They wrote about the Russian pagans burning their dead and "eating" niggers to humans and explained the Indians' reverence of cows .. How did Muslim travelers study the "other"?

Osama Gaweji

Forever and forever feared, the Muslim travelers traveled to the countryside and crossed the seas. They measured the ways and paths, and suffered for the sake of that loss. Then they told about the conditions of the kingdoms and their peoples. The travel of some of them were related to political purposes. They were ministers, postal workers, spies, and ambassadors. Some of them traveled for religious reasons, such as Hajj and spreading Islam, and others for purely commercial or scientific reasons. As their news was recorded, the map of the globe expanded and its terrain lit up, and historians, geographers and cartographers conveyed the distances between countries and the conditions of their inhabitants.

Muslims have traveled all the coasts of the Indian Ocean (the “Great Eastern Sea” as he calls him, Ibn Khordazib, who died 280 AH), from East Africa to Algeria’s Sella (and perhaps the Korean peninsula); and they fought the lands of the East to the East and the Russians in the North to Siberia (“the Land of Darkness” as well as Ibn Battuta calls it (d. 779 AH); they roamed Europe - which they called 'Orfi' (this is how Ruby Hami, who died in 626 AH in the 'Glossary of Countries'), tuned it about Jalala, Franks, Germans, British people, Austria and Hungary, and they probably did not reach the far north of the continent even if it reached a quantity Ample of their currencies and money to Sweden, Finland and Allen Roig, Iceland and others.

This is not our topic. The literature of "journey", "paths and kingdoms" and "wonders" is broad literature that does not satisfy the lengths; rather, our topic is to address a specific cultural part in this broad literature, which is the knowledge and study of the "other". What attitude did travelers and historians take in studying other peoples? What is their approach? What pitfalls have they fallen into? What have they achieved equity or inclination?

Western Orientalism has been subjected to abundant criticism that touched its method, tools and political function, and it is a valid criticism, even if it is not for it to obscure our eyes from many equitable efforts made by orientalists with purely scientific and epistemological purposes. But our question: To what degree were the errors of Orientalism specific to the West and not others? Doesn't every nation drop a woman with imperial ambitions in the tendency towards self-favoring and demeaning the other? Moreover, does she not seek to use her knowledge of other nations to serve her political, commercial, and religious purposes?

I do not aspire to provide an adequate answer to these questions, but all I intend is to touch and refer to some of its chapters without submitting a comprehensive thesis. The reason for this shortcoming is two things: that we do not find a single methodical position between travelers and historians in their fairness or in their inclination; then historians have taught us the incompatibility of historical comparison between different ages, due to the different formative conditions and political and economic structures, and the nature of their countries and their aspirations; Among those who gathered one era.

Open and open
There is no doubt that the universality of the Qur’an’s message and its urge to get to know people and walk the land has contributed to making the culture of Muslims open to others. Muslims, like some Indians, did not think "in the land that it is their land and in the people that they are their race, and in the kings that they are their superiors, and in the religion that they are their people, and in the knowledge that they are with them, so they are raised. Not knowing their knowledge, so that if they spoke with a science or a scientist in Khorasan or Persia, they ignored the informant and did not believe him. ”As Al Biruni says in his book,“ Achieving the acceptable saying of India in the mind or slandered ”, and they even saw in the wisdom that went astray wherever they found it, they are more entitled to it. It out.

But another objective factor has contributed to this openness, namely the commercial orientation, which the Arabs knew in the past in the line of trade between Yemen and Abyssinia and between the shores of the Gulf and the countries of India and China, and in the line of Quraysh trade between Yemen and the Levant, then confirmed with the Islamic conquests that included the central region It runs between the Nile and Jihon rivers, the heart of the ancient world, and the strategic trade crossing between East and West, North and South.

Thus, Baghdad and other Iraqi cities were the meeting place of world markets, receiving merchants from the ends of the earth, and I hear with me the description of al-Yaqoubi - at the end of the third century - of Baghdad, when he says: "What is not gathered in a city from the world ... and the merchants and the land come by land and sea, and with the easiest pursuit, Until the integration of every store carried from the East and West from the land of Islam and other than the land of Islam, it carries to it from India, Sindh, China, Tibet, Turk, Dalam, Khazars, Abyssinia and other countries, so that it has more trade from countries than in those countries that trade came from, and with that Find and possible, even as the best of it has been driven Trauma and collected the minimum ammunition and integrated by the blessings of the world. "

The merchants would be more open and more flexible, by virtue of mixing them with various types of people, the high and the weak, and they would be broader and open to the stranger due to the large number of their wandering and their travels; and the cities of the merchants would impregnate these morals, and would receive the cultures of strangers with their goods, which would not The qualities of being closed to oneself and encouraging multilingualism and diversity of cultures.

