CDS (II) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 73 of 120

Correct — A, Arabic. NCERT states it flatly: 'Al-Biruni's Kitab-ul-Hind, written in Arabic, is simple and lucid. It is a voluminous text, divided into 80 chapters on subjects such as religion and philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, manners and customs, social life, weights and measures, iconography, laws and metrology.' Arabic was the scholarly language of the Islamic world in the eleventh century, the language into which Sanskrit works on astronomy, mathematics and medicine had been translated since the eighth century, and the language in which al-Biruni wrote almost everything. He learnt Sanskrit himself in the company of Brahmana scholars and translated in both directions — Patanjali's work on grammar into Arabic, and Euclid into Sanskrit for his Indian friends.

• (b)Persian — Persian was the court language of the Ghaznavids and later of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals, and al-Biruni knew it — he seems to have written the Kitab al-Tafhim in both Persian and Arabic — but the Kitab-ul-Hind is an Arabic work.
• (c)Urdu — Urdu did not exist as a literary language in the eleventh century. It takes shape centuries later out of the contact between Persian and the dialects of the Delhi region, which makes this the easiest option to eliminate.
• (d)Turkish — Turkish was the speech of the ruling household at Ghazni, but not a language of scholarship, and al-Biruni was a Khwarazmian who wrote for an Arabic-reading learned world.

Al-Biruni was born in 973 at Khwarizm, in what is now Uzbekistan, and was taken to Ghazni in 1017 when Mahmud annexed his homeland and carried its scholars away. He arrived as a hostage and stayed for the rest of his life, dying at about seventy. He knew Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit, and though he had no Greek he read Plato and the other Greek philosophers in Arabic translation. He completed the Kitab-ul-Hind, also called Tahqiq ma li'l-Hind or Tarikh al-Hind, around 1030, after accompanying Mahmud's Indian campaigns from about 1017.

The safe route to this answer is chronology rather than memory. Take the eleventh century seriously and two options fall away at once: Urdu does not yet exist, and Turkish is not a language anybody wrote scholarship in. That leaves Persian and Arabic, and the tie-breaker is the audience. Al-Biruni was writing a study of Indian religion, science and society for the learned world of the Islamic lands, and Arabic was that world's common language, just as Sanskrit works had been translated into Arabic from the eighth century onward. The style is worth noting too, since NCERT calls the text simple and lucid and points to the geometric, precise structure that its author's mathematical training gave it.

• Kitab-ul-Hind was written in Arabic and is divided into 80 chapters.
• It covers religion and philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, manners and customs, social life, weights and measures, iconography, laws and metrology.
• Al-Biruni was born in 973 at Khwarizm and was taken to Ghazni in 1017 after Mahmud annexed his homeland.
• He knew Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit but not Greek, reading Greek philosophy in Arabic translation.
• He translated Patanjali's work on grammar into Arabic and Euclid's works into Sanskrit for his Brahmana friends.

• Assuming a work written in the Ghaznavid orbit must be in Persian; the scholarly language was Arabic.
• Placing Urdu in the eleventh century.
• Confusing Kitab-ul-Hind with Kitab-i-Nauras, a very much later work of Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur.

As a text-to-language or text-to-author match, or as a chronology item ordering foreign travellers to India.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Al-Biruni's Kitab-ul-Hind is divided into how many chapters?

  • (a)40
  • (b)60
  • (c)80
  • (d)100

  Answer(c) 80 — the chapters cover religion and philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, customs, social life, weights and measures, iconography, laws and metrology.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Al-Biruni came to India in the company of which one of the following rulers?

  • (a)Muhammad Ghori
  • (b)Mahmud of Ghazni
  • (c)Iltutmish
  • (d)Timur

  Answer(b) Mahmud of Ghazni — al-Biruni was taken to Ghazni in 1017 after Khwarizm was annexed, and accompanied Mahmud's Indian campaigns.