They wrote about the Russian pagans burning their dead and "eating zinj for humans" and explaining the Indians' prohibition of cows .. How did the Muslim travelers study the "other"?

Desire and dread;

The Muslim travelers Fiavi went around and cut the seas, measured the roads and paths, and crueled for the sake of that hardship and destruction, then told about the conditions of the kingdoms, their peoples and their cultures.

Some of them traveled for political purposes, as they were ministers, postal workers, spies, and ambassadors, and some traveled for religious reasons such as Hajj and the spread of Islam, and others for commercial or purely scientific reasons.

With their news recorded;

The map of the globe expanded and lit its topography, and historians, geographers, and cartographers conveyed from them the distances between countries and the conditions of the peoples living in them.

The Muslims roamed all the coasts of the Indian Ocean (the "Great Eastern Sea" as Ibn Khardadhaba, who died in 280 AH / 893 AD) called it, from East Africa to the Silla Islands (perhaps the Korean Peninsula);

And they fought the lands of the Turks in the east and the Russians in the north, reaching Siberia ("the land of darkness" as Ibn Battuta (died 779 AH / 1377 AD) called it.

They also roamed the corners of Europe, which they called 'Orifi' (thus it was seized by Yaqout al-Hamawi, who died in 626 AH / 1229 CE - in the 'Dictionary of the Countries' - and said: “This is how I found it in the handwriting of Abi al-Rayhan al-Biruni, verified.” As for Al-Masoudi who died in 346 AH / 957 CE, he made it - in' The warning and supervision '- “Urfa”, which is close in pronunciation to the current word “Europe”).

Perhaps they did not reach the far north of the continent, even if an ample amount of their coins and cash arrived in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and others.

They also knew Africa - which they call 'Loubia' - its east, west and central, and some of their cartographers drew it south.

Some of them even dared to wade the "Sea of ​​Darkness" (= the Atlantic) west to the unknown, including the "deceived boys" that Al-Masoudi mentioned in his book "The Meadows of Gold", and how they reached the Canary Islands in West Africa.

Among them - according to what Ibn Fadl Allah al-Omari (d. 749 AH / 1348 CE) narrated in “Masalik al-Ibsar” - the ruler of Mali, Mansa Abu Bakr II (d. After 712 AH / 1312 CE), who abdicated the king in 712 AH / 1312 CE to his brother Mansa Musa (d.737 AH / 737 AH / 1336 AD) and sailed the Atlantic Ocean with two thousand ships in search of the unknown in the West and never returned;

Has he arrived?

Did someone else arrive?

Around this there are long debates between modern Muslim and Western historians, many of which are premeditated.

This is not our topic, as the literature of "journey" and "paths and kingdoms" and "wonders" is a broad literature that the lengths do not satisfy;

Rather, our topic is dealing with a specific cultural component in this broad literature, which is the knowledge and study of the "other".

What position did travelers and historians take in studying other peoples?

What approach did they follow?

What are the pitfalls in which they fell?

And what did they achieve with equity or favoritism?

Western Orientalism has been subjected to abundant criticism that touches its method, tools, and political function. It is a valid criticism, although it does not have the ability to block our eyes from many just efforts presented by orientalists with purely scientific and knowledge purposes.

But our question: To what degree were the mistakes of Orientalism specific to the West and not to others?

Doesn't every nation drop a woman with imperial ambitions in the tendency towards self-favor and demeaning the other?

Then does it not seek to use its knowledge of other peoples in the service of its political, commercial and religious purposes?

I do not aspire to provide a satisfactory answer to these questions, rather my whole intention is to touch them and refer to some of its chapters without presenting a comprehensive thesis.

The reason for this shortcoming is two things: that we do not find a single methodical position among the travelers and historians regarding their fairness or their inclination.

Moreover, historians have taught us the incorrectness of the historical comparison between the different eras, due to their different formative conditions, political and economic structures, the nature of their countries and their aspirations.

If the comparison is necessary, let it be between those who have been brought together by one age.

Fatouh and openness

There is no doubt that the universality of the Qur’an’s message and its urge to get acquainted with peoples and to walk on the earth has contributed to making the culture of Muslims with a configuration open to others.

Muslims did not believe, like some Indians, "on earth that it is their land and in the people that they are their race, and in the kings that they are their rulers, and in religion that they are their infinite, and in the knowledge that they are with them, and they rise up. They do not think that there is anything on the earth other than their countries, and in the people other than its inhabitants, and that there is nothing else on the earth. A knowledge other than their knowledge, so that if they were updated with a science or a scientist in Khurasan or Persia, they ignore the informant and did not believe him. "

Al-Biruni also says in his book 'Realizing what India has of a saying that is acceptable in the mind or rejected.

But another objective factor has contributed to this openness, which is the trade trend that the Arabs knew in the past in the trade line connecting Yemen and Abyssinia and between the shores of the Gulf and India and China, and in the Quraysh trade line between Yemen and the Levant, then it was confirmed with the Islamic conquests that included the extended central region Between the Nile and the Gihon rivers, the heart of the ancient world, and the strategic trade crossing between east, west, north and south.