Hence, trade affected Muslim cities with goods and science at the same time, and made Muslim cities cosmopolitan (global) cities receive the whole world, as was the commercial city of Khanfu in China; what Masoudi and others tell us. It is not surprising that Al-Jahiz (d. 255 AH) told us about the news of nations and nations, but rather that he tells us about the conditions of countries (and that he has a message), and he is the one who probably left the fertile crescent only for a while.

In Muslim civilization, this produced a high social mobility - as American Orientalist Marshall Hodgson (d. 1968 AD) explains in his book 'The Adventure of Islam' - so Muslims felt that they were global citizens, all of the land has a mosque and purification, and perhaps the best proof of that is what is presented to the reader in traveler books. From meeting their homelands in exile, Ibn Fadlan met in the land of al-Saqalqabah a tailor from Baghdad, and Ibn Battuta met in China with his jurist from Ceuta, and it is strange that after years he met a brother of that jurist in the countries of Sudan from Central Africa.

In this article, I will focus on tracing three examples of the books of travelers and historians, showing their method of telling about the other and telling about his conditions: they are Ibn Fadlan (his journey was in the year 309-310 AH and his death date is not known), Abu Al-Hassan Al-Masoudi (d. 346 AH), and Abu Al-Rihani Al-Biruni ( D. 440 AH). Let's start with the agreed upon Baghdad, whose beard was frozen in the Zamalehr of Saqqala country.

Fakih Adventure
Like many travelers and geographers - and they are mostly middle-class men - we do not know the date of the birth of Ibn Fadlan, and Yaqut al-Hamwi - in the "Dictionary of Countries" - mentioned that he was the master of the Abbasid military leader Muhammad bin Sulaiman al-Hanafi (d. After 297 AH), and he called him times : "Ahmed bin Fadlan bin Al-Abbas bin Rashid bin Hammad Mawla Muhammad bin Suleiman: The Messenger (Caliph) Al-Muqtadir" Al-Abbasi (d. 320 AH).

Perhaps the best source for him is his very journey, in which he mentioned that his name is "Muhammad", and he is a scholar of the provisions of Sharia with a good literary culture, and a beautiful language that is not assigned to it, careful observation and if he has a wide imagination, he is bold in telling the truth and correcting the error, a long tradition in Civilization and its literature.

He left Baghdad on Safar in the year 309 AH - during the reign of the Caliph al-Muqtadir - for a specific purpose that reminds him at the beginning of his message: “When the book of Almash bin Yaltoar (and he was later named by Ibn Fadlan in Jafar bin Abdullah), the king of Saqalabah, arrived at the Commander of the Faithful, the Muqtadir asked him to He who understands him in religion and defines the laws of Islam, builds a mosque for him and establishes a platform for him to establish a vocation for him in his country and all of his kingdom, and asks him to build a fortress in which he will be entrenched from the kings who violate him (= Kingdom of the Jews of the Khazars), so he answered what he asked.

Islam entered the Bulgarian and Saqlabah countries before this date, and the 'Bulgarian country' meant here is their ancient kingdom, and the dispute over its appointment exists, but it is - upon the investigator of 'Rislan Ibn Fadlan', Sami Al-Dahan - located to the northeast of the Caspian Sea; It has the peoples of the Slavs, the Germans, and the people of eastern Europe, and some of the Turkish tribes living in the eastern Caspian Sea, especially the Volga River basin (the Atl River), were also called, and their kingdom was among what is known today as the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. Al-Masoudi says in Al-Murooj Al-Zahab - “In the country of the Khazars ... they were created from the Shaqlabah and the Russians ... and this race from the Shaqlaba ... is connected to the East.” And Ibn Fadlan did not prove his arrival in the Eastern European region until he met her template.

The geographer Ibn Rastah Al-Isfahani (d. C. 300 AH) says that most Bulgarians and Saqalis impersonate Islam, but Islam was - in his reign - still weak in impact and presence in these people, and did not rule their morals and customs. Evidence of this is found by Ibn Fadlan when he remembers a lot of what is denied to them in the rituals of “burial” and their ignorance of inheritance, and that they “wash naked” and do not hide, and “if they do not commit adultery” but rather kill the adulterer and thief with heavy penalties.

