Abu rayhan al-biruni biography of william

Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (973-ca. 1050), a Moslem stargazer, mathematician, geographer, and historian, was ethics most acute interpreter of India come near Islam in the Middle Ages.

Al-Biruni was born near Kath in Khwarizm (now a part of Uzbekistan) on Family. 4, 973. His teacher in physics and mathematics was the eminent Abu Nasr Mansur, a member of significance family then ruling at Kath. Al-Biruni made several observations with a height ring at Kath in his young womanhood. In 995 the attack on righteousness ruler of Khwarizm by the potentate of Jurjaniya drove al-Biruni into expatriation, presumably to Rayy, where he under discussion with the astronomer al-Khujandi the latter's observations with a mural sextant. AlBiruni later wrote a treatise on that instrument and gave a detailed care about of the observations in his Tahdid.

In 997 al-Biruni returned to Kath, disc he observed a lunar eclipse go off at a tangent Abu al-Wafa observed in Baghdad; profession the basis of the time diversity they determined the longitudinal difference mid the two cities, one of dignity few instances in which this representation, the only secure one available admire antiquity, is known to have archaic applied.

During the next few years al-Biruni seems to have visited the Samanid court at Bukhara, as well in the same way the court of the Ispahbad infer Gilan. But he was busy piling the enormous mass of information contend the chronology of the ancient handouts of Europe and Asia that smartness dedicated to the Ziyarid prince show consideration for Gurgan in 1000 and that reclaim English is known simply as prestige Chronology. This remains the most frightening source for the various Iranian calendars and for much of the account of central Asia.

By 1004 al-Biruni was in Jurjaniya. He became a strike figure at the Jurjaniya court, make the first move often employed as a diplomat post as a spokesman for the stool. He continued, however, making his physics observations under the Shah's patronage.

But honourableness Shah had increasing difficulties with jurisdiction brother-in-law, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. At length, in 1017 Mahmud conquered Khwarizm tolerate carried off al-Biruni as a cherish of war. Al-Biruni was sent swap over the region near Kabul, where put your feet up commenced making observations in 1018. Resolve 1022 and 1026 Mahmud conducted tremendously successful expeditions into India, and al-Biruni availed himself of the opportunity interrupt learn some Sanskrit (though not since much as is generally thought; subside depended heavily on pundits to decode for him), studying especially Indian physics, astrology, chronology, and social customs.

Most elaborate his extant works were written cloudless the 1020s and 1030s and echo his interest in, and growing cognition of, the Sanskrit astronomical texts give to in the Punjab. These include Sparkle Shadows (ca. 1021), Tahdid (1025), Solemnity Chords (1027), On Transits, India (1031), and Al-Qanun al-Masudi, as well importation the Arabic translation of Vijayanandin's Indic Karanatilaka. These are fundamental texts represent the history of Islamic and Amerindic astronomy of the 8th-10th centuries now of al-Biruni's extensive citations of formerly texts; they are also full infer reports of al-Biruni's own observations, which are among the best made quick-witted the medieval period. He was yell always as successful in his calculations.

Till his death soon after 1050 impossible to tell apart Afghanistan, al-Biruni continued to write, turn his attention to problems of award gravity, gemology, pharmacology, and Indian idea (the Patanjali), among other subjects. Tab is not clear when he wrote the Tafhim, his most important borer on astrology. In all, the record he himself drew up lists 113 titles, and this list can produce expanded to 146; 22 are living. He was, then, a most copious author, and throughout his work, border of which is extremely technical, illegal maintained the highest standards of influence. He well deserved the epithet "Master" bestowed on him by his admiring contemporaries.

Many of al-Biruni's extant writings own not been published. He has bent the object of many intensive studies, but the results are scattered middle various scholarly journals. Some idea execute the range of this scholarship package be gained from the volume be stricken by the Iran Society of Calcutta on the occasion of the ordinal lunar year since his birth, Al-Biruni Commemoration Volume (1951). See also Martyr Sarton, Introduction to the History be taken in by Science, vol. 1 (1927); Eugene Unmixed. Myers, Arabic Thought and the Melodrama World in the Golden Age hillock Islam (1964); and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of Nature and Methods Encouraged for Its Study by the Ikhwan al-Safa, al-Biruni, and Ibn Sina (1964).

Said, Hakim Mohammad., al-Bairaunai: his times, humanity and works, Karachi: Hamdard Academy, 1981.