1. Biography 1. The time of Bīrūnī During his life, Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī (362-440 A. H./ 972-1048 A. D.) was contemporary with the Arian dynasties Sāmānians and Khwārazm-Shāhs in the eastern Iran, both overthrown by Maḥmūd Ghaznavī (in 389/ 998 and 408/ 1017 respectively) and also with the Iranian Daylamīd dynasties of Ziyārīds in Gurgān and Ṭabaristān, and Būyīds in the western Iran, i.e. Jibāl, Fārs and Irāq, again both overthrown by Ṭughrul of Saljūq (in 433/ 1041 and 447/ 1055). Descended from the Arians of Khwārazm, the Khwārazm-Shāhs, as the tributaries of the Sāmānians for more than a century, claimed to be the offsprings of Kay Khusraw, the great mythical Iranian king. The capital city of the Shāhīd dynasty and the house of Irāq, a branch of that dynasty, was the town of Kāth, to the North of Khwārazm and west of Oxus and the capital city of the Ma’mūnīds, another branch of the Khwārazm-Shāhs, was the city Gurgānaj/Jurjāniya, to the south of the city (the modern Khīva or Kuhana of Urganj in Turkistān).1 The last rulers of the house of ‘Irāq were Abū Sa‘īd Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Irāq who corrected the calendar of Khwārazm, and (martyr) Abū Abdullāh Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad ‘Irāq, killed after the invasion of Ma’mūn of Khwārazm-Shāh to the town of Kāth (385/ 995) and their dynasty was accordingly overthrown. Another member of the dynasty, Abū Naṣr Manṣūr Ibn Alī ‘Irāq can be considered as one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers in the fourth century A.H. and a student of the great Iranian mathematician, Abū al-Wafā Bujgānī (328-388/ 939-998) who came to be the master and patron of Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī. He was one of the scholars accused of heresy and hung from the gate of Kāth by Maḥmūd Ghaznavī in his invasion of 408/1017 to Khwārazm.2 After Abū al-‘abbās Ma’mūn Ibn Muḥammad Khwārazm-Shāh who seized the territorial possessions of the house of ‘Irāq (385/ 995), his son, Abū al-ḥasan ‘Alī Ibn Ma’mūn, succeeded to the throne (387/ 997) and then the other son of Abū al-‘abbās, Ma’mūn Ibn Ma’mūn ascended the throne until the year 407/ 1016 in which he was killed. Afterwards, his nephew, Abū al-ḥārith Muḥammad Ibn ‘Alī, succeeded him and was in turn captured by Sulṭān Maḥmūd in 408/ 1017. Khwārazm was occupied by the Ghaznavīds, and the Ma’mūnīd dynasty was vanquished. The court of Abū al-‘abbās Khwārazm-Shāh in Jurjānīya served as an assembly of sciences where greatest scholars of the time gathered. Bīrūnī was one of the members of the assembly and a political counselor of the Khwārazm-Shāh. Moreover, the Ziyārīd Daylamīds (316-433/ 928-1041), though always fighting against the Būyīd Daylamīds (320-447/ 932-1055) over their territorial possessions, often ruled over the 1For an account of the rulers of the house of ‘Irāq and the house of Ma’mūn, see the author’s exhaustive monograph, “Khāndān-e Shāhīye-ye Khwārazm” in Faṣlnāme-ye Irān Shenākht, no. 10, Autumn 1377/1998, part 1, pp. 136-181; no. 11, Winter 1377/1989, part 2, pp. 112-114./ The Appendices of Al-āthār al-bāqiya, (ed.) Parviz Azkaei, Tehran, 1380/2001, pp. 488-492. 2See “The biography of Abū Naṣr ‘Irāq” in this book, Appendix II, section 3, pp. 139-145. ١ states of Gurgān and Ṭabaristān. Among them, Shams al-ma‘ālī Qābūs Ibn Vushmgīr extended his territory in the second half of his sovereignty (totally 388-403/ 998-1012) as far as the modern Rūyān and Gīlān to the west. He was both a cruel ruler and a generous Amir and also an eloquent poet, always keeping a company of great men of literature and science, including Bīrūnī who lived in his court for some years. After conquering Bagdad (334-337/ 945-948) and vanquishing the ‘Abbāsīds, the Būyīds attached Iraq or Mesopotamia to the provinces under their reign including Jibāl, Luristān, Fārs, Khuzistān and Kirmān. The courts of the Būyīd and the Kākūyīd Daylamīds of Jibāl, viz. the provinces of Ray, Hamadān and Iṣfahān, served as the scientific and cultural centers and shelters for the philosophers and scholars of the time. This was especially true with the court of Majd al-dawlat Daylamī (387- 420/ 997-1029), famous for learning philosophy and reading books meticulously. Unfortunately, his invaluable library was set on fire by Maḥmūd Ghaznavī in his invasion to Ray when he hung a number of the scholars and philosophers of the city over the accusation of heresy (420/ 1029) and overthrew the Daylamīd dynasty. Yamīn al-dawla Sultan Maḥmūd Ghaznavī (360-421/ 970-1030) had, in his previous invasions to Khwārazm, massacred a great number of people (in 408/ 1017) and had captured about five thousand people, including Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī, all sent to Ghazna in chain. The impetuosity of the Sulṭān was not limited to his tendency to shed blood and kill his opponents with cruelty.When he arrived in Khwārazm, he set the libraries on fire and ruined the cultural foundations established and encouraged by Khwārazm-Shāhs. Most of his reputation simply comes from the flattery of his fanatical contemporaries who pretended his plundering and destructions in India as examples of Islamic ghazwa (religious war), while once condidered realistically, they turn out to be great loss for Iranian people. Accordingly, the years of his reign were, in general, one of the dark and cruel periods in the history of Iran. The anti- philosopher Sultan, unable to appreciate the subtleties of Persian literature due to his Turkish descent and incapable of comprehending science and philosophy because of his deep Sunnite biases, has indeed no such good reputation in the history. The way he treated Firdawsī and Bīrūnī meanly has been highly notorious. He simply made them suspect and subject to death. Even, the love he expressed for poetry was solely due to the fact that there were always a good number of celebrated insatiable eulogists in his court who were to praise his power and glory. 2. Biography Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Khwārazmī (Dhu al-Ḥijjah 3rd, 362/ September 4th, 972), one of the greatest scholars of human civilization and a celebrated Iranian scholar of the Islamic period, was born in Bīrūn (‘outside’) of the town Kāth, to the north-east of Khīva, on the right bank of Āmū Daryā/ Oxus, in a family of Khwārazmian descent which he described as “a branch of the big Iranian tree” (Al-āthār, p. 56). He revealed great love for research from the very young age. ٢ Amīr Abū Naṣr Manṣūr Ibn ‘Alī ‘Irāq Ja‘dī (cr. 350-408/ 961-1017), from the Afrīghīd Shāhīd dynasty of Khwārazm (the house of ‘Irāq), one ofthe great Iranian mathematicians and astronomers, undertook the education of the young Bīrūnī in Kāth. The pupil later mentioned the favor of the Shāhīd family of Khwārazm in an ode: “So the ‘Irāq family gave a taste of their goodness to me/and Manṣūr of them cherished the young sapling of my existence” (Mu‘jam al-udabā’, 17, 186). He, then, wrote several mathematical tracts for the pupil and dedicated them to him (Rasā’il Abī Naṣr, ed. Haydar Abad Dakan, 1948). Another teacher of Bīrūnī in the field of philosophy and rational sciences was ‘Abd al- Ṣamad Ḥakīm who was seized and killed by Maḥmūd Ghaznavī over accusation of Karmatian (heretical) thoughts, or bāṭinī (esoteric) and Ismailite Shiite trends (408/ 1017). He also intended to join the pupil to the teacher, but as Yāqūt Ḥamavī said: “Death’s looseness happened to befriend him and came to save him from murder” (Mu‘jam al-udabā’, pp. 17, 186). As philosophical inclination has been often a common feature of Shiite sects, the freethinker Bīrūnī’s faith was perhaps influenced by such an inclination, in addition to scientific and mathematical methodologies. After the Shāhīd dynasty of ‘Irāq in Kāth was overthrown by the Ma’mūnīd dynasty of Gurgānaj in 385/ 995 and the struggles of the two old Iranian dynasties served a major interruption to Bīrūnī’s studies and astronomical observations, he went to Khurāsān inevitably and from thence to Ray and then he had hard times for a while (388/ 998). Next, apparently having failed to join the court of Majd al-dawlat abu Ṭālib Daylamī Būyī (387- 421/ 997-1030), he left for Ṭabaristān. He spent a while there with Sharvīnī rulers and wrote a book, Maqālīd ‘ilm al-hay’a (Keys to Astronomy), dedicated to Ispahbad Marzbān Ibn Rustam, the author of the Ṭabarī Marzbān Nāme, and was introduced by him to the court of Shams al-Ma‘āli Qābūs Ibn Vushmgīr Ziyārī (388-403/ 998-1012) in Gurgān. At the court of Qābūs, Bīrūnī wrote and dedicated Al-āthār al-bāqiya (Chronology of Ancient Nations) to him (391/ 1000). It should be noted that it was the first edition of the book, because later he produced another edition with more additions. He lived highly respectfully in Gurgān for about six years and left for his homeland, Khwārazm, possibly for the fear of the severity and cruelty of the literary Qābūs and partly because of the authoritarian Ma’mūnīd dynasty of Khwārazm-Shāhs and their good reputation for rewarding scholars. He joined the court of Amīr Abū al-‘Abbās Ma’mūn Ibn Ma’mūn Khwārazm-Shāh which was one of the most important centers for the intellectual and scientific movements of the age, in about 394/ 1003 in Jurjāniya (Gurgānaj).