We know from the traveler Abu Hamid Al-Gharnati (d. 565 AH) - who toured the Volga basin for about thirty years and traded among them and married them - that Islam had spread and settled there, and that the mosques had proliferated during his reign. The historian Ibn Al-Atheer (d. 630 AH) - in 'Al-Kamil' - also states that a delegation of them was presented for the Hajj, and he descended in Baghdad in 433 AH.

Starlings and frogs
Ibn Fadlan walked - within an official delegation - through stations that led him to Khurasan, Khwarizm, and Bukhara, then made his way between the Ural Lake and the Caspian Sea traveling in the country of Turkey along the Volga River until he reached the country of Saqlabah and the Russians; on a journey that took - in its sure-going line - 11 months and cut About 5000 km, via a path that runs from Baghdad in the west to Bukhara in the east and from there to the outskirts of the Russian city of Kazan today in the north.

And when the man had come from Baghdad - the capital of civilization full of etiquette, good manners, cleanliness of clothes, and etiquette of behavior - it was natural for him to deny what he saw as the "brutality" of those he met from the Turks, Russians and Saqalaba.

Therefore, when he came down in the city of Al-Jarjaniya - today, west of Uzbekistan, and its days were the capital of the state of Khwarazm - he described its people as “raving people of words and of course”, and he told us that “their words are like shouting starlings” (plural of starling is a small bird), and we talked about other people neighboring them That their words are like "frogs' frog".

There is no doubt that this kind of impression of describing the pronunciation of the languages ​​of the people is hasty and stems from the habit of the ear in its mother tongue. For example, al-Biruni - if he recommends Arabic as a language of science - tells us - in his book 'Al-Seidna' - that "every nation deserves its language that I have familiarized, used and used In its ends with its thousands and forms. " The words of Ibn Fadlan on the languages ​​of these people do not depart from the description of the Umayyad poet al-Nabigh al-Shaibani (d. 125 AH) of the Roman language as: the voices of Ajam if they bring them closer ** as I vote in the morning hooks

Then Ibn Fadlan describes the 'Gazans' (= the Turkish tribes - or the Oghuz - Turkish, including the Seljuks and the Ottomans) - in the nomadic pastoral life that they live - that "like stray donkeys, they do not owe a debt to God and do not return to a mind, and do not worship anything but rather call their chiefs lords." And, they do not perform urine or urine, nor do ghusl from janaabah or anything else, and there is no work between them and water.

He adds that their Muslim merchants used to wash secretly, because if they saw someone who was washing, they believed that he wanted to charm them, and that their women did not cover up their men. Rather, the woman did not care to reveal her vagaries in front of strangers, even if they “do not know adultery” and the punishment for the adulterer to split it in two halves! Ibn Fadlan also talked about 'Bilad al-Bashqard' and said that they are “a people of the Turks called the Bashkir, so we warned them of the most caution, and that is because they are the evil of the Turks and their dirtiest and most precious to kill, the man throws the man to sort out his mission and take it and leave him, while shaving their beards and eating lice.”

in-depth details
Far from the judgments of value from booing and denial, Ibn Fadlan is proficient in the work of an ethnographic researcher who depicts the character, customs and beliefs of peoples, and transmits them to us accurately. It tells us about health policies that these people have taken such as sanitary isolation - when leaving and the Russians - for the patient and not approaching him until he heals or dies; and about the ideals of some pagans in the worship of twelve lords of natural phenomena: winter is a lord, and for summer a lord, and for wind and death ... etc. And about worshiping some turkish animals and blessing the sahlabah with barking dogs; and about the sahlabah habit of eating alone, everyone is alone in his table and no one shares it.

He also gave us information about the customs of the different people in the burial, so he painted a detailed picture in ten pages about the burial of one of its presidents, some of his followers volunteered to die with him, and how they cremated his body (a note later received by Al-Masoudi and al-Biruni who compared them to the act of India), and what they sang They drink and do during those rituals. Ibn Fadlan’s description remains the most important description of the ritual death of the Russians.

