
Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī -- Medieval Islamic Scientist, quite a read...  - DaniFong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abū_Rayhān_al-Bīrūnī
======
silentbicycle
The history of science and medicine in the Islamic world is very interesting.
I don't remember any particularly good secondary sources offhand, but reading
about the House of Wisdom in Baghdad is probably a good starting point.

Islam greatly accelerated scientific development in the region. Muslims
traveling to Mecca brought local discoveries with them, which were shared and
quickly spread throughout as they returned. Also, the emphasis on reading the
Quran in its original Arabic, rather than translations, ensured that the
travelers had a language in common. Not to take away from several real
geniuses, but it didn't hurt to have the region so well-networked. This rapid
spread of knowledge gave the intellectual centers in the region a wealth of
resources to draw from.

~~~
DaniFong
The region had Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī, and Avicenna as contemporaries, and then
Omar Khayyam soon after. Persia in that era was like Florence in the fifteenth
century. Something in the water? Genetic fluke?

Probably not...

~~~
silentbicycle
I was going to make the same comparison. Both had a culture that encouraged
scientific inquiry (within certain constraints), some fantastic libraries,
rich local patrons that were willing to support research, and social and
geographic circumstances that meant new ideas could spread relatively quickly.

Both environments seem like great examples of a general formula for
encouraging a renaissance: create an environment that is attractive to
geniuses and take care of anything that could distract them from bouncing
ideas off each other. That sounds like good example of the sort of thing you
can learn by studying history.

------
froo
I'm quite fond of that drawing in the article on phases of the moon. Theres
just something about it that appeals to me, I can't put my finger on it
though.

It is a real shame even some "modern day scientists" don't share his
particular views on scientific method.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wppjYDj9JUc>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Q8p3GqPqQ>

------
reazalun
It makes me wonder how can he did very well as a scientist, a physicist, an
anthropologist, a comparative sociologist, astronomer, a chemist, a critic of
alchemy and astrology, an encyclopedist and historian, a geographer and
traveller, a geodesist and geologist, a mathematician, a pharmacist and
psychologist, an Islamic philosopher and a theologian.

Today, even to become a decent mathematician is not an easy job!

~~~
sharjeel
back in the golden age people had true thirst for knowledge ithout any greed
for materialistic gains.

~~~
mseebach
He's a brilliant mind, no doubt about that. But those who ventured into
science, basically up until 150 years ago, were usually royalty or similar,
with incomprehensible wealth, and obedient (and often violently oppressed)
subjects.

If you never, in your entire life, have to worry a second if you can feed
yourself and your family and keep a roof over your head, you're probably
slightly more keen to see what a life of sitting down and wondering might lead
to.

~~~
ComputerGuru
_But those who ventured into science, basically up until 150 years ago, were
usually royalty or similar, with incomprehensible wealth, and obedient (and
often violently oppressed) subjects._

As a matter of fact, that was not the case in the Islamic empire - the
government had encouraged independent research and learning and funded it
quite extensively, which is the biggest reason it was such a scientific boom
period. It's quite astonishing how far they've fallen, because at the peak of
the European medieval times, the Islamic Empire had been encouraging this sort
of scientific research and study like crazy. Perhaps most famous of all are
the scientific libraries of Baghdad which once held volumes of literature and
research pertaining to medicine, literature, physics, chemistry, and biology;
and were made available (mostly) to all.

Invasions and wars in the region, along with the decline & fall of the Islamic
Empire brought an end to that golden age of science and knowledge which is
really sad because in that short period of time a lot of knowledge was
discovered and contributed, lending to the future discoveries by European
scientists in Calculus, Chemistry, Medicine, and more.

~~~
defen
The destruction of Baghdad -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_>(1258) - by the Mongols
certainly didn't help. That said, how do you respond to the charge that the
Islamic Empire was merely borrowing the cultural and scientific achievements
of the peoples whom they conquered? This guy, Avicenna, al-Khwārizmī, were all
Persian. I can't think of any famous Arab scholars from the period (not an
expert though - let me know if there are any). It wasn't _Islam_ that was
funding this research and learning, it was the remnants of the Persian empire.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Islam is a religion - religions don't fund anything :) But I assume you meant
the Islamic Empire itself, so in that case:

The Mongol invasion was the beginning of the end, to use a cliche. The Islamic
Empire was indeed "borrowing" the talents of the people they conquered, but
(the majority of) the accomplishments only took place _after_ the conquest by
the Islamic empire. More importantly than who did the thinking (it was
basically a mixture of different cultures and races, the majority of which
were not native Arabs) is the fact that that sort of scientific expeditioning
was not discouraged and that the scientists were given as close to free reign
as possible.

Contrasted with the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church's aversion to
scientific discovers (Galileo anyone?) you can see that the Islamic Empire
played the role of encouraging godfather quite well. Obviously it's not the
government nor the religion that makes brilliant people, rather it just sets
the stage for the accomplishments to take place.

