notably

India.

laden with Iron imple weapon blades from

Gems

would
the

diminish
further

as

the
he

obser
went.

ver moved northwards, becoming fewer

fewer north

Profits

from

such

places

go

to

the

coffers

of the

king

and

such

profits

equal those accruing from gold and silver mines. Some physicians have mentioned in their pharmacopoeia that tea Is the plant produced in China. The people of that country make tablets from it and take them to foreign lands.
These pharmacopoeia also describe the origin of tea. A Chinese king became displeased with one of his courtiers whom he exiled from the city in the
direction of the mountains. The cour

In fact, the opposite occurs, the number of such stars becoming greater, which implies the convexity of the meridian
and hence the curvature of the Earth.

5a

Thus

the

Earth

is

round

in

this

direc

ra

tion

too,

and

if the

same

is

true

both

in the
tude,

directions

of latitude

then the Earth's surface

and longi must be

spherical. Moreover, mountains, however high they may be, do not alter this shape, since they are small In comparison with
the whole and are mere wrinkles which
detract from the smoothness of its sur

tier was seized by a fever, and one day he trudged, in a desperate state, towards the mountain valleys. He was being gnawed by hunger, and he saw only tea plants, whose leaves he ate. After a few days, his fever began to abate. He continued eating tea leaves till he recovered completely.
Another courtier happened to pass that way. He saw the courtier who had made this remarkable recovery, and informed the king about it. The king was surprised and he recalled the exiled courtier and enquired from him the reason for his recovery. The
courtier then narrated the remarkable

face

but

not

from

the

roundness

of

the whole.

If the
doubts

observer still
and thinks

harbours
this

certain

that

curvature

is characteristic only of the inhabited parts of the Earth but not Its other parts... let us turn for confirmation to

15th Century engraving showing the foundering of a ship on a

magnetic rock. From "Hortus

Sanitatis", Mainz 1491.

another argument, the Earth's shadow... If an object Is round, its shadow Is round, if it Is triangular its shadow is triangular, if square then square, if oblong oblong, and so forth with other shapes. When we observe an object casting

medicinal properties of tea.

m
WHY THE EARTH IS ROUND
As concerns the curvature of the

The king thereupon ordered that tea should be tested, and his physicians enumerated its advantages to him. They also began to incorporate tea in
medicines.

a shadow upon the Moon, we see that

Book on Pharmacy
and Materia Medica

Earth in the directions between longi tude and latitude, it may be ascertain ed by means of the longest days in
the towns we have mentioned. Let us

its edges are rounded, especially near the fullest point of the eclipse when we may see most of the circumference

ni3i

of the object casting the shadow and

the roundness of the object, thus con cluding that the Intersection of the part of the Earth illuminated by the Sun and the part casting the shadow s a cir
cle... Since such intersections are nu

consider, for instance, the town of Bul-

:<i-s

THE LODESTONE
Like amber, the lodestone has the

gar, in the far north, and the town of Aden, lying far to the south of it.

In and around Aden, the length of the

property of attraction. But It renders greater service, because it can draw a blade from a wound, the point of a lancet from a vein or a metal ring swallowed and lying In the stomach. According to Dioscorides, the best lodestones are the colour of lapis lazuli. When burnt, the lodestone becomes red

longest day is little more than twelve hours, whilst in Bulgar it is little less
than seventeen hours. There is a dif ference of two hours between the hours

merous, corresponding in number to the number of observations and since they concern different parts of the Earth, yet all have this in common, that they all throw a rounded shadow upon the
Moon, there can be no doubt as to

of

sunrise

and

sunset

in

those

two

towns. Consequently, at the time of sunrise over Aden, the Sun has already risen to a height of two hours' travel in the sky over Bulgar.

the shape of the Earth, which is Indeed

confirmed to be rounded on all sides.

The Mas'udic Canon on Astronomy

vernimm

?*WS

THE

CAPRICIOUS

more

bias

for

it

than

another,

which

TURQUOISE
We have ceased to prize the turquoise since it changes rapidly with changes In the skies, as they clear or are cover ed with cloud, and also with the caprice of the wind. Further, perfumes diminish
the brillance of the turquoise, toilet water

must not be construed as proving intelligence or ignorance; for we find that many Intelligent people are entirely given to alchemy, whilst ignorant people ridicule the art and its adepts. Those

I spared neither energy nor money In order to achieve my purpose and I constructed a hemisphere 10 cubits [5.4 metres] in diameter, on which to base the longitudes
and
use

and
as

latitudes

of

the
from

places
me to

towns

calculated

attacks its lustre and unguents dull it completely. For these reasons the tur quoise does not rank as a precious stone. It Is thought to come from a "mud which has petrified". It may be polished with grease or the fatty tail of the sheep. That Is why it flashes with
a brillant fire in the hands of a butcher,

intelligent people, though boisterously exulting over their make-believe science, are not to be blamed for occupying themselves with alchemy, for their motive is simply excessive eagerness for acquiring fortune and for avoiding
misfortune. Alberuni's India

their distances, since time did not allow

mathematical

calculations,

the distances being so calculations so long.

The

many

and

the

Determination

of the Co-ordinates of Cities (Geodesy)

THE MISER & THE BOOK

"He prides
like
locks

particularly one who has flayed an ani mal's skin, while grasping it with his
hand. Gems

who Just collects boot and himself on their possession is

miser who
them."

fills

his

chests

and

Book on Pharmacy
and Materia Medica

fi
INDIA WAS ONCE A SEA 25 WAYS TO FREEDOM
... If you have seen the soil of India with your own eyes and meditate on its nature if you consider the rounded
stones found in the earth however

According to the Hindu philosophers,

liberation is common to all castes and

to the whole human race, if their inten

deeply you
near the

dig,
a

stones
violent

that

are

huge
the

mountains

and

where

rivers

have

current;

stones

that

are

of

smaller

size

at

greater
AI-Blrunl used a vase similar

distance from the mountains, and where

the streams flow more slowly; stones that appear pulverized in the form of sand where the streams begin to stag
nate near their mouths and near the

tion of obtaining it is perfect. This view is based on the saying of Vysa: "Learn to know the twenty-five things (I. e. the twenty-five elements of existence) thoroughly. Then you may follow whatever religion you like; you will no
doubt be liberated."
Alberuni's India

to this to calculate the specific

gravity
such

of
as

various
metals

substances
and stones.

sea if you consider all this, you scarcely help thinking that India once been a sea which by degrees been filled up by the alluvium of
streams.

can has has the

Ingeniously

constructed,

the

vessel enabled him to ascertain

THE GEOMETRY OF FLOWERS

Among the peculiarities of the flowers there is one really astonishing fact, viz. the number of their petals, the tops of
which form a circle when they begin to open, is in most cases conformable to the laws of geometry. In most cases they agree with the chords that have been found by the laws of geometry,
not with conic sections.

Alberuni's

India

WITCHCRAFT AND SCIENCE

We understand by witchcraft, making by some kind of delusion a thing appear to the senses as something different from what it is in reality. Taken in this sense, it is far spread among peo
ple. Understood, however, as common

the volume of water displaced by an immersed object and so determine its specific gravity with a high degree of accuracy. He put the specific gravity of gold at 19.0 (it is actually 19.3), Iron at 7.92 (actually 7.9) and lapis-lazuli at 3.91 (3.90).

ON-THE-SPOT OBSERVATION
You
Reliance on personal observation and on-the-spot examination enhance the

scarcely ever find

a flower of

7 or 9 petals, for you cannot construct

people understand it, as the producing

of something which is impossible, it Is

a thing which does not lie within the limits of reality. For as that which Is impossible cannot be produced, the whole affair is nothing but a gross deception. Therefore witchcraft In this sense has nothing whatever to do with
science.

capacity to remember and distinguish facts and also to Identify objects, not only in pharmacy but in other pro fessions and crafts. Gathering data through direct handling and observation is a greater advantage to be encourag ed over mere reading of books.
Book on Pharmacy
and Materia Medica

them according to the laws of geometry in a circle as isosceles (triangles). The

number of their petals, is always 3 or 4
or 5 or 6 or 18. This is a matter of

frequent occurrence. Possibly one may find one day some species of flowers with 7 or 9 petals, or one may find among the species hitherto known such a number of petals; but, on the whole,
one must say nature preserves Its

genera and species such as they are.

For If you would, for example, count
the number of seeds of one of the

One of the species of witchcraft is alchemy, though it is generally not called by this name. But if a man takes a bit of cotton and makes It appear as a bit of gold, what would you call this but a piece of witchcraft? It is quite
the same as if he were to take a bit

HEMISPHERE

10 CUBITS

IN

DIAMETER

(many)
nates seeds

pomegranates
contain as the

of

tree,
number

you
of

would find that all the other pomegra

same that one the seeds of which

I began by correcting the distances and the names of places and towns, basing my work on what I had heard
about those who had visited those

of silver and make It appear only with this difference, that is a generally-known process, gilding of silver, the former Is

as gold, the latter I. e. the not.

you have counted first. So, too, nature proceeds in all other matters. Frequently, however, you find in the functions (actions) of nature which it is her office to fulfil, some fault (some

places
the

and

what
of

could
who

learn
had

from
seen

mouths

those

The Hindus do not pay particular attention to alchemy, but no nation is

them. I took the precaution of verify ing the reliability of the material and of comparing the evidence of different
witnesses.

irregularity) ... I,
them "faults of

however,
nature",

do
but

not call
rather a

entirely free from it, and one nation has

superfluity of material beyond the due

m%z&

%&$&

proportions of the measure of everything. To this category belong, for example,

animals with supernumerary limbs, which occur sometimes, when nature, whose task it is to preserve the species as they are, finds some superfluous
substance, which she forms into some

the

economy

of

nature.

