"A Scientist Seeking to 'Capture Time" The Golden Age of Islam "Al-Biruni"

 

The Golden Age of Islam saw many brilliant scientists seeking to capture time, including Rayhan Muhammad Ibn Al-Biruni, a mathematician who dedicated his life to measuring time through astronomy and chronometry (the scientific knowledge of accurate time measurement).

Al-Biruni's fascination with time can be traced back to the command given by Allah in the Qur'an to "Consider the movement of the sun and the moon."

However, very little is known about Al-Biruni's personal life, including whether he was married or had children. In a poem he wrote, he even claimed to not know about his father.

Despite this, much of what we know about Al-Biruni comes from his meticulous observations of lunar and solar eclipses. He died after 1050 AD, but the exact year of his passing is unknown. However, we do know that he spent his life in pursuit of knowledge and authored 140 books, 20 of which are still preserved in their original form. Most of his works deal with accurate time measurement, attempts to understand geography through mathematics, geometry, geodesy, astronomy, and applied mathematics.

In his most famous work, Al-Qanun al-Masudi, Al-Biruni lays down the rules for measuring the earth and the stars. His obsession with timekeeping also led him to research the past. During his time in India, he wrote Kitab-ul-Hind or Tarikh-ul-Hind, in which he researched the beliefs, civilization, and culture of the Indian people. Al-Biruni is considered the founder of the study of India, as his writing helped give permanent identity to Indian ideas.

At the same time, Al-Biruni was interested in preserving the past. He considered the ancient inhabitants of India and Greece as a family. Despite his obsessive attachment to time, he did not neglect the world. Regarding his political career, he said, "I was drawn towards worldly things, and fools envied me while wise men pitied me."

Although Al-Biruni's political career did not leave much of an impression on historians, his scientific work made him very popular among thinkers, poets, and politicians. He held high positions in several royal governments in the eastern regions of the Gilan Sea, but these regimes were often short-lived.

Al-Biruni was born in 973 AD in Khwarazm, which is present-day Uzbekistan. He was fluent in Arabic and Persian and studied religious sciences such as the Qur'an, grammar, theology, and law. He also studied non-Arabic sciences such as astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, which were based on Greek theory.

Al-Biruni's first official position was as an astronomer during the Afrigh reign. After the Afrighians were defeated by the rival Mamunyan dynasty that ruled Gurganj, Al-Biruni began working under the Ziyarian rule of Tabaristan in 998 AD. He spent the next ten years of his life there.

Al-Biruni discussed scientific topics with Ibn Sina, a charismatic philosopher who articulated highly complex ideas and was gifted with natural talent at a young age. Al-Biruni asked Ibn Sina 18 questions, 10 of which were about the translation of Aristotle's book Al-Samaa al-Alam, while the other 8 were related to natural philosophy. Ibn Sina was the first translator of Aristotle's philosophy and answered Al-Biruni's questions. Based on these answers, Al-Biruni asked 15 more questions, which were answered by a brilliant student of Ibn Sina.

In his questions, Al-Biruni criticized Aristotle for relying on the work of earlier philosophers rather than his own observations. Many of his questions revolve around space. In question 17, he asks that if things expand on heating and contract on cooling, then why does the transparency of a glass break when the air in it freezes? Another question is why does ice float on water and not sink in it?

Looking at these questions, it becomes clear that Al-Biruni was criticizing Aristotle because his work was not empirically sound and he was not influenced by Avicenna. In a later book, al-Biruni addresses Ibn Sina derisively as 'the boy' even though he was only seven years older than Ibn Sina.

In 998 AD, the 25-year-old al-Biruni began working under the Ziyarian rule of Tabaristan, where he spent the next ten years of his life. Here he started writing his book Al-Aqtir al-Baqiyyah an al-Qarun al-Khaliya. He last made changes to this book in the 70s. This book actually tells the history of religions.Among them were the pre-Zoroastrian or Magian people who were probably Buddhists, the Magians, the Sogdians who belonged to the ancient Iranian civilizatio the Khwarazmi i.e. Al-Biruni's own people, the Jews, the Syrian Christians, and the emergence of Islam. Both pre-existing Arabic and Muslim religions are included.

Al-Biruni examined the history of these religions and looked at how they created their calendars and when their festivals and other events were held. The first three chapters of his book are about the basis of religions—how they all calculate time.

Chapters four through eight deal with the periods of kings and prophets to create a chronological chronology of events that facilitates comparison.

Chapters nine to 20 deal with calendars, while chapter 21 deals with the position of the moon. The sources from which Al-Biruni obtained this information are documents, not hearsay. He collected as many documents as he could in this regard and tried to examine them for logic and rationality.

