Abu Rayhan al-Biruni

Life and Thought

Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973–1048 CE) was an Iranian polymath of the Islamic Golden Age and one of the greatest astronomers, mathematicians, and historians of the medieval period. Through his book *Tahqiq ma li'l-Hind*, the first scholarly and impartial study of Indian culture and religions by an outside author, he is regarded as a founder of comparative religious studies and cultural anthropology.