Open In App

Who wrote Kitab-ul-Hind?

Improve
Improve
Like Article
Like
Save
Share
Report

Kitab al-Hind is the outcome of Al- Biruni, an Iranian scholar, and many years of hard effort and dedication. He has written on India’s religious, political, and intellectual elements. The book is organized into 80 chapters, each with a subheading outlining the themes covered.

Kitab- ul - Hind

Kitab- ul- Hind

Kitab-ul-Hind

His work illuminates Indian religion, philosophy, customs, and tradition. His unusual writing style was the book’s centerpiece. He made considerable comparisons between Indian and other civilizations. The book discusses India’s “caste system” and attempts to explain it by drawing parallels from other civilizations. In his work, he also stated that social divisions were not evident in India. He was a brilliant Indologist, and his works have been used in studies of Indian culture and ethos.

Al-Biruni and Kitab-ul-Hind

Al- Biruni’s popularly referred to as the “first anthropological.” He was an excellent traveler who visited the Indian subcontinent and its many areas in 1017. He studied the people’s religion, philosophy, and language, and wrote a wonderful account of it in Arabic in his book Tarikh-ul-Hind. He is widely considered as the founder of ‘Indology.’ Al- Biruni’s works or writing are fair and point out the flaws in Indian culture and society. His observations are very scientific, and they do not deface or destroy his observations.

Al-Biruni explains why many Hindus despise Muslims. Biruni mentions at the opening of his work how difficult it was for Muslims to learn about Hindu knowledge and culture. He illustrates how Hinduism and Islam are diametrically opposed. Furthermore, Hindus in 11th century India had been victim to waves of disastrous invasions on many of its cities, and Islamic forces had carried many Hindu captives to Persia, which, according to Al-Biruni, led to Hindus becoming distrustful of all outsiders, not just Muslims. Hindus saw Muslims as aggressive and filthy and refused to associate with them. 

Al-Biruni and Hindu Intellectuals

Over time, Al-Biruni gained the approval of Hindu intellectuals. Al-Biruni amassed a library and studied with these Hindu experts in order to become proficient in Sanskrit and to uncover and interpret in Arabic the mathematics, physics, medicine, astronomy, and other disciplines performed in 11th-century India. He was motivated by the reasons advanced by Indian scholars who believed the world must be spherical in form in order to adequately explain the change in daylight hours caused by latitude, seasons and the earth’s relative positions with the moon and stars. At the same time, Al-Biruni criticized Indian scribes for recklessly corrupting Indian texts while producing copies of earlier documents.

The Hindu calendar was one of the specific features of Hindu life that Al-Biruni studied. His scholarship on the subject demonstrated considerable commitment and attention, not to mention quality in his approach to the in-depth research he conducted. He created a method for translating Hindu calendar dates to the dates of the three distinct calendars used in Islamic nations during his time period: Greek, Arab/Muslim, and Persian. Biruni also used astronomy to develop his beliefs, which included sophisticated mathematical equations and scientific calculations that allow one to translate dates and years across calendars. 

The book does not confine itself to boring combat reports because Al-Biruni believed that social culture was more essential. The project contains a study on a wide range of Indian cultural issues, including descriptions of their traditions and practices. Despite his efforts to avoid political and military history, Biruni did record vital dates and real locations of significant battles. He also documented accounts of Indian emperors, telling how they governed over their people via good activities and behaved in the best interests of the nation. However, his information is limited and largely consists of a list of kings without mentioning their genuine names.

Conclusion

Al- Biruni’s unbiased description of Hinduism was exceptional for its time. He asserted that he was completely objective in his writings, working as a professional historian should. Biruni captured everything that happened in India as it happened. However, he did mention that some of the reports of information he was given by locals of the country may not have been completely accurate, but he did strive to be as honest as possible in his writing. According to Dr. Edward C. Sachau, it is “a magical island of tranquil, unbiased research in the midst of a world of clashing swords, burning villages, and destroyed temples.” Biruni’s writing was very creative, which may reduce part of the work’s historical relevance for current times.

The absence of detail of warfare and politics fully obscures those aspects of the image. Many people have utilized Al-work Biruni’s to examine historical facts in other works that may have been confusing or had their validity called into doubt. 

Related Links

  1. Important Personalities of Medieval Indian History
  2. List of Important Medieval History Books and Their Writer
  3. List of Important Monuments of the Medieval Period in India

FAQs on Kitab-ul-Hind

Q 1. Who wrote Kitab-ul-Hind?

Answer-

The author of Kitab-ul-Hind is Al-Biruni.

Q 2. What is Kitab-ul-Hind also known as?

Answer-

Kitab-ul-Hind is also referred to as Tarikh-ul-Hind.

Q 3. What is Kitab-ul-Hind?

Answer-

Kitab-ul- Hind is written by Al-Biruni after many years of research and it is based on religious, political, and intellectual aspects of India. The book has 80 chapters.


Last Updated : 21 Jan, 2024
Like Article
Save Article
Previous
Next
Share your thoughts in the comments
Similar Reads