Ibn Fadlan was neither a geographical auditor nor a reporter who examined what he transmitted by the balance of reason or transmission, and - usually travelers - was fond of mentioning wonders; therefore, the ruby ​​of al-Hamwi - who said about Ibn Fadlan's journey is "a well-known blogger famous in the hands of the people I saw several copies of it" but rather It is transferred in the 'glossary of countries' close to two-thirds of it according to the discretion of its investigator Al-Dahan - he corrects many of his descriptions in geography and denies some of his sayings, and even sets some of the customs he mentioned, and he says that they are specific to the countryside without the city and so on; and sometimes he places on him the responsibility of what he transfers from him, disavowing his accuracy He said: "And he has a custody of what he told, and God knows best ".

Ibn Fadlan also tells us that the habit of lifting the hat was present in the country of Saqqala since the tenth century AD, and if the king crossed the market, "There is no one left but rises and takes his hoods off his head, and puts it under his armpits, and if he exceeds them, they return their beaks to their heads", and also if they enter the king. And what is quoted here is refuted by the well-known saying that the habit of raising the modern hat dates back to the Middle Ages, when the European knight took off his war helmets from his heads for women, kings, or peers, to indicate that he believed in them and that he had no need to protect himself in their presence, or for Christians to take off their caps at the door The churches were revered; they were not Christians before Islam, but were pagans. This issue needs further investigation.

One of the funny things about his news among the Saqalabah is that a man of them is called "Talut" who became Muslim at his hand, so he was called "Muhammad", then his wife and children became Muslim, so the man asked him to call them all "Muhammad"! Ibn Fadlan passed - on his way back - to the countries of the Kingdom of Khazar, where he transferred from them a cute mechanism for the transfer of power, which is that if the king had reigned more than forty years, the parish would have killed him, and they said: "This has diminished his mind and disturbed his opinion." I said: Forty years is a lot, but they have at least set a limit that the king should not pass!

Ibn Fadlan was an expressive example of the condition of travelers and their method, and it is an approach characterized by the accuracy of the description and the truth of the news - as possible - without the criticism in the news received, neither in terms of comparison with other news nor from the side presented to the mind (= current habit), which allows the passage of myths And wonders without explaining their causes or their interpretation, an approach based in its rulings on personal impressions - sometimes hasty - so that it is inspired by what it does not familiarize with, and underestimates what violated the morals and laws of Muslims, and repudiated what deviated from their morals.

Encyclopedic move
A class of encyclopedic authors who have advanced the methodology of the study of the "other" as a major step forward has emerged - since the fourth century in which its first decade witnessed the organization of Ibn Fadlan's journey and perhaps writing his letter about it. The authors of this class - including Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni - were not merely nomads, and the doors of their scientific work cannot be confined to "history". The truth is that their compositions were encyclopedic, which include astronomy, history, geography, geology, mineral sciences, anthropology, ethnography, zoology and plants, but rather some comparative religion science. And study civil policy and compare it between different nations.

Perhaps the classification proposed by the French orientalist André Miquel to describe the field of their work (Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni) as "human geography", in that this geography was not satisfied with measuring the distances between countries and informing about its architecture, but rather put people at the heart of their perceptions, they understand the subject of the study itself . The Belgian historian of science, George Sarton (d. 1956 AD), has already realized - in his book 'Introduction to the History of Science' - the importance of these two scientific men, where he called the first half of the fourth century "the era of Masoudi", and the first half of the fifth century AH as "an era Al-Biruni ".

Before proceeding to talk about the method of Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni, and what they meet and separate in it, it is necessary to briefly define them. This is because their method of telling the other was influenced by their scientific formation, their intellectual doctrine, their economic and political position, and even their personal nature.

As for Al-Masoudi, he is Abu Al-Hassan Ali Bin Al-Hussein Bin Ali, and his lineage is related to the great Companions Abdullah Bin Masoud (d. 32 AH). He was born in the province of Babel from Iraq, to ​​which he yearns for pride, and we do not know the date of his birth. As for his death, he was "in Jumada Al-Akhera in the year of forty-five and three hundred", as Al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH) says in the 'Walk of the Nobles Flags'. He was “Mu'tazili,” as Al-Dhahabi asserts, and “Mu'tazili Shi’ites,” as Ibn Hajar (d. 852 AH) says in 'Lisan Al-Mizan'. He appears to have been a disciple of Sheikh al-Tabari historians (d. 310 AH), and he quoted many of his encyclopedia and historical methodology, as we find him saying in his book 'The Warning and Supervision': “Abu Ja`far Muhammad Ibn Jarir al-Tabari told us ...”.