It

removes

nature

nor of the

cause

of the

matter

them so as make room for others.

in question.

If thus the earth is ruined, or is near

Chronology of Ancient Nations

to be ruined, by having too many inhabitants, its ruler for it has a ruler, and his all-embracing care is apparent
in every single particle of it sends it

PARABLE OF THE

shape instead of throwing it away.

Chronology of Ancient Nations

a messenger for the purpose of reducing the too great number and of cutting
away all that is evil.
Alberuni's India

FOUR PUPILS A man Is travelling together with his

pupils for some business or other

AN AGE OF IMITATORS
The most
is

towards the end of the night.

THE NATURE OF TIME
Some people maintain that time

There

appears something standing erect before

them on the road, the nature of which

important
that the

requirement
of

of

IjSP

medicine

man

medicine

it is impossible to recognize on account

should examine the terms of reference

of the

darkness

of

night.

The

man

as regards natural science and should be fully acquainted with the natural
laws. When he comes to the resolution

consists of cycles, at the end of which

all created beings perish, whilst they
grow at their beginning; that each such cycle has a special Adam and Eve of

of the ingredients of a drug every medi

cinal ingredient is arrayed in a different
aspect before him and each one has

properties that argue differently. This is what the art of pharmacy should

its own, and that the chronology of this cycle depends upon them. Other people, again, maintain that in each cycle a
special Adam and Eve exist for each
country in particular, and that hence the

turns towards his pupils, and asks them, one after the other, what it is. The first says: "I do not know what it is." The second says: "I do not know, and I have no means of learning what it is." The third says "It is useless to examine

what it is, for the rising of the day will reveal it. If it is something terrible,
it will disappear at daybreak; if it is
lfs

achieve, but alasl ours is an age of blind imitation, and people mostly go by hearsay. Only he who sedulously
learns from the masters the fundamen
tals of the art and follows their di

difference

of

human

structure,

nature,

something else, the nature of the thing

will anyhow be clear to us." Now, none

and language is to be derived.

Other people, besides, hold this foolish persuasion, viz that time has no
terminus a quo at all.

of them had attained to knowledge, the first, because he was ignorant; the
second, because he was incapable, and had no means of knowing; the third, because he was indolent and acquiesced
in his ignorance.

rections
mastery.

can

ever

hope

to

achieve

PS
TV

Book on Pharmacy
and Materia Medica

Now, personal observation alone, and

conclusions inferred therefrom, do not

prove a long duration of the human life, and the huge size of human bodies, and

The
give

fourth
an

pupil,

howeyer,
He stood

did
still,

not
and

what else has been related to be beyond the limits of possibility. For similar
matters appear in the course of time

answer.

then he went on In the direction of the

in manifold shapes. There are certain things which are bound to certain times, within which they turn round In a certain

object. On coming near, he found that it was pumpkins on which there lay a tangled mass of something. Now he knew that a living man, endowed with
free will, does not stand still In his

order, and which undergo transfor mations as long as there is a possibility of their existing. If they, now, are not observed as long as they are in
existence, people think them to be im

place

until

such

tangled a

mass

Is

formed on his head, and he recognized

at once that It was
standing erect.

lifeless
he

object
not

Further,

could

probable, and hasten to reject them as

altogether impossible.
Photo Grard Dufresne, Paris

be sure if it was not a hidden place for some dunghill. So he went quite
close to It, struck against it with his

This applies to all cyclical occurrences,

foot till it fell to the ground.

Thus all

In

his

treatise

on

precious

stones, al-Biruni wrote, "I used

such as the mutual impregnation of animals and trees, and the forthcoming
of the seeds and their fruits. For, if it
were possible that men did not know these occurrences, and then were led

doubt having been removed, he returned

to his master and gave him the exact

account.

to

have

disc

of

onyx,

on
the the

which wavy lines formed perfect figure of a duck,

Alberuni's India

legs being invisible as if it was

swimming or sitting on its eggs; the representation was faultless,

to

a tree,
told

stripped
what

of

its
to

leaves,
the tree

and
of

were

occurs

getting

green,

of

producing

blossoms

SOLAR AND LUNAR YEARS

... People
years year.

as if done by a skilful artist" This figured onyx shows not a duck but a fish. It Is part of
the private collection writer Roger Caillois, Acadmie Franaise. of of the the

and fruits, etc., they would certainly think it improbable, till they saw it with
their own eyes. It reason that people,
northern countries,

distinguish

two

kinds

of

Is for the same who come from

filled with ad

the Solar year and the Lunar They have not used other stars

wm

are

for the purpose of deriving years from

them, because their motions are compar atively hidden, and can hardly ever be found out by eyesight; but only by astro nomical observations and experiments...

LAWS OF NATURE
. . . The
beehive.

miration when they see palm-trees, olive-trees, and myrtle-trees, and others standing in full-bloom at wintertime, since they never saw anything like It in their own country.

The Solar Year.

According to the

bees

kill

those

of their kind

Further,

there

are

other

things

who only eat, but do not work in their

occurring at times In which no cyclical order Is apparent, and which seem to happen at random. If, then, the time

statement of Theon (1), In his Canon, the people of Constantinople, and of Alexandria, and the other Greeks, the

Nature proceeds in a similar way; however, It does not distinguish, for its
action is under all circumstances one

In which the thing occurred has gone

by, nothing remains of it except the report about it. And if you find In such a report all the conditions of authenticity, and if the thing might have already occurred before that time, you must accept it, though you have no Idea of the

and the same.

It allows the leaves and

Syrians and Chaldaeans, the Egyptians of our time... all use the solar year, which consists of nearly 365 i days. They reckon their year as 365 days, and add the quarters of a day in every fourth
year as one complete day... This year

fruit of the trees to perish, thus pre venting them from realizing that result which they are intended to produce in

- "7 f

^mi^^^:<^i^^t^:y-^Cr2^:^^^

they call an intercalary year,

because

the quarters are intercalated therein. The ancient Egyptians followed the same practice, but with this difference, that they neglected the quarters of a day till they had summed up to the number of days of one complete year, which took place in 1,460 years; then they
Intercalated one year.
The Persians followed the same rule

consists of the various configurations of heavenly bodies which are themselves contingent on the chosen points on the heavenly sphere itself or on a certain
relationship between that and the hori

dry wax,
water

possibly the saltiness of the

diminish. This has been

would

mentioned by the experimenters, who go so far as to maintain that if you make

a thin vase of wax and place it n sea
water, so that the mouth of the vase

zon. Astrology therefore can never produce positive results since its very
basis is unreliable.

emerges above the water, those drops of water which splash over into the
vase become sweet.

How indeed could it be reliable, when

the

exact

location

of

the

object

for

If

all

salt water were

mixed

with

so

as long as their empire lasted; but they.,

treated it differently. For they reckoned

which the calculations are made and for

their year as 365 days, and neglected the following fractions until the dayquarters had summed up in the course of 120 years to the number of days of one complete month and until the fifth parts of an hour, which, according to their opinion, follow the fourth parts of a day (i.e. they give the solar year the

which the future is foretold by means of horoscopes of "conjunctions" and "oppositions" is unknown and when the actual positions of these configurations
conflict with those which are used I

much sweet water as would overpower its nature, in that case their theory would be realized (i.e. all salt waters would become sweet). An example of this process is afforded by the lake of
Tlnnis, the water of which is sweet in

The Determination

autumn and winter in consequence of the great admixture of the water of the
Nile, whilst at the other seasons it is

of the Co-ordinates of Cities (Geodesy)

salt,

because

there

is

very

little

ad

length of 365 i days and 1/5 hour), had

summed up to one day; then they added the complete month to the year in each
116th year.
The Luni-Solar Year. The Hebrews,

mixture of Nile water.

ON LEARNING
Chronology of Ancient Nations

Learning is the fruit of repetition.

