Abu Raihan Mohammed Ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni

Who was the first to make experiments related to astronomy? Most people would say Galileo, Ptolemy, or some scientist from the Renaissance. The real answer is Abu Raihan Mohammed Ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni.

Born about five centuries before the Renaissance, Al Biruni proved to be one of the most prominent scientists of all times. Abu Rayhan Al Biruni was born in Khwarazm, a region adjoining the Aral Sea now known as Karakalpakstan. The two major cities in this region were Kath and Jurjaniyya. Al-Biruni was born near Kath and the town where he was born is today called Biruni after the great scholar. He lived both in Kath and in Jurjaniyya as he grew up and we know that he began studies at a very early age under the famous astronomer and mathematician Abu Nasr Mansour. Certainly by the age of seventeen al-Biruni was engaged in serious scientific work for it was in 990 that he computed the latitude of Kath by observing the maximum altitude of the sun.

Al Biruni learned Hindu philosophy, mathematics, geography and religion from the experts to whom he taught Greek and Arabic science and philosophy. He wrote about his travels through India in his well-known book Kitab-al-Hind which gives a graphic account of the sub-continent.

At the age of 22, he wrote a number of short works. One which has survived is his Cartography which is a work on map projections. As well as describing his own projection of a hemisphere onto a plane, Al Biruni showed that by the age of 22 he was already extremely well read for he had studied a wide selection of map projections invented by others and he discusses them in the treatise. The comparatively quiet life that Al Biruni led up to this point was to come to a sudden end.

The end of the 10th century and beginning of the 11th century was a period of great unrest in the Islamic world, with civil wars in the region in which Al Biruni was living. Khwarazm was at this time part of the Samanid Empire which ruled from Bukhara. Other states in the region were the Ziyarid state with its capital at Gurgan on the Caspian sea. Further west, the Buwayhid dynasty ruled over the area between the Caspian sea and the Persian Gulf, and over Mesopotamia. Another kingdom which was rapidly rising in influence was the Ghaznavids whose capital was at Ghazna in Afghanistan, a kingdom which was to play a major role in Al Biruni's life.

The Banu Iraq were the rulers of the Khwarazm region and Abu Nasr Mansur, Al Biruni's teacher, was a prince of that family. In 995 the rule by the Banu Iraq was overthrown in a coup. Al Biruni fled at the outbreak of the civil war but it is less clear what happened to his teacher Abu Nasr Mansur at this stage. Describing these events later.

Exactly where Al Biruni went when he fled from Khwarazm is unclear. He might have gone to Rayy (near to where the city of Tehran stands today) at this time, but certainly he was there at some time during the following few years. He writes that he was without a patron when in Rayy, and lived in poverty. al-Khujandi was an astronomer who was working with a very large instrument he had built on the mountain above Rayy to observe meridian transits of the sun near the solstices. He made observations on 16 and 17 June 994 for the summer solstice and 14 and 17 December 994 for the winter solstice. From these values he calculated the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the latitude of Rayy but neither are particularly accurate.

Other work which al-Biruni undertook as a young man was more theoretical. Before Al-Khujandi discussed these observations, and his large sextant, with al-Biruni who later reported on them in his Tahdid where he claimed that the aperture of the sextant settled by about one span in the course of al-Khujandi's observations due to the weight of the instrument. Al-Biruni is almost certainly correct in pinpointing the cause of al-Khujandi's errors. Since al-Khujandi died in 1000, we can be fairly certain that al-Biruni spent part of the time between 995 and 997 at Rayy. He must also have spent part of this time in Gilan, which is bordered by the Caspian Sea on the north, for around this time he dedicated a work to the ruler of Gilan, ibn Rustam, who had connections with the Ziyarid state.

Among Al Biruni's books, his as-Saydanah fit-Tibb on pharmacy and materia medica is the last. Of this crowning achievement only a few copies have come down to us from its first and only draft autograph. Al Biruni died shortly hereafter, at the age of 78, before having the chance to revise it. However the manual represents one of the finest contributions to pharmaceutical science during the Middle Ages, and a great masterpiece of all times. Indeed it stand as one of the most original texts in Arabic on the subject in authenticity.

More distinctly than is observed in al-Ghafiqi's al-Jami, al-Biruni's manual comprises two important, distinct and separate sections. The first, and most original, contains authentic definitions of the apothecary arts as well as pharmacology, therapeutics and related fields of the healing arts, lexicology and lexicography, toxicology, omissions and substitutions of drugs, and their synonyms. It also presents valuable historical and biographical information not found anywhere else in Arabic literature. It is very probable that it surpassed any other in any language up to its time on this particular subject.

Also, this first section presents the author's own motivations and objectives in writing his book and what the reader should expect from it. He further gives a timely, sententious and shrewd defense of the Arabic language as the lingua franca of the contemporary sciences and the arts during this period. Such deliberate and useful discussions and interpretations, the first of the kind ever recorded in an Arabic medico-pharmaceutical text, were almost lacking in al-Ghafiqi's introductory statements which centered on self-defense. Significantly, this allows al-Biruni the well-deserved title of 'Father of Arabic Pharmacy.'

The second section of as-Saydanah is devoted to materia medica. In it Al Biruni explains over seven hundred simples of the three natural kingdoms conveniently and scrupulously arranged in alphabetical order. In several entries the discussions lead us to believe that the author observed the natural product that he and his collaborator, the physician-pharmacist Sheikh Ahmad an-Nahsha'i, described : The latter, we are told in al-Biruni's words in the introduction, used to bring several varieties of drugs from herbalists and pharmacy shops at Ghaznah for their firsthand examination and study. Quite a few of these simples were never mentioned before by the Greco-Roman authors and their commentators prior to the Arabian period. Many of these, Al Biruni must have observed during his repeated travels (thirteen in all) in Pakistan-India Subcontinent, as can be easily detected from his writings.

Al Biruni wrote two hundred books and made a few instruments for astronomy. Although only one fifth of his works have survived, we get a clear picture of the great Muslim scientist. We see a man who was not a great innovator of original theories, mathematical or otherwise, but rather a careful observer who was a leading exponent of the experimental method. He was a great linguist who was able to read first hand an amazing number of the treatises that existed and he clearly saw the development of science as part of a historical process which he was always careful to put in proper context. His writings are therefore of great interest to historians of science.

Al Biruni died in 1048 CE at the age of 75, after having spent 40 years in gathering knowledge and making his own contributions to its different branches. He is one of the notable scientists in the Islamic world, and indeed one of the greatest of all times.