Al-Masoudi's writings varied from speech and the origins of religion to geography and astronomy, and Ibn Hajar said that "his classifications are dear (= rare circulation) except for 'the promoter' has become famous." Only a small portion.

It appears that Al-Masoudi was from a rich family, and that he was traveling at his own expense independently of any political purpose, so his purpose was to author his most famous book, “The Promoter of Gold and Substance Metals”: Coming. "

His travels expanded to include Persia, Sindh, India, China, the eastern coast of Africa and its islands, then Azerbaijan, Armenia, Syria, Levantine and Palestine and settled in Egypt where he died; and he knew of the Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Syriac and Greek languages. Therefore, the Russian orientalist Alexander Vasilyev (d. 1953 AD) - in his book 'The Arabs and the Romans': “We see that Al-Masoudi deserves the nickname' Herodotus of the Arabs’ ”which Kromer added to him. He meant what he said about the Austrian orientalist Von Kremer (d. 1889 AD) in his book 'History of Culture in the East'.

As for Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni, he was born in 362 AH, and he is attributed - in one of the sayings - to the city of "Byron" which was then within the Khwarizmian state and is located today in western Uzbekistan, and died in 440 AH in Ghazni, which was then the capital of the Ghaznavid state and is present today in Afghanistan. His books reach about 180 books, distributed between history, medicine, metallurgy, astronomy, etc. Al-Biruni - who contacted the physician and philosopher Ibn Sina in his youth - was loyal to the tradition and art of philosophy. He was aware of Greek, Syriac, Algorithm, Persian and Sanskrit (and translated from) in addition to Arabic.

Al-Biruni called the Ghaznavid court, and he accompanied Sultan Masoud al-Ghaznawi (d. 432 AH) in his invasion of northwest India, but we know that he remained self-made and independent of opinion, and informed a witness to this - if the historical account is correct - that the Sultan wanted to reward him for his book 'The Saudi Law' in astronomy And meteorology, so he was sent to carry three camels of silver !! But Al-Biruni's response apologized.

Al-Biruni's political website cast a shadow over his book on India 'Achieving the saying of India'. When he indicated his purpose of his authorship, he recalled that the "professor" (probably intended by Abu Sahl Abdel Moneim bin Ali Al-Tbilisi) had "been keen to liberate what I knew from their side." (= The Indians) to be a victory for those who wanted to contradict them and ammunition for those who wanted to mix with them. But he continues immediately by saying: "And he asked that, and I did it indifferent to an adversary (= fabricated by what he did not say), and he was not embarrassed from the tale of his words, and if the truth was revealed and his hearts were heard with his family, it is his belief that he was aware of it."

Methodological participants
When reviewing the method of Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni, we will find that they have participated in two main methodological determinants, and they differed in two; they agreed on the following:
1- The two men agreed that the goal of their books (most notably here is' promoter of gold 'to Al-Masoudi, and' achieving India’s saying Al-Biruni) is telling the story about the "other", without arguing about it or judging the correctness of his opinion of his mistake. Al-Masoudi says: "Our book is a book of news, not a book of opinions and bees." And this meaning is repeated several times. Al-Biruni praises the approach of "the abstract story without inclination or flattery", and he says about his book that it is "not ... a book of pilgrims and controversy until I use it to include the arguments of opponents and contradict the one who is right about them, but rather is a book of story and he mentioned the words of India on his face."

Al-Masoudi mentioned - and he lived at the height of the populist polemics - as a part of these polemics and the responses to them, but - despite the antiquity of his congregation - he concluded an important ethical and methodological principle, which is that "the duty of honorable lineage and high glory should not make this a ladder to inaction from works. ..; the honor of the lineages incites the honor of the works. " As if by that he wanted to end the controversy about bragging with genealogy, knowing that every nation claims the credit for itself and thinks that it is specific to it, and this is really the case of those who traveled, tried and mingled with the nations. Didn't al-Biruni say - in a fair to him the Indians ’closure on themselves and their ignorance of others - that“ if they travel and mix with others Let them change their mind. "

More importantly, Al-Masoudi - in his practical application - was open to the wisdom of all nations, as he elaborates on the commandments of the Kings of the Persians (Ardashir and Kisra Ansherwan in particular) and elaborates on the wisdom of India and Greece, even as it contradicts the covenants of the Arabs and Muslims; and therefore we find it - God bless you My reader - transmits the wisdom of the Indians in forbidding the confinement of the wind in the hollow, and their indecency from its release because of the harm it generates, and does not express any objection to that, but its apparent saying is admiration for their wisdom!