Alberuni's India

w
QUALITIES OF ARABIC
All the arts of the world have been

Jews, and all the Israelites, the Sbians,

and Harrnians, used an intermediate

THE PERFUMER'S ART

Dari was a port in the old days where scents and perfumes were unloaded and therefrom perfumers went from one city to another selling them, or bought by the people of the Quraysh tribe. The Quraysh possessed a masterly expertise in this art. It Is
because of this that the Arabs call

system.
from the

They derived their year from

revolution of the moon with

transferred to the Arabic

has
and

language;
our
crossed

it

the revolution of the sun, and its months

penetrated
its

deep

into

hearts,
into

charms

have

this view, that their feast and fast days

might be regulated by lunar computation, and at the same time keep their places within the year. Therefore they inter calated 7 months In 19 lunar years. Chronology of Ancient Nations

the innermost reaches of our being, although to every people their own language appears to be sweet, since
they use it day in, day out. When I observe my language, I find that if any art is rendered Into it, it would look de trop and odd. On the
other hand, Into Arabic, if the same art is rendered it would look natural and

ON

HINDU

RELIGIONS

apothecaries Dari. Holy Prophet (peace "The example of a person is like that

In the hadith the be on Him) said: noble and sincere of a Dari whose

Everything which exists on this subject [the religions of the Hindus] in our
literature is second-hand information

which one

has copied from the other,

a farrago of materials

never sifted

by

the sieve of critical examination.

perfumes, even if he does not give any of them to you, will all the same have their pleasant smell; and a bad com panion is like an ironsmith who, even though he may not singe you with the sparks of his furnace will at least harass you with its smoke." Book on Pharmacy
and Materia Medica

good, even though Arabic does happen to be my mother tongue.

not

Book on Pharmacy
and Materia Medica

m
THE RUSE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT Some say that the diamond was brought by the Bicornutus (Alexander the Great) from the valley of the dia monds, a valley teeming with snakes. Whoever set eyes on these reptiles would instantly perish. The Bicornutus
advanced on the snakes with a mirror

...I

have

written

this

book

on

the

doctrines of the Hindus, never making any unfounded imputations against those, our religious antagonists, and at the same time not considering it inconsistent with my duties as a Muslim to quote their own words at full length when I thought they would contribute to

THE DESALTING
OF WATER People say that on the 6th [of January] there is an hour during which all salt
water of the earth becomes sweet. All

elucidate a subject. If the contents of these quotations happen to be utterly

heathenish,
truth, I. e.

carried by men who were hidden behind

it. When the snakes saw their reflec

m m

and
the

the

followers
find

of

the
them

Muslims,

objectionable, we can only say that such

is the belief of the Hindus, and that they themselves are best qualified to
defend it. Alberuni's India

the qualities occurring in the water depend exclusively upon the nature of that soil by which the water is enclosed, if it be standing, or over which the water flows, if it be running. Those qualities
are of a stable nature, not to be altered

tions, they died on the spot. Yet these snakes had looked upon each other

without dying and the sight of the real thing should have been more deadly
than the mere reflection.

Gems

except by a process of transformation from degree to degree by means of

certain media. Therefore this statement

THE WEAK FOUNDATIONS

OF ASTROLOGY
The art of astrology in general is built upon weak foundations and its
deductions are Insubstantial. Its calcul

of the waters becoming sweet one hour is entirely unfounded.

in

this

MUSLIM

ADAGE

Continual and leisurely experimen tation will show to any one the futility
of this assertion. sweet It would For if the water were sweet for some remain

"Your knowledge should not be like the clothes that you wear, and not likely to be washed away while you are taking
your bath."

Adage quoted by al-Biruni. Book on Pharmacy

and Materia Medica

ations are confused and it is mostly supposition rather than reliable know ledge. The subject matter of astrology

space of time. Nay, if you would place in this hour or any other in a well of salt water some pounds of pure

i'H'^.;'

AL-BIRUNI

vs.

AVICENNA

IN THE BOUT OF THE CENTURY

Two geniuses aged 24 and 17
debate the nature of the universe

by

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

|N

the

rich

tradition

of

Islamic intellectual history there are several instances in which leading thinkers have left in writing the
Arya-

SEYYED

HOSSEIN

NASR,

rector

of

mehr University, in Teheran, is the author of a remarkable study on al-Biruni, published

in his "An Introduction to Islamic Cosmo-

exchanges of ideas and debates which they have carried out with each other on the highest Intellectual level.
One
series

of the
of

most

important
and

is

the

logical Doctrines" (Harvard University Press, 1964), in which he dealt with al-Biruni, Avi
cenna and Ikwan al-Safa. Professor of the

Questions

Answers

History of Science and Philosophy at Aryamehr University, he has devoted another book to great Islamic scholars, "Three Mus lim Sages" (Avicenna, Suhrawardi and Ibn 'Arabi) published by Harvard University Press. Last year his "Al-Biruni end Ibn Sina - Ques
tions and Answers" was published by the

High Council of Culture and Art in Teheran.

Our text is
to

exchanged between al-Blruni and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) in which Avicenna's student Ma'sumi, also took part. This series of exchanges stands as a peak of Islamic intellectual history and a key to the understanding of an aspect of al-Biruni's thought not discussed extensively in his other writings.
The Questions and Answers, include

ten questions pertaining to Aristotle's De Celo (On the Heavens) and eight other questions posed by al-Biruni himself. These are answered by Avicenna one by one. Then al-Blruni once again responds to Avicenna's answers, discussing eight of the first ten and seven of the last eight questions. Finally Ma'sumi answers al-Biruni once again on behalf of
Avicenna.

There are then altogether two sets of exchanges on some of the most fundamental points of "natural phil osophy" between al-Blruni, the "in dependent" scientist and thinker, and
Avicenna the most eminent represen tative of the Islamic Peripatetic (maCONTINUED PAGE 29

abridged
this work.

from

the

English

introduction

# i
4 *

"l\

w
Two further scenes from the forth

coming

film

on

al-Biruni.
the

Above,
he

the

AL-BIRUNI ON THE SCREEN

(continued)

great scientist and a reading from tructed for

an assistant discuss quadrant cons latitude

by measuring the sun's elevation. Below left, al-Biruni (right of photo) talks with
an Indian sage during the travels he

determining

Photos

N.

Kasyanov

APN,

Tachkent

AL-BIRUNI vs. AVICENNA (Continued)

shsha'i) school, and

one of his fore

most

pupils,

Abu

Sa'id

ibn

Ali

al-

Ma'sumi.

states that according to Aristotle vision results from the eye becoming affected by the "qualities" of visible
colours contained in the air that is in

In

one

question

al-Biruni

criticizes

the reasons given in Aristotelian natural philosophy for denying that the celestial spheres have gravity or levity. Al-Biruni does not reject the view of
Aristotle but criticizes the reasons

contact with it. According to this theory the problem mentioned by alBiruni does not arise since both water

and

air

are

transparent

bodies

that

can transmit the colours to the sense

given
thesis

to
that

sustain
circular

such
motion

a
is

view.
innate

of sight, thus making vision possible.

If there is no vacuum either inside

Moreover,

he attacks the Aristotelian

or

outside

this

world,

al-Biruni

asks,

to heavenly bodies, asserting that although the heavenly bodies do move in circular motion, such a motion could
be "forced" and accidental while the could motion natural to these bodies

why is it that if the air within a flask is sucked out water rises up in it?
Avicenna answers that this is not due

to a vacuum.

Rather, a certain amount

of

the

air
as

remaining
a result

in

the

flask

be straight.
Avicenna replies to these objections

contracts

of the

coldness

of the water causing the water to rise

within the flask.

along the lines of argument presented

in standard works of Aristotelian

natural philosophy. In another question al-Biruni criticizes

Aristotle's over-reliance and his on the views of the ancients oredecessors

If things expand through heating and contract through cooling then why, alBiruni asks, does a flask full of water
break when the water within it freezes? Avicenna believes that it is the air

concerning the conditions of heavens without relying upon

own observation. Al-Biruni gives

the his
an

which upon being cooled contracts, almost causing a vacuum to be created

in the flask, and since that is not

example of the Hindu description of mountains which he says cannot be relied upon because If one observes them today one sees that they have
altered.

possible, causing the flask to break.

Finally, al-Biruni queries, why does ice float on water while its earthy parts
are more than water and it is therefore

heavier than water?

Avicenna reminds al-Biruni of the

Avicenna replies

difference

between

mountains

which

undergo generation and corruption and

the celestial bodies which do not do so.

that upon freezing ice preserves in its internal spaces and lattices airy parts which prevent it from sinking in water.
An examination posed by al-Biruni
In Islamic

Furthermore,

he

accuses

al-Biruni

of

of

having
either

learned
John

this

argument
who

from
was

the questions reveals their vital

the main school

Philoponus,

significance for the history of science.

civilization

opposed

to

Aristotle

because

he

himself was a Christian, or Mohammed

ibn Zakariyya' al-Razi, who according

to Avicenna should have remained

of natural philosophy which served as the immediate philosophical back ground for most Muslim scientists was the Peripatetic, itself a synthesis of
the views of Aristotle, his Alexandrian
commentators and certain elements of

content with medicine and not meddled

in

metaphysics,

in which

he

had

no

competence.

later
main undertook before
location.

Neoplatonism.