Al-Biruni and his colleagues looked for consistency in the different versions of events, tried to carefully record the information they received, and when a contradiction came to them, they examined it impartially. All of this was influenced by his long-standing interest in timekeeping or chronography.

After being absent for 15 years, Al-Biruni returned to Ghazni where he was given an official position as 'Nadeem'. Nadeem is actually a special person in the ruler's court who eats and drinks with him. Being very close to the ruler, Al-Biruni also represented him on several diplomatic trips. However, his political career took a turn in 1017 when Mahmud Ghaznavi, an Afghan military ruler, asked his ruler to hand over his court completely to him. In this way, this period of rule also ended and thus Al-Biruni became a part of the Ghaznavid government. There is ambiguity regarding Al-Biruni's life between 1017 and 1030 and his role in Mahmud al-Ghaznavi's rule. It is also possible that he was made a part of the government against his will.

In another passage found in Arikh, it is also written that once as an official astrologer, he had to face the wrath of Mahmud al-Ghaznavi while telling the future.

When Mahmud of Ghaznavi attacked the parts of India that are now known as Pakistan, Al-Biruni also accompanied him, and during this time Mahmud took many Hindus of the Brahmin caste as prisoners of war. These Brahmins became Al-Biruni's main source of information about India and its religions.

In one of his books, he explains the reason for his interest in Indian culture and writes that 'Through this, we also get an opportunity to examine the situations and events from the point of view of the people living in India and thus we do not discount them.

No, Indians and Greeks used to be like a family in ancient times. Both places had the same police system and both had the same basic ideas about the two branches of astronomy, astronomy and astrology.'

Then Al-Biruni also got some important information about the Indians of his time. He explains that 'I had been translating the books of Indian mathematicians and astronomers for some time. I also found books in which influential people in India were preserving their philosophy so that they could worship better.

The Indians of Albiruni's time kept their past alive, but the same cannot be said of the ancient Greeks, who were soon forgotten. Indian civilization gave Albiruni an opportunity to revive history, but it was not an easy task.

How can one put an entire civilization into words? How was it possible to translate a very ancient and sophisticated civilization from a difficult language into a book?

Al-Biruni, however, began the difficult process of translating books and documents from Sanskrit into Arabic. He started collecting evidence in this regard and also got help from Brahmin prisoners, but all these evidences and information were not collected in one place.

Maybe al-Biruni knew the solution to this problem before writing the book, maybe he had an idea about it suddenly, we don't know. He calls the solution given by him in this regard the geometrical path and explains it as follows:

So far it has not been possible to follow the 'geometrical path' and trace the processes that preceded it. Similarly, in this book some things will be mentioned in one chapter while their explanation will be given in another chapter. This is how Al-Biruni divided the chapters of the book.

At the end of the book, he talks about the customs of the Indians and their religious and cultural festivals and explains how their times are estimated. History of India is a very valuable book.

The death of Mahmud Ghaznavi in 1030 changed his fortunes. His successor, Mas'ud, made him the chief astronomer of the government. He could now not only complete the History of India, but also wrote a more detailed book, Al-Qunoon al-Masudi, and attributed it to the ruler. This book is very important in astronomy.

Al-Biruni's energies did not diminish even in the latter part of his youth. In 1036 he prepared a comprehensive list of 60 books. They include a list of 180 books by the 9th century Muslim philosopher al-Razi. He also listed 128 of his books and a list on the history of medicine that mentions physicians of Greek descent.

Throughout this period Albiruni's attachment to time remained intact. I have studied with teachers who were admirers of Al-Biruni, and I myself have been greatly influenced by his work. Their open-minded thinking about the idea that the planets in the universe revolve around the sun is better if better evidence is provided.

His accurate measurement of the motion of the earth and its speed was no less a feat, but what I loved most about Albiruni was his human side.

Like when he talks about the difficulty in learning Sanskrit, or when he says that I finally read a book title that piqued my curiosity as he had been looking for a book on the subject for four decades. were

Also his father's joy after reading his books and his criticism of opponents of science. Then he also tells how, after being ill for a long time, he put aside his scientific beliefs and sought fortune from astrologers and later criticized the astrologers themselves.

And when he mentions the dream in which he sees the first day's moon, he hears that 'You will see 170 more first day's moons, meaning you will live for another 15 years.

For me, this very intelligent man's last book is a reflection of his wisdom in dealing with pharmaceuticals and pharmacology. It was written by Al-Biruni when his eyesight was failing and he could not even hear properly. He needed an assistant to complete the book, but the book is still 800 pages long.

According to Al-Biruni, the field of pharmacy is actually choosing the right types of medicines based on the prescriptions formulated by the best medical experts after experimenting in the best conditions.

He wrote more than 1,000 prescriptions in this book, gave nearly 100 references, and used material in 20 languages or dialects for research. Now that to me is the mark of a scholar.