Al-Biruni - Muslim scholar and polymath

Abu al-Raihan Mohammad ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni – to give him his correct name – had an insatiable curiosity. He was interested in the stars, as an astronomer and astrologer, pharmacy, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, physics, mineralogy and languages.

He wrote more than 140 books, of which only about a quarter survive today, and so this list of Al-Biruni’s interests is probably an incomplete one, but it’s already long enough to make most of us feel rather inadequate. Especially when we realise that it doesn’t include his most impressive work. This has to be ‘The India’, a six-hundred page enquiry into the lifestyles, beliefs and religion of the people living in the north-west of the Indian subcontinent (in what is now Pakistan and southern Afghanistan). But, before we look closely at Al-Biruni’s greatest work, perhaps we should explore what we know about the man himself and the age he lived in.

Al-Biruni was born in 973 in central Asia in a region called Chorasmiain Persia (now in Uzbekistan). The Muslim world in the tenth century was no longer growing but its cultural centre was still intact. Since the time of the Prophet Mohammad (in the seventh century), Muslim influence had expanded from its epicentre in Mecca and Medina (in modern Saudi Arabia).

It spread all over the Arabian Gulf, on to Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Persia, as far north as modern Syria and parts of Turkey, throughout central Asia and much of North Africa. In 711, the Muslims even took most of Spain.

This golden age was not only a military one though, as it is usually portrayed in the West, but also a great flowering of Islamic scholarship. The Arab Translation Movement from the eighth century had published the works of Ancient Greek thinkers in Arabic and Persian, meaning that Euclid, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes and many others were readily available.

The Arabs also used paper, rather than parchment, which meant that texts could more easily be copied and, so, shared between many Muslim scholars. It is because of these translators that some of the most important works of western civilisation survive today, as they were later translated into Latin.

However, this major Arab contribution to modern western thought did not end there. Many Arab translators were important thinkers in their own right and developed the science and philosophy they were translating, creating something new from them. Neither was their knowledge only theoretical. They were interested in its practical application. Hospitals and pharmacies researching into diseases and treating patients for both physical and mental illnesses were established in Baghdad and Damascus, the first in the world.

But the Muslim world in Al-Biruni’s time was weaker than it had been, partly because of in-fighting. This did not mean though that the days of Islamic scholarship were over. Ibn Sina (called Avicenna in the West), often regarded as the father of modern medicine and the greatest Arab philosopher, and Al-Biruni were contemporaries. They were not alone either. It was natural for Muslim rulers to have intellectuals as advisors in their courts. This increased their reputation as wise leaders.

Al-Biruni probably studied astronomy, mathematics and other sciences as well as Islam and jurisprudence while he was growing up in Chorasmia, but he left in 995 when its rulers were overthrown by a rival family. He headed for Bukhara but left after only three years for another local court.

In 1017, though, he was taken – we could almost say ‘kidnapped’ – by another warring lord, called Mahmud of Ghazni, to his capital in (what is now) Afghanistan. He was made court astrologer and remained there for the rest of his life. Mahmud was determined to make a name for himself and having scholars around him was one of the ways he used to achieve it. We don’t know for sure whether Al-Biruni saw himself as a prisoner or a court official, although he sometimes made it clear that his life was not his own. He certainly seemed rather happier when Mahmud died in 1030 as he was more comfortable with his son, the new ruler, Masud. He passed away at the ripe old age of seventy-five in 1048 in Ghazni.

Al-Biruni’s first work was written about different calendars when he was twenty-seven in the year 1000. It was a history of how civilisations, both modern and historical, measured time. He used his knowledge of languages to translate documents concerning the dating of religious festivals. This was unusual, because most Islamic scholars discounted any religion which did not believe in the one true God. Now, Al-Biruni was a devout Muslim but still thought that polytheistic religions might teach him something. He made extensive lists of the festivals in the ancient and modern world and explained how believers calculated exactly when these should fall each year. In fact, Al-Biruni believed that the making of lists was fundamental to human nature, just as Aristotle and many others have said that politics is.

Another significant achievement of Al-Biruni’s was measuring the radius of the Earth. He did this using a calculation he made of the height of a mountain from a fort called Nandana in Pind Dadan Khan (in modern Pakistan). His findings were remarkably accurate and are only a few metres different from modern ones.

Although we do not know how he did it, Al-Biruni also said that he had proved that the Earth rotated in ellipses, differing from Aristotle and his disciple, Ibn Sina. He refers readers to a book of his for the proof, but, sadly, this no longer exists.

There were many more advances made by this great thinker – the development of modern mechanics and observation as a means of scientific enquiry, among many others – but nothing really compares with his book on India.

In 1017, Mahmud invaded (what was then) India. For many, many years it was thought that Al-Biruni went with him and that was how he got the information necessary to write his great work on the country. However, recently, academics have suggested that his descriptions of the geography and cities are not very convincing or accurate. On the other hand, his understanding of Indian mathematics and Hinduism is far more detailed and impressive. Some therefore believe that he gathered information about the subcontinent by speaking to Indian thinkers that Mahmud had taken prisoner and brought back to Ghazni with him.

Whether Al-Biruni went to India with Mahmud or not, it is largely because of his research for his greatest work, ‘The India’, that we know so much of the Indian mathematics of Aryabhata five hundred years before. But perhaps even more remarkable were Al-Biruni’s enquiries into the beliefs and philosophy of Hinduism.

Unlike any other Muslim thinker, Al-Biruni thought that this polytheistic faith was worth studying. This flew in the face of Islamic thought. People who did not believe in one god were the lowest of the low and enjoyed no rights. In fact, when they served in Mahmud’s army, they were seen as cannon fodder. They did not deserve to live. While Al-Biruni believed that Islam was the perfect representation of God’s plan for humankind, he disagreed. Just by explaining the beliefs of the Hindus, their many gods, the caste system and their social organisation, he was suggesting that they were human beings who deserved respect and rights. This was entirely new in the Islamic world.

Perhaps, then, Al-Biruni’s astounding discoveries in mathematics and astronomy were not as important as his original thinking on the rights of people who did not share his beliefs.

Yet, Al-Biruni’s work died with him. There are almost no references to ‘The India’ in later Muslim texts and Al-Biruni had to wait many centuries after his death for the reputation he has today as the greatest thinker of the Islamic Golden Age.