Avicenna

in

his

Peripatetic
writing
The

writings
its

represents

this

current in
there

most mature form.

an anti-Aristo

his
is

monu

kL-BIRUNI

criticizes

the world

But

was

also

mental
crew

"India".
on

Below

right,
film

the

film
being

Aristotelian
of the

denial

of
of

the

possibility

telian

current

which

is

of

much

existence

another

importance

for

an

understanding

of

directed by Shukhrat Abbasov (wearing cap)

kov,

from

scenario
orientalist

written
Pavlov

by

the

completely different from the one we

know,
He

Islamic science, to which the questions

historian

and

Bulga

and
as

unknown

to

us
the

because
fact that

of al-Biruni belong.
Aristotelian

Some of the antiderived from

al-Biruni's

Russian translator.

it is completely veiled to our senses.

cites illustration

elements

it
is

is

impossible
blind to

for

the

person
of

who

born

conceive

vision.

schools related to the PythagoreanHermetic heritage of Antiquity such as the writings of Jabir ibn Hayyan and
the Ikhwan al-Safa' while others issued

In the same way there might be other worlds for the perception of which man does not have the necessary faculties. Avicenna accepts the exist
ence of other worlds which differ from
this world but defends the Aristotelian view that there cannot be another
world such as this with the
ments and nature.

from the logical criticism of individual philosophers and scientists such as Mohammed ibn Zakariyya' al-Ra^i and
al-Biruni.

Al-Biruni's

criticism

of

Peripatetic

same ele

After
related

these
to

questions
De

which
Celo,

are
al-

Aristotle's

Biruni poses eight other questions himself related to natural philosophy.

Al-Biruni,
beneath

for

example,
whereas

asks
is

how
an

natural philosophy is one of the sharpest attacks on this dominant school. It touches upon the most difficult and thorny problems of Aristo telian physics and for that reason resembles some of the arguments against this form of physics by Renaissance and 17th century scientists

vision is possible.
water

Why can we see

water

in the West, although the point of view QJ

of al-Biruni is ven' different from that Lm

of the Western critics of Aristotle.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

opaque body which should reflect the rays of light at its surface? Avicenna

LOST IN

HORIZONS

THE

LAND OF
The
of a

POETRY

vanished
scientist

works

by

turned

man

of

letters

Zabihollah

Safa

I
and the

|T

is

sometimes

difficult

in

Arabic

as

well

as

Persian.

Al-

Yaqut's
shows that

bibiography
the latter

of

al-Biruni
a consi

to make a distinction between the "scholar" and the "man of letters" of Islamic civilization.
Persian

In

both the Arab

the two

Biruni, an author of serious scientific works, also wrote poetry in Arabic, and others, such as the great 12th cen

wrote

worlds,

cornerstones

of

Islamic

literature,

it

tury mathematician, philosopher and doctor, Omar Khayyam, became so

well known for their literary work that
their names
scholars.

frequently happens that great scholars

in the fields of philosophy, medicine,

have

been

handed

down

derable number of literary and critical works: among many others, an Arabic etymology, commentaries on the poems of the great Arabic poet Abi Tamman, and even an anthology entitled " Selec tion of Verse and Literary Works".
One of his most important works, of a literary rather than a scientific stamp, deals with his native region of Khwarizm. Although this book was widely known during the 11th and 12th centuries, it has since disap peared. Fortunately, part of It is quoted by the 11th century Persian writerhistorian Balaghl, and the fragment
which has reached us demonstrates

natural history or mathematics are also poets and men of letters.

In some cases they even put aside their scientific preoccupations and set

to posterity as

poets

rather than as

These

are

but

few of the

many

about recounting
anecdotes.

or writing

tales

or

Philosophers and thinkers

such as Avicenna and al-Blruni, in the

examples we could quote, for Arabic and Persian literary history is rich in such many-sided talents. At that time the language of science was
Arabic, and the approach to any scientific discipline necessarily invol

11th century, and Suhrawardl In the 12th, have thus left behind them novels
and stories written in Arabic or In
Arabic and Persian.

Avicenna foreshadowed
works.

wrote

two

well-known Persian

philosophical novels In Arabic, which

certain later

ved learning Arabic. In Irano-Arablc schools the teaching of Arabic lan guage and literature preceded all other subjects; Arabic prose and poetry were used as a means to enable pupils to benefit from text books
written in Arabic, and students learned

al-Biruni's
research
The

scrupulous
into historical
of

and

Impartial
their
lies

events,
work

causes and their consequences.

value al-Biruni's

Islamic

scholars

found

welcome

source of diversion in writing poetry, and there are very few Iranian scholars
who did not at some time or another

by heart works of prose and verse by leading writers and poets.

This meant that the student began

apply themselves to verse in Arabic

or Persian.
them Is

Islamic schooling with an introduction

to Arabic, which he continued to study

One of the earliest among

some of whose

al-Farabl,

in the vast scope of his knowledge, which, particularly in respect to preIslamic nations, was not shared by his contemporaries. This is largely due to his command of languages Iranian, Arabic, Syriac and Sanskrit were as familiar to him as Soghdian, the language of his native Khwarizm.
He was also able to use Arabic
translations of works written In Greek

throughout

his

life,

and which

often

quatrains in Persian are still extant.

At a later date when scholars

led him to an interest in literature, even

versified to their heart's content, Avi

cenna became a prolific writer of verse

when his main preoccupation was the rational study of a specific field of science. So it is hardly surprising that

and Syriac.
Al-Biruni was of both a serious and

the
ZABIHOLLAH SAFA
on the life and

great

scientist-scholar
In

al-Biruni
and

became
is the author of a book
of al-Biruni. He is

interested

literature

composed verses for his own pleasure.

works

president of the Iranian National Commission for Unesco and professor of literature at the University of Teheran. He has written several

30

works on Avicenna, and is now compiling for Unesco an annotated bibliography in Arabic and Persian on the writings of alBiruni. He also prepared, for Unesco's Collection of Representative Works, the "Anthologie de la Posie Persane", published

Yaqut of Hama examined some of al-Biruni's literary works in the library at Marw (or Merv) shortly before the

Mongol invasion of Khorassan in the

13th century. The vestiges of Merv, former capital of Khorassan, can still be seen near the modern city of Mary in the Soviet Turkmenistan Republic.

lighthearted turn of mind; perhaps his penchant for humour and jokes was a counterweight to the scientific rigour of his studies. In his personal rela tionships and in his conversation, as his biographers have noted, he reveals a pleasant open nature and a spirited wit. Occasionally, he surprises his readers by the use of earthy terms in
his poems.

It may have been this trait that led

him to translate or write a number of

by Editions Gallimard, Paris,

in

1964.

Qassim al-sorur wa'ayn al-hayat is another tale put into verse by Onsori. It has never been clearly established whether the original was written by Onsori or by al-Biruni, but neither version exists today.

"Urmasdyar and Mehryar" is an old story adapted by al-Biruni; the names indicate that it is certainly of Iranian
origin. "The Two Idols of Bamian", a folk

tale adapted by al-Biruni, Is about two Buddhist statues, a man and a woman,
carved in the rock of a mountainside

at

Bamian,

near

Balkh

in

northern

Afghanistan. The statues still exist and the local people, believing that they were two lovers who were turned
to stone, still recount their adventures
and the reason for their metamor

phosis. The story was also put Into verse by Onsori, under the title "The
Red Idol and the White Idol". This

story, like that of "Dadmeh and Geramidokht", has also disappeared.

Al-Biruni wrote several novels which unfortunately have not come down to us.
One of these, entitled The Two Idols of Bamian, is about two Buddhist statues,

"Ni-

of a man and a woman, carved from the face of a huge cliff of Bamian in northwest Afghanistan. The now famous cliff is honeycombed with caves, which provide a dramatic setting for numerous carvings and paintings. The two colossal stone Buddhas, stand majestically in the shelter of the rock, dominating the entire valley. Above, the smaller of the two (35 metres high). The larger statue stands 53 metres high. The sculptures date from the 4th-5th century A.D.

nufar" (water Illy), the last of these works appears to have been a tale of Hindu origin.
The six titles clearly demonstrate alBiruni's interest in legend;, it is unfor tunate that they should have been lost, for they would have provided excellent material for analysis. From the narrative skill and descriptive power al-Biruni displays in his various works, especially when dealing with historical or contemporary subjects, one can easily imagine the excellence of the stories that have disappeared. In short, in addition to some twelve thousand pages of erudite and scien tific writing, this prodigiously indus trious scholar produced a great number

popular

or

folk

romances

while

en

gaged In exacting scientific work. In the inventory of his writings, which he made when he was 65 years old, he
lists six novels, which have all unfor

Azra", an ancient legend of Greek origin which found its way Into Pahlavi literature, is a love story. Onsori, a
poet of the time, seems to have used this as a source of inspiration for his

tunately been

lost.

Works by other

own poetic work, "Vamegh and Azra";

it was at a much later date that several

authors and poets, however, record passages from these novels, but it Is not known whether they were written
in Arabic or in Persian.

other poets

put this tale

Into verse.

It Is worth noting here that the story also entered Persian literature through
pseudo-Callisthenes' novel on Alexan
der the Great

31

The

adventure

of

"Vamegh

and

of literary works: Arabic poetry, romances, etymology, literary criticism,

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

LOST HORIZONS (Continued)

history It is

which in Islamic civilization is interesting to note that both

a part of literature.

