POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ON HISTORY OF

Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī

HISTORYAbū al-Rayhān Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bīrūnī[n 1] (born 4/5 September 973 in Kath, Khwarezm,[3]died 13 December 1048 in Ghazni) known as Alberonius in Latin and Al-Biruni in English,[4] was aPersian[5]-Khwarezmian[6][7] Muslim scholar and polymath from the Khwarezm region.Al-Biruni is regarded as one of the greatest scholars of the medieval Islamic era and was well versed inphysics, mathematics, astronomy, and natural sciences, and also distinguished himself as a historian,chronologist and linguist.[7]

 He was conversant in Khwarezmian, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit, and also knewGreek, Hebrew and Syriac. He spent a large part of his life in Ghazni in modern-day Afghanistan, capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty which was based in what is now central-eastern Afghanistan. In 1017 he traveled to the Indian subcontinent and became the most important interpreter of Indian science to the Islamic world. He is given the titles the "founder of Indology" and the "first anthropologist".[8] He was an impartial writer on custom and creeds of various nations, and was given the title al-Ustadh ("The Master") for his remarkable description of early 11th-century India.[7] He also made contributions to Earth sciences, and is regarded as the "father of geodesy" for his important contributions to that field, along with his significant contributions togeography.

Early life

He was born in the outer district of Kath, the capital of the Afrighid dynasty of Khwarezm (or Chorasmia).[9]The word Biruni means "from the outer-district" in Persian, and so this became his nisba: "al-Bīrūnī" = "the Birunian".[9] His first twenty-five years were spent in Khwarezm where he studied fiqh, theology, grammar,mathematics, astronomy, medics and other sciences.[9] The Iranian Khwarezmian language, which was the language of Biruni,[10][11] survived for several centuries after Islam until the Turkification of the region, and so must some at least of the culture and lore of ancient Khwarezm, for it is hard to see the commanding figure of Biruni, a repository of so much knowledge, appearing in a cultural vacuum.

Mathematics and Astronomy

Ninety-five of 146 books known to have been written by Bīrūnī, about 65 percent, were devoted to astronomy, mathematics, and related subjects like math ematical geography.[17]

Biruni's major work on astrology[18] is primarily an astronomical and mathematical text, only the last chapter concerns astrological prognostication. His endorsement of astrology is limited, in so far as he condemns horary astrology[19] as 'sorcery'.In discussing speculation by other Muslim writers on the possible motion of the Earth, Biruni acknowledged that he could neither prove nor disprove it, but commented favourably on the idea that the Earth rotates.[20] He wrote an extensive commentary on Indian astronomy in the Kitab ta'rikh al-Hind, in which he claims to have resolved the matter of Earth's rotation in a work on astronomy that is no longer extant, his Miftah-ilm-alhai'a (Key to Astronomy):

This section requires expansion.(June 2011)

This section requires expansion.(June 2011)

This section requires expansion.(June 2011)

PhysicsAl-Biruni contributed to the introduction of the experimental scientific method to mechanics, unified statics and dynamics into the science of mechanics, and combined the fields of hydrostatics with dynamics to create hydrodynamics.[citation needed]

GeographyFour directions and Political divisions of Iran by Abū Rayḥān al-BīrūnīBīrūnī also devised his own method of determining the radius of the earth by means of the observation of the height of a mountain and carried it out at Nandana in Pind Dadan Khan, Pakistan.[28]

See also: History_of_geodesy#Biruni

Pharmacology and Mineralogy       Due to an apparatus he constructed himself, he succeeded in determining the specific gravity of a certain number of metals and minerals with remarkable precision.

