The contribution of an Iranian scholar Abu Reyhan al-Biruni especially; Mathematical and Astrological works

Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad Ibn al-Biruni was an Iranian Islamic scholar also known as the “Father of modern Geodesy”, generally he is called as the “Founder of Indology,” was born on September 5, 973 AD in Khwarezm, Khorasan (modern-day in Uzbekistan), in the region beyond the ancient Oxus River, and died around 1048 at Ghazna, Afghanistan. He is educated by a Khwarezm-Shah's prince, Abu Naṣr Manṣur, a member of the dynasty that ruled the area and possibly a benefactor of al-Biruni. Some of the mathematical works of this prince were written especially for al-Biruni and are at times easily disordered with al-Biruni’s own works.

Khwarizm Shahs subordinates rebelled against his master and killed him, thus causing a civil war (d. 996-998) that forced al-Biruni to flee and seek the refuge for much formidable Samanid Empire, which ruled a vast area of eastern Islamic land (modern day-Iran and Afghanistan). Finally, al-Biruni got refuge in Bukhara, the capital city of Samanid dynasty. In Qabus’s court, al-Biruni met a famous philosopher-scientist Ibn Sina (Avicenna), where he exchanged with him a philosophical idea of contrast.

The entire region of Samanid dynasty fell under the brutal reign of Mahmud, the son of Subuktigin when he captured the Ghazna as his capital city in 998 AD, and demanded that both al-Biruni and Ibn Sina join his court. Avicenna managed to escape but al-Biruni did not, al-Biruni was join his campaigns into the northern India possibly unwilling guest of merciless warrior. He used his pen as the acute observations about Indian society and culture and earn the more fame as an ethnographer, anthropologist, and eloquent historian of Indian science.

Here are some details of his important works:

1. The most important book is regarded as on Indian culture was an encyclopaedic work entitled “Taḥqīq ma li-l-hind min maqulah maqbulah fi al- aql wa mardhulah” (Verifying All That the Indians Recount, the Reasonable and the Unreasonable), in which he gathered about India and its science, religion, literature, and customs.

2. “Al-Qanun al-Mas’udi” (The Mas’udic Canon), dedicated to Maḥmud’s son Masud, in which al-Biruni gathered together all the astronomical knowledge from such sources as Ptolemy’s Almagest and “Handy Tables”or “Hindi Tables.”

3. His “Al-Tafhim li-awa’il ṣina’at al-tanjim” (“Elements of Astrology”) is still the most comprehensive treatment of the topic as it was then known. Despite the fact that most people believed that astrology was “the fruit of the mathematical sciences,” as al-Biruni called. It was translated by Ramsy Wright in 1934.

4. His relatively other works are only minor in size, for they are at least as classy as his major works. Al-Biruni’s Maqalid ilm al-hay’ah (“Keys to Astronomy”), Al-jamahir fi ma’rifat al-jawahir (“Gems”), in which he discusses the properties of various precious stones. Kitāb al-ṣaydanah (“Pharmacology”), and Ifrad al-maqal fi amr al-ẓilal (The Exhaustive Treatise on Shadows).