'FATHER' OF

Arabic, the scientific language of Islam,

and Persian, were greatly enriched by

the contributions of the major scholars

of Iranian
civilization

origin
within

and
the

of the
Iranian

Islamic
cultural

ARABIC PHARMACY
IN MEDIEVAL

sphere living at the beginning of this

civilization (between the late 8th cen

tury and the end of the 12th century).

This was brought about firstly by the
addition of many words, phrases,

explanations and expressions from Greek, Syriac, Pahlavi and Hindu, with
a few minor changes In pronunciation;

secondly, by the translation of scien tific expressions and terminology; and

ISLAM

finally, by the invention of turns of phrase or expressions using the rules

and the flexibility of Arabic and Persian
grammar.

The debating skill of such scholars

as al-Biruni, Avicenna, Suhrawadi,

by Hakim Mohammed Said

among others, contributed greatly to

the elucidation of many concepts in the field of philosophy and disputation in the Arabic and Persian languages.
Al-Biruni was one of the masterartisans of this enrichment.

What differentiates him especially is

his knowledge of Sanskrit and Syriac,

Greek texts and ancient* Iranian sour

I ORE

than

nine

hundred

interesting to see how al-Blruni over

came the problem.

ces, by virtue of which he introduced

a considerable number of words,

years have passed since al-Biruni wrote his Book on Pharmacy (the Kitab al-Saydanah, or Saydalah), a work that

expressions and turns of phrase Into

the Arabic and Persian languages.

has

rightly

earned

him

the

title

of

One of the advantages that al-Biruni enjoyed was his command over both
Persian and Arabic
dialect.

and
He

his

own
on the

Father of Arabic Pharmacy in medieval

Islam.

Khwarizmian

lived

His Pharmacology gives ample evi

dence of this. In this work each

drug
and

is

named
Greek,
Iranian

Persian
and
in

(Pahlavi),
Sanskrit,
dialects

Arabic,
of the

Syriac
plateau,

Today the science of medicine Is characterized by disciplines unknown in al-Biruni's age. A proper appraisal

fringe of the Iranian mainland, and had an intimate knowledge of Persian

customs and traditions, and, since most of his extant works are in Arabic, felt
even more at home with the Arab

sometimes even

local

of al-Biruni's work can, therefore, only

be made by referring to his age and
its standards.

together with

background, although he never visited

the Arab part of the world.

directions for its use. Its composition and cases where its use would be

Lest It be understood that al-Biruni's

harmful, written in Arabic.

alone would suffice to

This book
al-

establish

book is concerned with the aetiology

of diseases and their treatment, it must

The procedure that he commonly adopts with regard to the description of a drug is that he first discusses it
under its Arabic name, and then

Biruni's contribution to the enrichment

of Arabic (see following article).

The
in

be made clear that this is by no means the case. In fact, it is a

treatise on materia medica, patterned

same

considerations
which is

apply

to

the only book of his which is written

Persian and still extant,

namely the Astrology, where his terminology shows extensive use of

Sanskrit and Pahlavi sources.

somewhat on the Ist century A.D. treatise of the Greek physician Dioscorides, which lists 600 medicinal
plants.
But al-Biruni sets forth five times

examines its equivalents in other languages, finally establishing its iden tity. For example, if a drug is known as hum al-majus in Arabic and arzad maghushi in Syriac, the probability is that it is the same drug, that is, the

Al-Biruni's

literary

work

adds

particularly

engaging

aspect

to

his

as many medicinal plants as Dioscorides, although he makes the latter the

main source on which to base his

Magian plant, which is today known by the botanical name of Ephedra pachyclada from which the alkaloid,
ephedrin, is extracted.

complex genius. It presents an In exhaustible field of linguistic research, which Iranologists have now begun to
investigate.

discussion

of

the

drugs.

It

has,

Primarily a

geodesist,

geographer,

however, been said that the description

At the start of the present century

Carra de Vaux, the French orientalist,

wrote in his basic study "Thinkers of Islam": "Like other great thinkers of
the more recent past, a Leonardo da Vinci or a Leibniz, al-Biruni combines the most varied talents. Philosopher,

of the drugs, given by Dioscorides, is so vague as to make most of them, with the exception of about a hundred drugs, unidentifiable today. It is rather

mathematician and historian, during the course of his sojourn in Afghanistan

and north India, he studied the customs

of different people at close quarters.

In short, he was a polymath who aimed

at what is known in Arabic as takhrij

(extraction of the essence). One cannot say that he was as much of

a rationalist in science as the Egyptian

historian, traveller, linguist, scholar and poet, mathematician, astronomer and

scientist Ibn al-Haytham (he was not);

HAKIM MOHAMMED SAID, a medical doctor

nevertheless, he knows how to sift the

of

Pakistan,

is

president

of

the
This

Hamdard
founda

32

geographer, he has left his mark in all these spheres . . . spanning the gap of time, he is a figure whose youthfulness strikes us today; it is as though he
stands out and breaks away from his
own era and comes to meet us."
Zabihollah Safa

National

Foundation,

Karachi.

grain and separate it from the chaff.

One may smile today on reading that, after the hatching of the eggs of the timsah (skink lizard), the off

tion, devoted to scientific and medical research, has ust published "Al-Biruni's Book on Pharmacy and Materia Medica" (two
volumes, Karachi, 1973), the first translation

into English of the complete text of al-Blruni'sPharmacology". Dr. Said was the organizer
of the AI-Birunl International Congress, held in Karachi, last November.

spring either make their way to the

on

river and become crocodiles, or remain land and become skink lizards.
CONTINUED PAGE 34

A binomial

method

of classifying plants
seven centuries before Linnaeus

Al-Biruni
been called

has
the

rightly
Father

of

Arab

Pharmacy
Islam. In

in
his

medieval

and

"Book on Pharmacy Materia Medica",

he laid down the credo

that

pharmacy was an independent entity from

medicine and "the first

step in the hierarchy of the health profes sions", a calling requir ing much study, obser vation and experimen tation. Right, a presentday apothecary of Faizabad (Afghanistan) in his shop.

ARABIC PHARMACY
But al-Biruni who had

(Continued)
never been to

from Sufalah, the present-day Sangla

Hill in Pakistan.
horizon

cooked for food as any other edible

mushroom. But when it dries, the top

Egypt, to which the skink lizard Is indigenous, describes what he has been told by the earlier masters, and, after describing this, he comes to the ecology of the skink lizard, how it is obtained, its medicinal usages,, and
substitutes.

This shows how the

materia medica

of the Arabic

was widening to embrace new drugs

from the Indo-Paklstan Subcontinent,

scatters away leaving what looks like the Ceylon cornet tree which gives
the mushroom its name ... It shoots

Iran, Afghanistan, and other regions.

It amply shows, too, that what he was writing was not merely a piece of compilation but bears the stamp of an original mind.

out

of

the

ground

In

rectangular

shape, like a white stick with a top . . ."

There are also priceless gems of information scattered throughout the text of the Kitab al-Saydanah. AlBiruni's is among the first detailed descriptions of tea, telling us that tea was taxed in China (see Anthology page 22). His is the first description of the plant, faghirah (Zanthoxyllum species) which he describes as coming

Let us give a concrete example of his approach. The winter truffle is known in Arabic as urjun qabal, and

faswat al-dab. While describing this variety of the mushroom, al-Blruni says:
"When tender, fresh, and lush, It is

Maimonides, the famous Jewish philosopher and rabbi, wrote his Exegesis of Drugs much later than al-Biruni. He holds Usan al-kalb (the hound's tongue) to be lisan al-hamal (Plantago major), belonging to the Plantaginaceae family. Al-Biruni, on the other hand, holds It to be a Cynoglossum species, and he is correct, for the name given by him is

34

a direct translation of the Greek word.

Although he did not know Latin for he always equates Rome with the Byzantine Empire and Greek, alBiruni's transcription of Greek names is generally scrupulously correct.
Al-Biruni's book of pharmacy offers
a view of several new tendencies which

were crystallizing during 11th century Muslim world:

the

10th-

The vague notion of the binomial

notation which is at the very heart of

the Linnaean system.

the Linnaean notation

For example, in
a species is

described by means of its genus and its specific characteristic, after the
name of the discoverer, or its location,

e.g.,

Rosa

damascena
of

(that

is,
In

the
a

damask

rose

Damascus).

similar manner, al-Biruni describes the

maiden-hair fern as sh'ar al-juyad (the hair of the giant). The description of sh'ar al-juyad is followed by that of sha'ar al-ghul, also a fern and known as Onychlum japonicum in botanical parlance. This tendency is rather vague in al-Blruni, but he resorts to it wherever possible.

The

ethnography

of

plants.

