Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni

( fl early 14th century). Arab metalworker. He is known from signatures on two undated inlaid wares, the Baptistère de St Louis (Paris, Louvre, LP 16; see ISLAMIC ART, fig. 153, signed in six places) and the Vasselot Bowl (Paris, Louvre, MAO 331, signed once). His style is characterized by bold compositions of large figures encrusted with silver plaques on which details are elaborately chased. His repertory develops themes characteristic of later 13th-century metalwork from Mosul (see ISLAMIC ART, §IV, 3(ii) and (iii))—mounted or enthroned rulers, bands of running or prowling animals, an elaborate Nilotic composition, courtiers bearing insignia of office, and battle scenes on scroll grounds with strikingly naturalistic fauna. His work is marked by a realism of facial expression, in which Turco-Mongolian physiognomy, dress, headgear and even coiffure are prominent, and a vigour of movement, gesture or stance that enlivens and transforms even the running animals and rows of standing courtiers, some in Frankish costume. The technique and style of these pieces allow their attribution to the Bahri Mamluk period in Egypt and Syria (c. 1250-c. 1350), but the absence of owners' inscriptions suggests that they were not made for a Mamluk sultan. The exceptional naturalism has encouraged scholars to date the Baptistère by identifying the figures depicted. Rice, for example, suggested that the basin was made for the amir Salar (d 1310) on the basis of the emblems worn by one figure, but other scholars have suggested dates ranging from the mid-13th century to the mid-14th. Other works in the same distinctive style have been attributed to his workshop, such as a basin (Jerusalem, Mayer Mem. Inst. Islam. A.), a steel mirror inlaid with gold and silver and decorated with inscriptions and signs of the zodiac (Istanbul, Topkapi Pal. Mus.; see MIRROR, fig. 6) and an incense burner found at Qus (Cairo, Mus. Islam. A.). A forged iron screen in the Is`ardiyya Madrasa (before 1345) in Jerusalem is inscribed with the name of Muhammad ibn al-Zayn, but the date of the screen and its relationship to the inlaid wares are uncertain.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

---

Al-Sijistani, Abu Sulaiyman Muhammad (c. 932-c. 1000) Islamic Neoplatonist, centred in Baghdad. The key to understanding is the entire separation of the stable, unchanging higher world and the changing lower world. The intellect and the soul are universal and indivisible, with our souls only a part of it. God is sufficiently removed from mundane creation not to be describable or knowable at all, even negatively. To any proposition stating that God is not (e.g. caring) one must add the double negative that he is not not caring either. On the other hand, something akin to agency on the part of God creates the world.

Al-Biruni or Al Beruni, Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad (äbū' rīhän' məhăm'ĭd ĭb'ən ä'məd ăl-bērū'nē, ăl bĕrū'nē) , b. 973, d. after 1050, Central Asian scientist. His earlier years were disturbed by political troubles, but after 1017 he was patronized by members of the Ghaznavid dynasty of Turkey. He traveled in Afghanistan and India, making astronomical and geographic observations. The largest part of his writings are on astronomy, astrology, and applied mathematics, but he also wrote on pharmacology, geography, philosophy, history, and other subjects. A taste for precise observation is shown in his determinations of latitudes and the densities of gemstones. His encyclopedic India (tr. 1888) and Chronology (tr. 1879) provide invaluable information about his time.

(973-1048)

Al-Biruni, born Abu'l-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad Al-Biruni, an outstanding eleventh-century astrologer whose writings compiled the astrological teachings of several cultures. Al-Biruni was born in Uzbek, a country until recently a part of the former Soviet Union, located just north of Iran and Afghanistan. He grew up under the multicultural influences of Persia, India, and the Greek empire of Alexander. Here Zoroastrian and Manichean teaching mingled with Hinduism and emerging Islam. In the areas of astronomy, mathematics, and astrology, this area of the world, making the transition to Islam, was far ahead of Europe, then only beginning to recover its classical tradition.

As a young man, Al-Biruni began to travel through Persia, Afghanistan, and India and to gather the material for one of his important books, Chronologies of Ancient Nations, detailing the histories of the peoples of the area. It was completed near the end of the century. Around 1010 he settled in his native land for a decade until the ruler (who was also his patron) was overthrown and the nobility was exiled. Al-Biruni then lived in India for an extended time and wrote a volume on the people of the Indus Valley as well as his most remembered text, The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology, generally called the Tafhim.

The Tafhim, designed as an introductory textbook for the young astrologer, addresses all of the subjects an astrologer would be expected to have mastered, including mathematics, geography, history, and astronomy, all of which are treated before any consideration of astrology. Al-Biruni picked up this learning from the foundational Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy, upon which astrology is built, and he compared Persian astrology with its Hindu counterpart.

The Tafhim was reproduced and widely circulated in Southern Asia and found its way to Europe, where it was read three centuries later by Guido Bonati and influenced his important Liber Astronomie. It was translated into English in 1934 by R. Ramsey Wright.

Sources:

Al-Biruni. The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology. Trans. R. Ramsey Wright. London: Luzac, 1934.

——. The Chronologies of Ancient Nations. Translated by Edward Sachau. London: W. H. Allen, 1879.