MAJALAH AL-HIKMAH EDISI 7 | 2019

tinta pensyarah A bu al-Raihan Muhammad Ahmad al-Biruni (973-1048 AH) was a great Persian Muslim scholar in the medieval Islamic era and was well versed in Mathemat- ics, Physics, Astronomy, Natural Sciences, History and Religions. He was fluent in Arabic, Persian, Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit. Most of his works are in Arabic and Per- sian. He traveled to Afghanistan and Indian Subcontinent, and spent a large part of his life there to intro- duce a’qli and naqli sciences such as Islamic history, tafseer, shariah and Indian and Persian religions to the other parts of the world. Al-Biruni traveled many parts of India to present his encyclope- dic account of Hinduism entitled ( تحقيق ما للهند من مقولة مقبولة في العقل أم مرذولة ), which is translated by Edward C. Sachau in two volumes as “AlBeruni’s India.” (An Ac - count of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronol- ogy, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India about A.D 1030). It includes all the lore that al-Bīrūnī could gather about India and its science, religion, litera- ture, and customs. His only other competing encyclopedic work, in terms of depth and extent of cover- age, is the Chronology of Ancient Nations, which is devoted to a uni - versal anthropological account of various cultures and which even records the lore of long-dead cul- tures or of other cultures that were about to disappear. Taken togeth - er, these two works preserve the best premodern description of the cultures al-Biruni came to know. In the latter work, for example, is the most elaborate treatment of the Jewish calendar—more exten- sive than any surviving medieval Hebrew source and much more scientifically reasoned than any other treatment that this calen- Abu al-Raihan Al- Biruni and Indology By: Dr. Mohamed Mihlar Abdul Muthaliff FKP- USIM 3