AI

Biruni describes different plants and their occurrence In relation, wherever

possible,

to

the
When

folklore
he calls

associated
a certain

*\j/$r*',l*r

with

them.

drug Roman or Persian, he does not mean that the drug is only In use In
those countries but that It has

originated there. Drug substitution. In this field al-Biruni has been very liberal In providing the names of substitute drugs in case the drug described Is not available. He had little leeway, however, for originality here since the

workings and active principles of drugs

as we understand them today were not known in his day, and even the application of some rule of thumb would not have been possible.

critical

appraisal

of

al-Biruni's

materia medica would also demand an

examination of the shortcomings of the treatise. Al-Biruni rarely describes the Galenic properties of drugs and even when he discusses poly-pharma
The illustrations on these pages are taken from a 15th century Persian manuscript of a work by the Greek physician Dioscorides (1st century A.D.) on the healing qualities of plants. The Persian text of this bilingual (Arabic-Persian) manuscript is richly illustrated with drawings of animals and plants, rendered with a grace and in colours typical of Persian art, though sometimes scientific accuracy gives way

ceuticals he hardly ever describes how they are prepared. Most of such descriptions are copied
from earlier texts. Sometimes he

simply indulges in etymological exer

cises as In
of

to poetic fancy. Above stylized drawings of two medicinal plants: the bitter-sweet nightshade (top) a climbing plant with red berries; the highly poisonous henbane (below). Its analgesic qualities were well known to al-Biruni, who wrote: "It is an
emollient for earaches and, with vinegar and rose oil, relieves toothache. Similarly, its seeds and root, cooked in vinegar or oil, act as analgesics for the pains descri bed above. ..Excessive eating of its leaves results in the loss of senses..." According to Avicenna, "those who eat henbane begin to bray like a donkey and whinny like ahorse." Left, from the same 15th century Persian manuscript, a treatment for cow-buffaloes suffering from a skin disease: to purify the air, incense is burned in
a perforated vessel.

his

descriptions
animals.

of

the
For

excreta

different

example, an Interesting account of the dolphin is given but not its medicinal
relevance. At times he is so irrelevant

that he makes one laugh. To quote one such example, he says that the excrement of the dog is ironically called dawa-l-kabir (i.e. panacea) in
Persian!

Photos

Roland

and

Sabrina

Michaud,

Topkapl

Museum

library.

Istanbul,

Turkey

All

the

same,

al-Blruni's

materia

medica provides us with a picture of

the expanding materia medica of the time; of the Muslim approach In general
to science; how the Muslim Weltan-

CONTINUED

NEXT PAGE

ARABIC PHARMACY

(Continued)

schauung was embracing an enlarging world-picture supported by a Greek base which was being gradually dug out and replaced by a new one; and as a bridgehead to modern science.
Perhaps the finest materia medica of all times, ami Mufradat al-Adwiyah

wa'l Aghdhiyah (A Definitive Treatise

on Medicinal and Nutritional Simples)

was written two hundred years after al-Biruni's death by Diya al-Din Ibn Baytar Mulaghi, one of the HispanoArabs, who quotes al-Biruni as one of his sources while elucidating the occur rence and properties of the drugs.
Since al-Biruni wrote or rather

on astronomy), the Kitab al-Hind (his book on India), and Athar al-Baqiyah (The Chronology of Ancient Nations) is that of a man writing at breakneck speed to communicate his own learning to his contemporaries and posterity, a fantastically industrious being, rather vain, egotistical, but self-effacing, ever keen to gain more and more know ledge, ready to scrutinize the different
hypotheses without bias and arrive at

Syriac Christian, Yashaq Samahi or Chahar Nam (Four Names); of a man determined to leave not a, single moment of his life go to waste.

was

It should also be noted, that his age one of' disquisitions, argumen

tation, and internecine quarrels not only between orthodoxy and hetero doxy but between the four orthodox Muslim schools of jurisprudence. AlBiruni seems to have been a liberal

his own opinion; of a man eager to forswear narrow interests (he discards Persian and accepts Arabic), not prone
to glossing over the foibles of his own

orthodox necessary

Muslim to

who

did

not find the

it

condemn

other
This

schools of thought. A greater exponent

of live-and-let-live is rare to find.

dictated the book during the ebb-time of his life, identical drugs are described in different parts of the work. Also, while citing authorities, he does not generally specify the works from which the passages are taken. He seems to have been a man of strong dislikes: Avicenna (Ibn Sina) is not mentioned
at alll He also holds Abu Bakr Zaka-

people he makes a devastating attack on Dayfi Nam (Ten Names), the Persian source book for medicinal synonyms
and holds it to be far inferior to the

alone should be sufficient to place him among the ranks of the really great.
Hakim Mohammed Said

riya al-Razi generally conceded to be one of the greatest clinicians of all

times in scant respect, although he draws upon him with recurring fre quency. Succeeding generations have
noted this fact, and one famous

historian, Ibn abi 'Usaybi'ah, the Syrian chronicler, has particularly written on this aspect of al-Biruni.
On the other hand, al-Biruni held the Greeks in the highest respect, although his acquaintance was greater with the Jatter-day masters. He mentions the philosopher Theophrastus only oc casionally and Aristotle mostly when referring to the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise on the magical and talismanic
properties of certain stones. Galen is

mentioned comparatively less frequent ly, as he was more a physician than

an exponent of the materia medica.

Occasionally al-Blruni commits real, howlers: thus ambrosia (ambrosiya) Is

held to be a plant) But,
could

as

have

stated

earlier,
in

al-

Biruni was not a physician; at best he

be called a dilettante so far

as medicine was concerned. And yet, when he describes the mandrake plant, the marking nut, balsam, the poppy, the Iris, the aloes, he writes with the ease of a master. Very rarely in a
book of materia medica have minerals

been
and

described
best. For

in
he

such
does

delightful
best to

detail, and here he is at both his worst

his

extricate

himself from
and one

the
can

prison
well

of
see

traditionalism

that he goes more to the Greek sources

here than to the oriental ones, tradition-

fraught as the latter were. Among the animal drugs, his des
criptions of the civef cat and the

beaver are among the best. One also gets the impression that, even while
traversing the beaten path, al-Biruni

would like to ferret out something new, something not known to the ordinary
man in the street. ;

Thus the impression that this book leaves, along with his other pieces like the Qanun al-Mas'udi (his great work

Photo

Roland Museum

and

Sabrina

Michaud, Turkey

Topkapi

library,

Istanbul,

MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN. "Two forms appear, if it is cloven in the middle, and these are the male and female human shapes." This is part of a long descrip tion which al-Biruni gives of the mandrake root in his treatise on pharmacy. Photo left, a striking example of this strange root which might be taken for the statue of a man, his hands clasped. The soporofic properties
of the mandrake have been known since ancient times.

It

"brings

about

sleep

after

three

to

four

hours",

observes al-Biruni.

Above, Muslim doctors examining a

mandrake.
drake as

Dioscorides, surgeon to Nero, used the man

an anaesthetic in the 1st century A.D. The

Persian translation of his treatise contains an illustration

of the leaves and flowers of the plant (opposite page) which corresponds exactly with the description that "the flower resembles an actor's mask with a tongue protrud ing from the open mouth". In the Middle Ages, the mandrake was the subject of countless legends: it was supposed to grow under the gallows, to shriek when uprooted, and to be effective for all manner of beneficent or evil purposes. A lively and profitable
trade in imitation mandrake roots flourished for cen

turies, with any sort of root carved in a human shape being passed off as a mandrake. In fact the mandrake is a close relative to the inoffensive and humble potato.

Photo

Gerard

Dufresne,

from

the

collection

of

Roger

Caillots,

Paris

FREE-WHEELING PHILOSOPHER
Al-Biruni was a model of the thinker
who could harmonize various forms

of knowledge without becoming

the slave to a particular method or school

It was

custom

of Islamic

culture that thinkers and phi losophers delivered their dis

courses leaning against a pillar or a column of a mos

que,

surrounded by disciples
from an ancient

and students, as shown In this

illustration

manuscript

Photo

Bibliothque

Nationale,
de and

Pans, from "La Civilisation l'Islam Classique", by D.

J.

Sourdel

(Ed.

Arthaud,

Paris)

by Seyyed
Hossein Nasr
of

Therefore the title of "philosopher"

history and also for the innate value

of his Intellectual vision.

(al-faylasuf) one has of

is

usually these

reserved

for

those who are masters of the doctrines

Al-Biruni

was

scientist,

scholar,

"philosophical" classified
of the

compiler

and

philosopher

for

whom

schools. Biruni
nor N classical Islamic civiliza

Considered in this light alnever been

one

the quest for knowledge was held as the supreme goal of human life. He

by

classical authors as a

"philosopher",
wellIslamic

respected knowledge in all its forms

and hence sought It wherever and In whatever form possible. He saw In

I
various

associated schools

with of

known

traditional

tion the name "philosophy" (al-falsafah

or al-hikmah) is reserved for a particu lar set of disciplines associated with schools of "Islamic philoso

philosophy. But If we understand philosophy in its more general sense as logical and
rational discourse upon the nature of

knowledge an almost divine quality very much in conformity with the fun
damental tenets of Islam.

Hence, al-Blrunl, with the universal

vision and the remarkable intellectual

38

phy".

things, then al-Blruni must certainly be

considered as a philosopher of note to

qualities which he possessed, turned to

Greek as well as to Persian and Indian

SEYYED

HOSSEIN

NASR.

See biographical

be studied for his significance In the

general context of Islamic Intellectual

note, page 27.

sciences, to both the religious Islamic

sciences and the Intellectual ones.