And with Al-Masoudi describing the eastern Negro as “some of them have specific teeth eating each other,” and that “they have no Sharia law to which they refer, but are fees for their kings and the types of policies in which they subordinate their care”; he praises their political justice and their keenness on them, because they believe in their own That God "chose him for their kingdom and justice in them, so when the king came next to them in his rule and he departed from the truth, they killed him and forbidden the king after him." He also praises their linguistic eloquence and says: "Zinj is the first in eloquence in their tongues, and they have preachers in their language. The ascetic man stands among them and addresses many of them, and desires to be close to their righteous (= their creator), and he sends them to obey him and terrorize them from his punishment."

Despite Al-Masoudi's affirmation of Ibn Fadlan’s conclusions - without mentioning his name - when he describes, for example, the Russians that they are a “ignorant nation that is not led to a king or to the Sharia”, we do not find - in his history of their events and the news of their conditions - the tone of booing and martyrdom found in the folds of the story of Ibn Favor. Rather, he committed himself to avoiding it explicitly when he said: "Let those who have considered it (= his book 'The Lawns of Gold') know that I did not win in it for a doctrine and I did not favor a saying, nor did I tell about people except their news councils, and I offer nothing else."

2- Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni agree on the necessity of explaining the phenomena and not being satisfied with the news without analyzing and interpreting. Al-Masoudi conveys to us what Galen mentioned about the character of Sudan, and he says, “Galen mentioned in the lions ten qualities that met in it and did not exist in others: tuffle of hair, the lightness of the eyebrows, and the spread of nostrils. , Thickening of the lips, specifying teeth, stinking skin, darkening of the pupil, cracking of hands and legs, length of male and frequent ritual. But Galen attributes "frequent rapture" to corruption in the brain, which Al-Masoudi responds to, and he begins to establish the principle of "illness" for the Canadian philosopher (d. 256 AH).

Al-Masoudi's explanation of the people's nature is based on two factors: the influence of astronomy and the environment (climate and soil). If we today denounce these two reasons for naivety and classify them as "false sciences" in the language of researchers in knowledge issues (epistemology), then adopting the principle of reasoning and using it according to the sciences of the age is a sure scientific virtue. The explanation of the nature of the people in climate remained in circulation until recently before the development of gene sciences and the most complex economic / social analyzes. It was used by the French philosopher Montesquieu (d. 1755 CE), and by the Andalusian rookie (d. 462 e) and Ibn Khaldun (d. 808 e) used it, although their views differed in Determining the natures of peoples, as coolness in the north inherits activity of the mind and love of adventure at Montesquieu, while it inherits dullness and lacks the accuracy of understandings at a rookie.

Perhaps al-Biruni's smartest notes in explaining the phenomena and their interpretation - which the anthropologists had previously learned - is what he said in the interpretation of the prohibition of Indians to cows and the refusal to kill them, as he proposes a management or “political” reason for al-Biruni's expression: that “the cow is the animal that serves In travels he carries loads and weights, and in farming with distress and agriculture ... and with dairy, and what comes out of it, then he uses his sins (= his dung), but in his breath in the winter; he was forbidden (by the Indians) as pilgrims forbidden when the ruined blackness (= agricultural region in Iraq) ). That is, the economic benefit of keeping a cow is greater than the economic benefit of slaughtering and using meat. This reasoning is the same as that whose faces we read in the American anthropological book Marvin Harris (d. 2001 AD), "Holy Sites, Taboos, and Wars".

Differences and variations
As for the methodological differences between them, they are variations within the circle of agreement, and they are summarized as follows:
1- The two men agree on the necessity of examining the news and not reporting everything that reached them, but their method of examining the news varies. Al-Masoudi adopts the approach of the modernists in ruling on the news through its chain of evidence and comparing it with other narratives, but if he gives the chain of transmission, then his mental acceptance method is based on that everything that enters the circle of mental possibility is permissible, waiting for a narration attesting to him to accept it. The mental possibility here is not equal to the "current habit" of al-Biruni, but rather the existential possibility, according to dividing the speakers of the conditions of existence into: duty, impossible and possible.

