Al-Biruni and the Kitab-ul-Hind

Al-Biruni was not a casual traveller. He was a scholar who came to India as a hostage in 1017, but ended up spending the rest of his life studying its society, religion, and sciences. His great work, the Kitab-ul-Hind, remains one of the most systematic and objective accounts of medieval India written by an outsider.

From Khwarizm to the Punjab

Al-Biruni was born in 973 in Khwarizm, in present-day Uzbekistan. At the time, Khwarizm was a major centre of learning, and Al-Biruni received the best education available. He mastered several languages: Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Sanskrit. Though he never learned Greek, he was familiar with the works of Plato and other Greek philosophers because he had read them in Arabic translations.

In 1017, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Khwarizm and took many scholars and poets back to his capital, Ghazni. Al-Biruni was among them. He arrived as a hostage, but over time he developed a liking for Ghazni and lived there until his death at age 70.

It was in Ghazni that Al-Biruni developed an interest in India. This was not unusual — Sanskrit works on astronomy, mathematics, and medicine had been translated into Arabic since the eighth century. When the Punjab became part of the Ghaznavid empire, contacts with the local population helped create an environment of mutual trust and understanding. Al-Biruni spent years in the company of Brahmana priests and scholars, learning Sanskrit and studying religious and philosophical texts. While his exact travel route is unclear, he likely travelled widely in the Punjab and parts of northern India.

Travel literature was already an accepted part of Arabic literature by the time Al-Biruni wrote. Such works covered lands as far apart as the Sahara desert in the west and the River Volga in the north.

Translating texts, sharing ideas

Al-Biruni’s expertise in several languages allowed him to compare languages and translate texts. He translated several Sanskrit works into Arabic, including Patanjali’s work on grammar. For his Brahmana friends, he translated the works of Euclid, the Greek mathematician, into Sanskrit.

Al-Biruni’s objectives

Al-Biruni described his own work as:

• A help to those who want to discuss religious questions with the Hindus.
• A repertory of information to those who want to associate with them.

The Kitab-ul-Hind

Al-Biruni’s Kitab-ul-Hind, written in Arabic, is simple and lucid. It is a voluminous text divided into 80 chapters. The subjects covered include:

• Religion and philosophy
• Festivals
• Astronomy
• Alchemy
• Manners and customs
• Social life
• Weights and measures
• Iconography
• Laws
• Metrology (the science of measurement)

Generally, though not always, Al-Biruni adopted a distinctive structure in each chapter:

1. He began with a question.
2. He followed this with a description based on Sanskritic traditions.
3. He concluded with a comparison with other cultures.

Some present-day scholars argue that this almost geometric structure — remarkable for its precision and predictability — owed much to his mathematical orientation.

Al-Biruni wrote in Arabic and probably intended his work for peoples living along the frontiers of the subcontinent. He was familiar with translations and adaptations of Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit texts into Arabic — these ranged from fables to works on astronomy and medicine. However, he was also critical of the ways in which these texts were written, and clearly wanted to improve on them.