He

holds the rather unusual distinction of

(mashsha'i) (1), the Illuminationist (ishraqi) (2), and also that of theology
(kalam).

ing the inviolability of the doctrine of

unity that he criticized the Peripatetic

being at once one of the greatest ma

thematicians and historians of hu

view of the eternity of the world In the

second of the questions he posed to
Avicenna.
The debate between al-Biruni and

The most noteworthy aspect of alBiruni's philosophical views is his

manity.

And he wrote in nearly every

field, from astronomy to pharmacology.

But strangely enough, unlike his con
temporary scientist Ibn al-Haytham, al-

strong

and often original

criticism of

Aristotelian

philosophy,

which

is

re

Avicenna as well as al-Ma'sumi on this

flected in the questions and answers

subject

concerns

one

of

the

most

Biruni has not left behind independent

he exchanged with Avicenna and his

student Abdallah al-Ma'sumi.

important questions of Islamic philoso

philosophical nature.
extant works

works
is the

of

systematic
and

phy, namely the condition under which

The only exception among his

Questions

Al-Biruni thus belongs to a series

of independent anti-Peripatetic thinkers

something

needs

a cause.

Al-Biruni

identified the idea of the eternity of the world with its not being created. For
him, in contrast to Avicenna, the "new

Answers exchanged with Avicenna (Ibn

of the early period of Islamic history

who were also scientists, such men as

Sina), which deal with cosmological, physical and philosophical problems

(see article page 27).

Mohammed
ticized.

Ibn

Zakariyya'al - Razi,
cri

ness" of the universe implied its being

created and the denial of this "new

whom al-Biruni

both admired and

ness", or an acceptance that the world

As for his lost works, he apparently

wrote several philosophical narratives,

Al-Biruni did not oppose all of the

does not have an origin in time, des

troyed the conception of creation and

including haya
cant,

Qasim

al-surur

wa wa

ayn

al

and

Ur-muzdvar
the

Mihryar
of

teachings of Peripatetic philosophy en bloc. Rather, basing himself on firm

religious faith in Islam on the one hand

ultimately the unity of the Creator and

his power.
as The

Hence In other works such

of the Co-ordi

which if found would be very signifi

considering importance

Determination

and the tool of logic, rational analysis

and observation on the other, he refut

nates of Cities

he affirmed

his

belief

this

kind

of

philosophical

narrative

in the created nature of the world and

romance in the writings of Avicenna,

ed many of the theses of Peripatetic

tried

to

provide

both

scientific

and

Suhrawardi

and

many

other

Islamic

philosophy, such as the eternity of the world and the possibility of indefinite
division of matter.

theological reasons for it.

As a result of his vast and varied

philosophers.

What is important for an understand

study of nature,

history and

various

I
Biruni's

traditional doctrines of time and of the

IN

order to understand

al-

ing of Islamic intellectual history is that such a strong and rigorous criti cism
come

world, al-Biruni became clearly aware

of the qualitative nature of time, of the

philosophical

thought,

it

is

of

Peripatetic
a

thought
as

did
was

not
to

therefore necessary to turn to his other

from

rationalist,

fact that it is not uniformly stretched

out like a mathematical co-ordinate. He

writings dealing with history, geography

or even astronomy, for in nearly all of these works, one will find elements

happen

from

the

end

of the

Middle

also strongly denied the idea of uni-

Ages to the 17th century in the West,

but that it came from a man like al-Bi

formitarianism so dear to modern geo

logy and paleontology and provided

dealing
and
sion

with

philosophy,

cosmology
within

runi who was deeply immersed in both

metaphysics
at hand.

interspersed

the life of faith and metaphysical and

cosmological doctrines of Islam and
other traditions.

both scientific and philosophical argu

ments to disprove it.

the main scientific or historical discus

In his encyclopaedic work, India, not only does al-Biruni describe Indian

It

is

of

great

significance
reason

for

an

understanding

of the

for the

doctrines,

but

often

comments

upon

different paths that Islamic and Chris

tian civilization were to take at the end

B^ OR al-Biruni time has a

cyclic nature, but not in the sense of

them and offers his own metaphysical and philosophical Ideas and interpre tations. In his Chronology of Ancient
Nations
made

of the

Middle Ages that one

critics of the

of the

returning to the same point again, which is a metaphysical absurdity and

a modern caricature of the real tradi

foremost

Aristotelian

profound
the

observations
nature of time

are
and

world view in Islam should also be the

tional teachings.
ges and

Rather, by " cyclic "

between
each

about

person

who

introduced

the

Patanjali

al-Biruni understands qualitative chan

correspondences
of time various elements within

the cycles of human history as well

as the origin of the order observed
In nature. In The Determination of the

Yoga to the Islamic world and one of

the Muslim figures really well-versed

In the Hindu Vedanta philosophy.

In questions of cosmogony and

cycle.

Co-ordinates of Cities, the origin of

science and cussed as its classification themes are dis to the are related

Without

doubt

his

profound

study
is

creation, al-Biruni rejected violently the Idea of the "eternity" of the world. Like the Islamic theologians, he held

and intimate knowledge not only of the

Koranic conception of time, which

question

of

the

origin

and

creation

of the universe.

that to believe in the eternity of the

world
cause

based on cycles of prophecy, but also of the teachings of the Puranas, the 18 Hindu epics, and of many other
traditions on the meaning of time and history, helped al-Biruni develop per haps more profoundly than any other
Islamic philosopher and scientist the

One could go on In the same vein

with his other writings. Moreover, the
very fact that he chose to translate

is

to

negate

the

need

for

for the world

and therefore to

negate

indirectly Divine

Unity, which

into Arabic a work on Indian yoga such as the Patanjali Yoga shows his intense
interest in
matters.

was the principle most dear to him.

In fact the whole of al-Biruni's works

metaphysical and spiritual

can be interpreted as a quest for the realization of unity in various forms of knowledge and planes of existence. It

meaning of qualified and cyclic time

and Its implications for the study of
nature and of man.

When all of these sources are ex

tracted and studied it becomes clear

was most of all with the aim of preserv-

that al-Biruni was neither a follower,

nor a member of any of the established
philosophical schools of his time.
The well known schools of "Islamic

which
(1) Muslim school of philosophy influenced by the philosophy of Aristotle. (2) A philosophy with origins in Ancient

A basic aspect of al-Biruni's thought, is closely related to his

of time, concerns the dev

treatment

elopment
with the

and

becoming

of

things, OQ
***

Persia, postulating inward spiritual enlighten

ment and mystical experience, and contrast ing with the philosophy of Aristotle based on reasoning and logical argument.

which many have by mistake identified

modern theory of evolution,

philosophy"

included

the

Peripatetic

the latter being no more than a parody

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

Photo H.W. Silvester Rapho, Paris

FREE-WHEELING PHILOSOPHER (Continued)

of

the

traditional

doctrine

of

grad

fested at a particular period of history is no more than the unfolding of possi

bilities inherent 'in that particular cycle
of time.

cal ideas is his view of knowledge and

the methods used for Its attainment.

ation (3).

Al-Blruni was fully aware of the long history of the earth, of the cataclysms
which
and

Al-Biruni that Is,

held he

view

of

knowledge in the

which was at once dynamic and static,

changed
that

mountains
species

Into
of

seas
the

This principle, which is one of the cornerstones of al-Biruni's thought and is a crystallization of well-known tradi

believed

clearly

oceans

into

continents,

gradual
time in

development
the

of

particular

fact

certain

preceded

forms of knowledge and at the same immutability of principial

others on earth and that each species has its own life cycle.

tional doctrines, is applied by al-Blruni to his study of various domains of

nature, both animate and inanimate, as

knowledge derived from revelation.

Pondering

over the vast panorama

In addition to being the founder of

the discipline of comparative religion

of nature In both time and space and the teachings of various sacred writ

well as to history and man.

Being an outstanding
Biruni was deeply

physicist,
in

althe

or the history of religion he must also

be considered as one of the founders

ings on the creation and subsequent history of the Universe, al-Biruni became aware of the basic principle

interested

general and

principles of natural

philoso in his

of the ledge,
the

history which

of for

science. him is

Yet,

he the

phy, in such questions as motion, time matter, as is again seen criticism of Aristotelian natural philoso phy presented in the series of ques

never lost sight of immutable know

always
revealed Scriptures and which provides
matrix for all the human sciences

that the development and becoming of things in this world is the gradual unfolding and actualization of all the
possibilities that are inherent within

tions and answers exchanged with Avi

cenna.

which change and develop. Moreover, al-Biruni was the great

In
idea as is

each being.

Nothing evolves from one form into

another as a result of external addi

As

far

as

the

nature

of

matter

is

concerned,

he sided with the Islamic

champion of pure knowledge and its

tions

or

accretions;

rather

whatever

theologians.

value for the perfection

Islam of there has

of man.
the

never been

transformation does take place is no

more than the manifestations of pos

It is somewhat strange that a scien tist such as al-Biruni should support

"science for science's sake"

found

in

the

West.