History and Chronology       Biruni's main essay on political history, Kitāb al-musāmara fī aḵbār Ḵᵛārazm (Book of nightly conversation concerning the affairs of Ḵᵛārazm) is now known only from quotations in Bayhaqī’s Tārīkh-e masʿūdī. In addition to this various discussions of historical events and methodology are found in connection with the lists of kings in his al-Āthār al-bāqiya and in the Qānūn as well as elsewhere in the Āthār, in India, and scattered throughout his other works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AzerbazkanBiruni.JPG

History of Religions    Bīrūnī is one of the most important Muslim authorities on the history of religion.[31]

 Al-Biruni was a pioneer in the study of comparative religion. He studied Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and other religions. He treated religions objectively, striving to understand them on their own terms rather than trying to prove them wrong. His underlying concept was that all cultures are at least distant relatives of all other cultures because they are all human constructs. “What al-Biruni seems to be arguing is that there is a common human element in every culture that makes all cultures distant relatives, however foreign they might seem to one another.” (Rosenthal, 1976, p. 10). Al-Biruni was disgusted by scholars who failed to engage primary sources in their treatment of Hindu religion. He found existing sources on Hinduism to be both insufficient and dishonest. Guided by a sense of ethics and a desire to learn, he sought to explain the religious behavior of different groups.Al-Biruni divides Hindus into an educated and an uneducated class. He describes the educated as monotheistic, believing that God is one, eternal, and omnipotent and eschewing all forms of idol worship. He recognizes that uneducated Hindus worshipped a multiplicity of idols yet points out that even some Muslims (such as the Jabiriyya) have adopted anthropomorphic concepts of God. (Ataman, 2005)

Indology      The statue of Biruni in Laleh Park, Tehran, IranBīrūnī’s fame as an Indologist rests primarily on two texts. [32] Al-Biruni wrote an encyclopedic work on India called “Tarikh Al-Hind” (History of India) in which he explored nearly every aspect of Indian life, including religion, history, geography, geology, science, and mathematics. He explores religion within a rich cultural context. He expresses his objective with simple eloquence: I shall not produce the arguments of our antagonists in order to refute such of them, as I believe to be in the wrong. My book is nothing but a simple historic record of facts. I shall place before the reader the theories of the Hindus exactly as they are, and I shall mention in connection with them similar theories of the Greeks in order to show the relationship existing between them.(1910, Vol. 1, p. 7;1958, p. 5)An example of Al-Biruni’s analysis is his summary of why many Hindus hate Muslims. He explains that Hinduism and Islam are totally different from each other. Moreover, Hindus in 11th century India had suffered through waves of destructive attacks on many of its cities, and Islamic armies had taken numerous Hindu slaves to Persia, which claimed Al-Biruni contributed to Hindus becoming suspicious of all foreigners, not just Muslims. Hindus considered Muslims violent and impure, and did not want to share anything with him. Over time, Al-Biruni won the welcome of Hindu scholars. Al-Biruni collected books and studied with these Hindu scholars to become fluent in Sanskrit, discover and translate into Arabic the mathematics, science, medicine, astronomy and other fields of arts as practiced in 11th century India. He was inspired by the arguments offered by Indian scholars who believed earth must be ellipsoid shape, with yet to be discovered continent at earth's south pole, and earth's rotation around the sun is the only way to fully explain the difference in daylight hours by latitude, seasons and earth's relative positions with moon and stars. Al-Biruni was also critical of Indian scribes who he believed carelessly corrupted Indian documents while making copies of older documents.[33] Al-Biruni's translations as well as his own original contributions reached Europe in 12th and 13th century, where they were actively sought.While others were killing each other over religious differences, Al-Biruni had a remarkable ability to engage Hindus in peaceful dialogue. Mohammad Yasin puts this dramatically when he says, “The Indica is like a magic island of quiet, impartial research in the midst of a world of clashing swords, burning towns, and burned temples.” (Indica is another name for Al-Biruni’s history of India). (Yasin, 1975, p. 212).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Abu_Rayhan_al-Biruni.jpg

PERSIAN WORKAlthough he preferred Arabic to Persian in scientific writing, his Persian version of the Al-Tafhim[34] is one of the most important of the early works of science in the Persian language, and is a rich source for Persian prose and lexicography.[34] The book covers the Quadrivium in a detailed and skilled fashion.

Legacy The crater Al-Biruni on the Moon is named after him.