Abu Rihan Muhammad bin Ahmad, Alberuni as his compatriots called him was born about A.D. 973, in the territory of modern Khiva, then called Khwarizm. He came to as Ghazni as a prisoner of war1. He was an astronomer, geometrician, historian and logician. He was so studious, his earliest biographer tells us "he never had a pen out of his hand, nor his eye ever off a book, and his thoughts were ever directed to his studies, with the exception of two days in the year". He was beyond comparison, superior to every man of his time in the art of composition, in scholarlike accomplishments, and in the knowledge of geometry and philosophy, and above all he had "most rigid regard for truth."2 He accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni to India and stayed there for many years, chiefly, in all probability in the Punjab, studied the Sanskrit language and translated into it some works from the Arabic, and translated from it two treatises into Arabic3.  Sachau, translator of Alberuni's Indica believes Alberuni "composed about twenty books on India4, both translations and original compositions, and a number of tales and legends, mostly derived from the ancient lore of Eran and India." He was indeed a prolific writer and his works are stated to have exceeded a camel-load.5

Let me also make another observation about Alberuni. He regards Hindus as excellent philosophers and he felt strong inclination towards Hindu philosophy but still he was  a Muslim and at times does not fail to point out the superiority of Islam over Brahmanic India. He attacks Arabs but not Islam6. He wrote for those Muslims who "want to converse with the Hindus, and to discuss with them the questions of religion, science, or literature, on the very basis of their own civilization."7 While discussing astronomical calculations regarding the order of the planets, their distances and sizes, he reminds the reader the purpose of his book once again --- to discuss subjects "which either are noteworthy for their strangeness, or which are unknown among our own people (the Muslims) and our (the Muslim) countries."8

Having given a brief introduction, let us now see what Alberuni had to say about India, the land, its people, its religion, its philosophy, its sciences, and its literature.

•1.      Hindu Muslim Differences:

Alberuni starts Indica by observing "the Hindus entirely differ from us in every respect"9. First and foremost difference is the language. Sanskrit is a language of enormous range, both in words and in inflections. They call one and the same thing by various names and unless one knows the context in which the word is spoken. Some of the sounds of consonants are neither identical nor resemble with the Arabic and Persian. And the Hindus write their scientific books in metrics so that they can be committed to memory and thus prevented from corruption. This metrical form of literary composition makes the study of Sanskrit particularly difficult.10

Last update : 17-01-2010 14:56

Keywords : India As Alberuni Saw It, Vinod Kumar

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