But

within

the

sibilities already present in that being. In the same way, what becomes mani-

the view of the theologians concerning the structure of matter, for usually the
Muslim scientists believed in the conti

context of Islamic civilization

al-Biruni

emphasized

the

importance

of

pure

40
(3) The principle that the universe is com

knowledge and the pursuit of know ledge for the sake of the perfection of man as against those who stressed
the importance of its utility.

nuity of matter.
Of paramount importance for an

posed of an infinite series of forms ranging in order from the barest type of existence
to ultimate perfection.

understanding of al-Biruni's philosophi-

THE

FIRST

MUSLIM

TO

MAKE

A DEEP STUDY

OF

HINDU

PHILOSOPHY

Left, 14th century Persian manuscript illus

tration shows Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna

crossing the Ganges, the sacred river to which Indians go on pilgrimage (above), to pray and meditate on its banks (opposite page). Al-Biruni studied India at first hand during his journeys in that country with Sultan Mahmud. This permitted him to write his
monumental book on India. The breadth of

vision and depth of understanding he revealed in this work were unprecedented in the Muslim world of his day. It remains a model of exact observation and objective analysis. As George Sarton writes in his "Introduction to the History of Science" "He was the first Muslim to make a deep study of Hindu philo sophy and became the most important link between two great provinces of mankind,
India and Islam."

Photo Edinburgh University library, U.K.

Of

course,

inasmuch

as

al-Biruni

without ever being fooled into believing

that the methods of experimental
science could he applied to the domain

which it belonged by nature, so that he could practise mathematics with

spoke within the context of the tradi tional world view, his defence of pure

the rigour of the greatest of mathema

ticians and at the same time write of
human affairs with a vision that is

knowledge and the view of those who

emphasized its utility met at the

of religion or the sciences of man. That is why In al-Biruni, who in a sense

summarizes the whole history of Isla

highest level.
"useful"
which and is the an

For what can be more

knowledge
his soul of adornment for Its for

much

more

profound

than

the

view

to man than the

means

mic science, there is no single method,

but
the

of those in the modern world who try

methods
innate

for

acquiring
of the

various
in

to ape the methods of the exact scien

ces in the field of the humanities and

attainment

forms of knowledge in conformity with

nature sciences question.

perfection?
Al-Biruni himself was aware of these

who

do

not

possess

fraction

of

al-Biruni's scientific knowledge.

two poles and attitudes involved and

The

basic significance

of al-Blruni

Al-Biruni stands as the model of the thinker

within

in

his

own

writings

combined
with

the
the

for the modern world, and especially

who
his

was
own

able

to

harmonize
vision

pleasure of utility.

aspect

associated

the contemporary Islamic world, in fact, is not only in that he was the father

intellectual

attainment of knowledge with its aspect For him the two were not

various forms of knowledge, from the

completely divorced from each other

but were complementary in the deep
est sense.

of geodesy or that he weighed several precious stones and metals carefully

or even that he criticized Aristotelian

sciences of nature to religion and phi

losophy. He also stands as proof that it is

natural

philosophy profoundly.

It

is

Al-Blruni never became the slave of

above all in his success in being an

possible within a view to develop

various branches

and
of

traditional worldeven found

the sciences

a particular method nor accepted that kind of tyranny of methodology charac

teristic of so much of modern science.

outstanding scientist, in being scienti fic without being scientlstic. It is in

without becoming

enslaved

by them

He used different methods in different

sciences in conformity with the nature

of the science in question.
observation,
tual Intuition.

being logical without losing sight of the spiritual empyrean, the knowledge of which is not irrational nor illogical but
unattainable through logic and reason
alone.

and without falling under the deadly

influence of belief in the unilateral and

tyrannizing power of science so preva lent today, a belief whose end cannot
but be the stifling of the human spirit
and the destruction of the natural envi

Where it
or

was necessary he used induction, or

or experimentation,
deduction or had recourse to intellec

It is also in his remarkable sense of

discernment which was

able to

give

ronment which itself serves as support

41

each

form

of knowledge

its

due,

to

for man's terrestrial journey.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

He was the most exact of scientists

assign to each element the place to

THE OF

FORTRESS

NANDANA

In the Fortress of Nandana,

left,

al-Biruni

computed

the
of

radius and circumference

the earth in the year 1018. The fortress stands in hilly country about 100 kilometres from Islamabad, capital of
modern Pakistan. Al-Biruni

explained his method In the

Mas'udic Canon. First he

calculated the height of a neighbouring peak, possibly

the one seen here behind

the
the

fortress,

then

he

measured
summit
horizon.

the
to
His

angle
the
results

from
earth's
were

amazingly
made the

accurate.
earth's

H e
radius

6,338.80

kilometres,

com

pared

with

today's

mean

figure of 6,370.98 kilometres or 6,353.41 kilometres at the latitude of Nandana, a dif

ference

of

barely

15

km.

Pioneer of scientific observation

He wrote of the great geological changes which had occurred in the remote past, long before the creation
of man, and also during human exis
tence,
fossils

(continue* om page w
and the Red
of

struction of a canal linking the Medi

terranean
the

Sea,

to

the

desalination of sea water and even to

atomistic

theories

Democritus

Al-Biruni's profound study of the Hindu religion enabled him to under take a comparative study of the major religions of his day, examining for the
first time the ties which bind the Greek,

and
of

some
marine

of his
animals

observations
led him to

Furthermore, and it is in this respect

are of great Interest.

the conclusion that:

His discovery of

that he really emerges as a precursor

Christian, Manichean, Jewish and Hindu

of the great geniuses of the Renais sance and the Enlightenment, he also
turned his attention to the human

faiths. He particularly stressed the Hindu belief in the transmigration of

souls.

"Sea has turned into land and land

into sea; which changes, if they happen

before the existence of man, are not

sciences, in which his achievement is

His work on India is not,

however,

known, and if they took place later they

are not remembered because with the

quite extraordinary for someone living in an age which was certainly not
noted for its tolerance.

length of time the record of events breaks, especially if this happens gradually. This only a few can realize.
"This steppe of Arabia was at one
time sea, then was upturned so that
the traces are still visible when wells

By virtue. of his official post at the

court of Sultan Mahmud, al-Biruni was

required to take part in the Sultan's campaigns. This did not prevent him realizing his greatest wish, which was
to make contact with

concerned solely with religion, but also contains chapters of the greatest value on the Hindu social system and Indian geography, mathematics and medicine. It is greatly to his credit that, unlike so many of his contemporaries, he saw India as something more than merely a place where rich booty was to be
had. His work is thus an objective and complete record of Hindu civi
lization and a source-book for his

z <

The long

Indian thought. periods which he spent in

or ponds are dug, for they begin with layers of dust, sand and pebbles, then

India left an indelible impression upon

there are found in the soii shells, glass

and bones which cannot possibly be
said to have been buried there on

him, resulting in some of his most remarkable works, in particular his

great work on India.
He went to India in the train of a

fellow-Muslims who had until then been

ignorant of Hindu culture.

Al-Biruni's work thus presents us

purpose.

Nay,

even

stones

are
called

brought
shells,

up

In

which
and

are
what

embedded
Is

cowries

military conqueror, but it was in the guise of a simple student that he

introduced
masters.

with an outstanding example of an encyclopaedic mind ranging over both

the exact sciences and the human

'fish-ears', sometimes well-preserved, or the hollows are there of their shape while the animal has decayed."
His interest next turned to the deter

himself

to

his

Indian

sciences, and a model of respect for

He learned Sanskrit in order

to

study

Indian
texts.

sacred writings
He was soon to

and
be

other people's manners, beliefs and customs in short, for other people's
cultures. He teaches us tolerance

scientific

mination of specific gravities, to vacuum theory, the propagation of heat, the

dilatation of bodies and the reflection

regarded as the equal of his masters, both for his learning and for his desire to spread the knowledge he possessed. His erstwhile teachers
thus became his pupils and he taught them the elements of Islamic, Manichean, Christian, Mazdaist and Hebrew

through understanding of other nations, and for this reason we respect al-Biruni as he respected others. As he him
self said:

42

and refraction of light. He even attempted to establish a tentative comparison between the speeds of light and sound.

In a totally different field, we find

references in his works to the con

thought with such success that they gave him the affectionate sobriquet
"Boundless Ocean".

"If you are to learn to like other peoples, learn their language and show respect for their way of life for their customs, their thought and their religion."
Mohammed Salim-Atchekzal

z <

o
o

o
UJ

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.i

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Ancient splendours of Ghazna

a*1
Ghazna (in present-day Afghanistan) was one of Asia's most splendid cities in the 10th century. It was the capital and cradle of the Ghaznavid dynasty which ruled

.V-V"
'

from the frontiers of Mesopotamia to the Ganges river. Al-Biruni, the great Muslim scientist and philosopher,
lived at Ghazna most of the time from 1017 until his death about 1048 A.D. Here he wrote some of his most

famous
India.

works,

including

his

encyclopaedic

study

on

The Mongol invasion of 1221 destroyed most of

Ghazna, sparing only two minarets and a palace, today

'

'^

in ruins. This star-shaped tower of burnt brick, 43 metres

high and decorated with Arabic inscriptions, is the base

of one of the minarets; it was once topped by a cylindrical

upper tower (see also page 18).
Photo Dominique Lacarrire, Paris