Al-Bīrūnī
At a glance:
- Series: Dictionary of World Biography: Middle Ages
- Categories: Education, Literature, Publishing, Science
- Subcategories: Authors, Writers, Scientists, Historians, Islam, Muslims, Mosques
- Curriculum: Medieval History/Middle Ages, Middle Eastern History
Article abstract: One of the greatest scholars of medieval Islam, al-Bīrūnī was both a singular compiler of the knowledge and scientific traditions of ancient cultures and a leading innovator in Islamic science.
Early Life
Abū al-Rayhān Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bīrūnī was of Iranian descent and spent most of his childhood and young adult years in his homeland of Khwarezm, south of the Aral Sea. (His sobriquet derives from birun— “suburb”—in reference to his birth in an outlying neighborhood of Khiva.) Little is known of...
[The entire page is 2042 words long]