It's a common misconception that the Islamic Empire == Arabian Empire, since
the empire dictated that anyone to enter the folds of Islam would be
considered the same "class" of citizen regardless of race or culture (and
history can attest to the enactment of these beliefs) - it was the non-muslims
that were considered to be second-tier citizens with respect to certain
freedoms. Keeping that in mind, Persian or Arab or Kurd doesn't really
matter.....

But anyway, here are just a couple of famous Arab-Muslim scholars: Ibn al-
nafis, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Battuta, Al-Kindi, Ibn Al-Haythan, Averroes/Ibn Rushd,
Ibn Yunus, Ibn Al-baitar, al-idrisi, hunnayn bin ishaq, jabbir bin
hayyan.......

Full list is here, you can click through to see the ethnicity of these
scholars: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_scientists>

------
michael_dorfman
A real renaissance man, _avant la lettre_.

~~~
fiaz
You could say that he was a hacker ;)

This notion of course goes against the mainstream interpretation of the hacker
persona (the geeky, socially recluse male that is more familiar with computers
than he is with his own body). But if you peruse the articles here at Hacker
News, it encompasses a very diverse range of subjects (anything from health,
math, science, business, charisma, etc.) that are not doubt, interesting to
hackers.

I would go a step further and say that what hackers today have in common with
Bīrūnī is that the diverse subjects he was most interested in were somehow
overlapping with one another.

~~~
jfarmer
"You could say that he was a hacker ;)"

You could, but that would sound really narcissistic.

~~~
wynand
"You could say that he was like me" would be narcissistic.

Membership of a category does not imply the greatness of other members of that
category.

Germans might be proud of Goethe, but only a misguided German would take that
to imply his or her own greatness.

~~~
gdee
An inverse stereotype. Poor stereotypes then, common or inverse... always
wrong. ;)

------
petercooper
I suspect the upvotes on this post answer this genuinely-asked question, but..
is it considered okay to post links to random interesting Wikipedia articles
on HN? There are a lot of good ones.

~~~
alex_c
To be honest, I'd rather have links to random interesting Wikipedia articles -
knowing that there's a high probability that they've been selected by people
with similar interests to me, but that I might not have found them on my own -
than links to random blog posts about tech stuff that probably won't even
matter half a year from now.

------
rokhayakebe
No surprise. Arabs back in those days have been known to have an excellent
memory. At a very young age, Arab kids were able to memorize hundreds if not
nearly a thousand of mid sized poems. This is probably why he was able to
accumulate a deep knowledge in so many fields. Muslims have inherited this
from Arabs. I have several friends who have memorized the entire Koran to the
point where you open a page, start to read and they take it from there.

Arabs also were very well traveled individuals due to their commerce. They
went from place to place, spending time with different communities and keeping
notes. This is why they had a vast knowledge.

Arabs loved knowledge. They were great scholars. One of the teachings of the
prophet of Islam was that Muslims are recommended to travel all the way to
China to acquire knowledge. Back then traveling to China was probably like
asking someone to bike from San Diego to Canada going through the mountains
and desert.

~~~
rsheridan6
This guy was a Persian. They are a different ethnic group with a different
language and history.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Persian and Arabs share a whole lot of similarities. I lived with a Persian
family for nearly 6 months so I have experienced it. On the other hand I lived
12 years across the street from a Arab family and I went to school with a few
Arabs as well. I know Arabs, Persian, Assyrian..

~~~
fharper1961
Yeah, just don't tell any Persians that they're similar to Arabs; unless you
wan them to feel insulted that is. Suppose you're from the USA, how would you
feel if someone says you're similar to Mexicans?

~~~
rsheridan6
Funny, that's the same analogy a Persian made to me when explaining the
difference between Persians and Arabs - that they're as different as the US
and Mexico.

------
yamil
You can tell the difference between reddit and hacker news just by reading the
comments when the subject is related to "Islam".

~~~
asdflkj
HN would be a lot better if people didn't high-five each other so much over
how great this community is and how much everyone else sucks.

~~~
jm4
Agreed. Coincidentally, that's the sort of thing I used to see on Reddit
shortly before it turned into some monstrous Digg/Youtube hybrid.

------
adrianwaj
Danielle, things have changed in recent times. There have only been 9 ever
Nobel laureates who are Muslim.