On this basis, Al-Masoudi conveys, for example, news that exaggerates the size of the whale, and conveys the news of the old-aged who exceeded three hundred years of age !! Perhaps that is why he called, such as Al-Dhahabi, to describe him as "an owner of ... oddities and wonders." Later we will discuss some of the exaggerations and errors that occurred in India and compare them with what Al-Biruni mentioned shortly. It is noticeable in general that Al-Masoudi was more critical and careful in geography matters than in human issues, customs and fees.

As for Al-Biruni, he was more dependent on reason, and we see him rejecting the “abstaining mind” by virtue of the current habit, even if it is included in the “existential possibility” as is customary of the speakers. Therefore, he explains the magic of the Indians as a kind of camouflage and lightness games, and not a finding for the abuser as the commoners think, and he mentions what they are famous for hunting antelopes with compositions until they take them in their hands, and it is mentioned that this and its similarities are "properties that have no access to the entrance ... in this sense all nations are equal in this sense." "So they are natural techniques that can be used by all peoples. And his story about India is devoid of mentioning the wonders that he described in Bazarz Bin Shahriar Al-Ramhramzi (died in the fourth century AH) in his book 'Wonders of India'; Al-Biruni did not mention it except for the sake of "claiming that such and such".

Al-Biruni is stronger in the explanation and analysis of Al-Masoudi, and he implemented an insight. For example, he explains idolatry by the tendency of the character of the public to the perceived physical, and he may be satisfied with the news without explanation and say, "The mind has no entrance in this." His analysis may reach the difference between the theoretical example in the people and the practical application subject to human nature and political constraints.

Al-Biruni opens the door that he held for sanctions in India by saying: “As is the case in them, similar to the case of Christianity, it is based on goodness and the evil has stopped leaving killing at all (= the principle of 'the Ahimsa' / non-violence) ... and enabling the slacker of the other cheek, and praying for the enemy with good and prayers It is for my life a virtuous biography, but the people of the world are not all philosophers, but the most ignorant, aberrant who can only be evaluated by the sword and the whip, and since Constantine the victorious evangelized, both of them (= sword and whip) did not rest from the movement, and without them the policy does not take place. Likewise, India, "then proceeds In detailing the establishment of their political governance mechanism and stating their penalties for crimes.

2- Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni stress the necessity of examining the countries they study and not being satisfied with the news reported by others. The first issue that al-Biruni holds in his book is eyewalls, news, and what is attached to the news from pests. An example of this is in the introduction to Al-Masoudi mentioned by the query “Badaa’at Al-Watan Al-Mawhida” and knowledge of “the properties of regions by inspection”. Rather, Al-Masoudi is reproaching for those who "obligated the bones of his homeland and were persuaded by the news that we have grown in."

In spite of this, Al-Masoudi sometimes reports the news of the country that he did not visit who he trusts with their knowledge and understanding of its people; when he tells us about "the country of the oases" in western Egypt and the power of its prince he says: "I saw the owner of this man (= the prince) residing in the oases ... and I asked him about many From the news of their country, and what I needed to know about the properties of their land, and so was my work with others - at all times - who did not arrive in their country. "

Comprehensiveness and specialization, and
therefore we find Al-Masoudi harsh on al-Jahez in more than one location, and his book 'The Worms and the Wonders of Countries' describes that "it is very abundant, because the man did not walk the seas, nor did most travel, nor do you read kingdoms and wards, but rather the owner of a night was transferred from the books of the papers." By way of comparison between the moods of the two men, we recall that al-Biruni replied to Al-Jahiz’s opinion on the same issue with polite literature by saying: “Until Al-Jahiz thought - with the safety of his heart and his distance from knowing the course of rivers and pictures of the seas - that the Mehran River (located in southwestern Iran) is a division of the Nile.”

The necessity of inspection is therefore a matter decided by the two men, but they differ in an important part governed by their fate and circumstances, and then influenced the quality of their work, which is the breadth of geography that Al-Masoudi covers in exchange for the competence of Al-Biruni in India alone. It is true that Al-Biruni was constantly comparing the wisdom of India with the wisdom of Greece and the beliefs of India and the mysteries of the Sufis and Christians "for the convergence of the matter between all of them in solutions and union", but he remained loyal to the study of a specific region, which allowed him to more depth and firmness in its conditions and languages, and scrutiny of its beliefs It examined its biographies and myths, which made it a more accurate and reliable reference in describing the conditions of these countries.

