Alberuni's India (Abridged)

Alberuni''s India is one of the greatest achievements of medieval scholarship. Not for nearly eight hundred years would any other writer match Alberuni''s profound understanding of almost all aspects of Indian life.In 1017 A.D. Sultan Mahmud ruler of a great empire in what is now Afghanistan and Iran brought to his court at Ghazna many of the most brilliant scholars of the Islamic world. Among them was Alberuni (or Al Biruni) who was renowned as a mathematician astronomer and political philosopher.Alberuni''s aim was to acquire an exact understanding of the Hindus'' knowledge of the natural world to make it possible for Muslims to converse with the Hindus and to discuss with them questions of religion science or literature on the very basis of their own civilization. For thirteen years he traveled in North India observing questioning and studying. The result was an account of Indian culture that is unique in its sympathetic understanding shrewdness of observation and probing analysis.