<http://aa.trinimuslims.com/showthread.php?t=2757>

this is from a pool of 1.4 Billion Muslims. On the other hand 151 Jews have
been awarded Nobel prizes from a pool of 12 million.
<http://www.science.co.il/Nobel.asp>

[http://israelist.blogspot.com/2005/09/jewish-muslim-nobel-
pr...](http://israelist.blogspot.com/2005/09/jewish-muslim-nobel-prizes.html)

Do you think that Islam over time has affected intellectual output, or that
Jews have an advantage because of the religion? What do you think?

~~~
DaniFong
You can't count technological advance by Nobel prizes: they only started being
relevant a century ago, and even then they're a poor proxy, and often decided
by politics.

With regards to religion and science, I don't think you can consider the major
religions or cultures by themselves as having much of an effect. It's all over
the map... It varies with time, adminstration, fashion, the existence of
certain schools. In the fifteenth century Catholics were far ahead in science,
in the 11th, Muslims, during the 8th and 9th, the Chinese, at the beginning of
the century, especially during the 1920's, Germany, then it was completely
squashed by the Nazi's, then Hungarian Jews had a great run, spurring an
American scientific dynasty of many ethnicities, and now it's fairly diffuse.

There is one major character to Jewish populations that seems to help them in
science. Wherever they go, they seem to keep their culture intact. Since
they're quite reverent towards education, it's traditionally meant that when
the going got tough, the Jews were still studying.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_There is one major character to Jewish populations that seems to help them in
science. ... they're quite reverent towards education_

What about Ashkenazi-Jewish IQ?

<http://www.vdare.com/rushton/080616_lynn.htm>

 _seven studies of Jews in Britain yield a median IQ of 110. ... In Canada
too, there is an IQ hierarchy: Jews (109), ... These results are remarkably
consistent over time, place, and situation ...

in How to explain high Jewish achievement: The role of intelligence and
values, an article published in Personality and Individual Differences, by
Lynn and Satoshi Kanazawa (PDF), we showed that only IQ had predictive value
when pitted against values theories._

~~~
DaniFong
There are a few discrepancies. I'm not aware of studies done in Israel, for
example, although for some reason the authors of the Bell Curve were very
willing to color in those lines. As far as I know you can't really separate
the IQ gap with the fact that you have an immigrant population. For example,
the initial tests of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco showed an IQ of 103
(adjusted for the Flynn effect). Later tests of second and third generation
Chinese in America highlighted an IQ of around 98. In other words, there was a
5 point swing as people got settled. If there's a culture where people hadn't
gotten settled, (and haven't really been given the chance) it's the Jews. But
I expect the differences in attitudes toward academics and effort more than
supersede and natural advantage that might exist.

Cite:
[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/07121...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/071217crbo_books_gladwell)

~~~
DabAsteroid
_I'm not aware of [IQ] studies done in Israel_

They are not hard to find.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality> finds an average
British-relative IQ of 95 for Israel, from several studies.

Appendix 1 of the 2002 book "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" cites two IQ
studies of Israel:

 _Around 1975, norms for the American Lorge-Thorndike Test were collected for
180 10- to 12-year-olds by Miron (1977). The mean IQ was 100. In order to
adjust for the 11-year interval between the two standardizations, this needs
to be reduced to 98. In relation to a British IQ of 100, this needs to be
reduced by one further point to 97.

Around 1989, data for the Standard Progressive Matrices for 1,740 9- to
15-year-olds were collected by Kaniel and Fisherman (1991). In relation to the
British 1979 standardization sample, their IQ was 92. To adjust for the
10-year interval between the two years of data collection, this needs to be
reduced to 90. The average of the results gives an IQ of 94 for Israel._

    
    
      .
    

DaniFong wrote:

 _although for some reason the authors of the Bell Curve were very willing to
color in those lines._

There is no mention of Israel in The Bell Curve (other than a single instance
indirectly in a summation of a competing theory from John Ogbu who notes that,
in Israel, Sephardic jews have lower attainment than Ashkenazic jews). What do
you mean by "color in those lines"?

Here is Rushton summarizing Lynn's 2006 explanation of the Israel anomaly:

<http://www.vdare.com/rushton/060322_iq.htm>

 _Another anomaly: the average IQ of Israel is only about 95—substantially
higher than the median IQ of 85 found elsewhere in the region, but much lower
than the average IQ of Jews outside of Israel, estimated at between 108 and
115.

Lynn breaks the Israeli IQ into three components: 40 percent Ashkenazim
(European Jewish) with a mean IQ of 103; 40 percent Sephardim (Oriental
Jewish) with a mean IQ of 91; and 20 percent Arab with a mean IQ of 86, which
is virtually the same as that of Arabs elsewhere. Lynn suggests these
differences could have arisen from selective migration (more intelligent Jews
emigrated to Britain and the USA), intermarriage with different IQ populations
(those in Europe versus those in North Africa), selective survival through
persecution (European Jews were the most persecuted), and the inclusion of
ethnic non-Jews among the Ashkenazim in Israel as a result of the immigration
of people from the former Soviet Bloc countries who posed as Jews._

------
mtw
I am trying to imagine what a conversation between him and Leonardo da Vinci
would be like.

also wondering how he got the funds to dedicate his life to science. was he a
heir? or he was sponsored by kings and sultans?

~~~
ComputerGuru
Sponsored by the Empire. See my other comment for the long version.