The effect of these two systematic differences appears in comparison between what Al-Masoudi reported about India and what Al-Biruni said about it. Al-Masoudi says that “India is prevented from drinking the drink and abusing its drinker, not on the path of religiosity, but it is a temptation to report on their minds what it covers and removes from what it was placed in them.” It is correct for them to drink it from one of their kings, who deserved to be deposed from his property, as it was not possible for him to manage and politics with mixing. " As for Al-Biruni, it is clear that the prohibition of alcohol is restricted to the upper classes, not to the lower classes, in the Hindu caste system (i.e. the chaudra layer = the outcasts).

Then we find that Al-Masoudi exaggerates what he tells about the gambling of the people of India, and he says: “Most of them have gambling in playing chess and dice on clothes and jewels. Perhaps one of them has run out of what is with him, so he plays in cutting off one of the members of his body ... If he plays with a finger from his fingers and a moon ( = Lost in gambling), he cut it with that dagger and it is like a fire ... then he returned to playing it, if he went to play during (= cut) a finger again, and maybe he was directed to play in cutting the fingers and the palm, then the arm, ulna and other sides "!! This is news from which minds abstain and abstain in the current habit, and Al-Biruni does not mention it.

In addition to the foregoing, Al-Biruni corrects what was mentioned by only one of the travelers (the Serafi who died after 237 AH and Ibn Khordazd) from India’s sanctions and killed the adulterer and the thief; then he mentions their penalties in detail in detail, saying that among their “major sins” they killed the cows, then drank the wine and then the adulterers .. As for theft, the amount of the thief is punishable, as it may have necessitated excessive abuse and mediation (= the criminality of the criminal in two halves), perhaps disciplinary and fined, and perhaps only the scandal and defamation ... and the punishment of the adulterer to leave the husband’s house and exile. ”

Obstacles and criticism that
praises al-Biruni's awareness of the approach and the pitfalls of the story about the other, and I believe that the epistemological lesson he provided in fairness is still valid today. In his introduction, he presented a detailed statement of the lesions attached to the news, stating that they are: 1- The disparity of interest between the informants; 2- The bias resulting from “the predominance of fragmentation and conflict between nations”; 3- The false news intended by the informant to “maximize his gender”; 4- or False news about "a class whom he loves to thank or hate to deny"; 5 - or false news with the intention of drawing closer to good and benefit or avoiding evil; 6- ignorance and imitation of who preceded it; 7 - including - and see the accuracy of understanding - that the informant be tempted and anoint by virtue of his nature, as if it is portable He is not capable of others. "

This last scourge is the deadliest kind of bias because it comes from unconscious bias. In the face of these pitfalls, Al-Biruni reminds us and reminds himself that honesty is "satisfactory, likable to itself, desirable in its goodness", and that the historian's duty - indeed, and Muslim in general - is to say the truth even to himself, and that this degree of honesty comes only with courage, which is in fact "Underestimating death!"

Moreover, Al-Biruni is humble in the hands of the subject of his study, as he mentions the obstacles that prevent proper knowledge and the discovery of the state of India: “People show us all what nations share, and the first of which is the language” which possesses the exits of an unparalleled character in Arabic, meets the inhabitants, and complicates them Methods of expression abound in metaphors, and their meanings govern the context of the phrase, and the single name falls on several names. He then elaborates on his method for transferring and Arabizing terms.

The second of these constraints is that “they (= Indians) show us in religion a total contradiction, none of us recognizing what they have nor any of them comes from us”; and “they show us in fees and customs” and they are inspired by the customs of Muslims and denounce “our settlement between people”, i.e. rejecting partition The class of society (which Al-Biruni sees as one of the greatest barriers without their entry into Islam); and they see the non-Indian - and they call it “Malij” (= filthy) - unclean that does not eat and does not mix, and they embrace it with their knowledge and news; Muslims.

In addition to these obstacles, Al-Biruni admits his shortcomings - and the limitations of every researcher - in collecting all that the people have written about themselves and repeatedly declares that he transmits to us what he has heard of their science "until the time of editing these letters", as if he intends to increase them and correct them if he reaches a new science; and admits that One of the obstacles is reading their sciences "from the outside", and this is a subtle understanding, because the difference is great between knowing the cultural tradition from within it, and trying to understand it from outside, which is something that the Orientalists rarely know!