Thus, Baghdad and other metropolitan Iraq was a meeting place for world markets, receiving merchants from the ends of the earth, and listen with me Al-Yaqoubi's description - at the end of the third century - of Baghdad, when he says: “Whatever is not in a city from the world was gathered with it ... so trade and mir come to it on land and sea, and with ease of pursuit, until integration In it every store carries from the East and the Maghreb from the land of Islam and other than the land of Islam. Even as if the good of the earth was directed to it, the relics of the world were collected in it, and the blessings of the world were integrated with it.

It is the duty of merchants to be broader and more flexible, by virtue of their mixing with different types of people, from the sublime and the lowly, and to be broader horizons and open to the stranger by virtue of their frequent wanderings and travels;

Cities of merchants would absorb these morals, and receive the cultures of strangers with their goods, thus disturbing the attributes of self-isolation and encouraging plurality of languages ​​and diversity of cultures.

and then;

Trade enriched Muslim cities with goods and science at the same time, and made Muslim metropolises cosmopolitan (global) cities that welcome the whole world, just as the commercial city of Khanfu was in China.

On what Al-Masoudi and others are talking to us.

It is not strange for Al-Jahiz (d. 255 AH / 869 AD) to tell us about the news of nations and peoples, but rather that he tells us about the conditions of the countries (and he has a message in that), and he is the one who did not - most likely - leave the Fertile Crescent except for a short time.

In the Muslim civilization, this produced a high social mobility - as the American orientalist Marshall Hodgson (d.1388 AH / 1968 CE) explains in his book “The Adventure of Islam” - Muslims felt that they were global citizens, the whole land had a mosque and purification, and perhaps the clearest proof of that is what is presented to the reader in The travelers wrote about the meeting of their homelands in exile, Ibn Fadlan met a tailor from Baghdad in the land of Saqqalba, and Ibn Battuta in China met a jurist from Ceuta, and it is strange that after years he met the brother of that jurist in the country of Sudan from central Africa.

In this article, I will focus on tracing three examples of the writings of travelers and historians, showing their approach to telling about the other and telling about his conditions: they are Ibn Fadlan (his journey was in the years 309-310 AH / 1309-1310AD and the date of his death is unknown) and Abu Al-Hassan Al-Masoudi (d. 346 AH / 957 AD) ), And Abu al-Rihani al-Biruni (d. 440 AH / 1049 CE).

Let us start with the agreed upon Baghdad, whose beard was frozen in the bloom of Saqqalbah.

The adventure of a jurist,

like many travelers and geographers - who are mostly middle-class men - we do not know the date of Ibn Fadlan’s birth. Yaqut al-Hamwi - in the 'Dictionary of Countries' - mentioned that he was the mentor of the Abbasid military leader Muhammad bin Suleiman al-Hanafi (d. 304 AH / 916 AD), He called it several times: “Ahmed bin Fadlan bin al-Abbas bin Rashid bin Hammad, the freed slave of Muhammad bin Suleiman: the Messenger of [the caliph] al-Muqtadir” al-Abbasi (d.320 AH / 932 CE).

Perhaps the best source about him is his very journey in which it was mentioned that his name is "Muhammad". He is a scholar of Sharia law with a good literary culture, and a beautiful language that does not cost it, accurate observation, albeit a broad imagination, bold in telling the truth and correcting mistakes, old in Civilization and Literature.

He left Baghdad in Safar 309 AH / 921 AD - during the reign of Caliph al-Muqtadir - for a specific purpose, which he mentioned in the beginning of his message: “When the book of Almish bin Yatwar (it was called later by Ibn Fadlan Bajafar bin Abdullah), the king of Saqalabah, asked him to the Commander of the Faithful al-Muqtadir, asking him about it. The mission is to those who understand him in religion and define him in the laws of Islam, build a mosque for him and set up a platform for him to establish the invitation for him in his country and all of his kingdom, and he asks him to build a fortress in which he can protect himself from the kings who contradict him (= the Kingdom of the Jews of the Khazars), so I answer what he asked.

Islam entered the lands of the Bulgarians and the Saqlabis before this date, and the 'countries of the Bulgarians' here refer to their ancient kingdom, and the disagreement over its designation exists, but - according to the investigator of 'Risala Ibn Fadlan' Sami al-Dahan (d.1391 AH / 1971 CE) - it is located in the northeast of the Caspian Sea.

As for 'Saqqalbah', it is a general term for the Slavic peoples, Germans, and the inhabitants of Eastern Europe, and it was also called for some Turkish tribes living in the east of the Caspian Sea, especially the Volga River Basin (= Atlas River), and their kingdom was within what is known today as the Russian Republic of Tatarstan.

Al-Masoudi says in 'Mourouj Al-Dhahab' - “In the countries of the Khazars ... there were creatures from the Saqqalites and the Russians ... and this race is from the Saqlabis .. connected to the East.”

Ibn Fadlan did not prove his arrival in Eastern Europe until he met its masters.

The geographer Ibn Rura al-Isfahani (d. Around 300 AH / 912 CE) says that most Bulgarians and Saqlabis are impersonating Islam, but Islam was - during his reign - still weak in influence and presence among these peoples, and he did not control their morals and customs.

We find evidence of this with Ibn Fadlan when he mentions a lot of what he denies to them in the rites 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 the thief with heavy penalties.

We know from the traveler Abu Hamid al-Gharnati (d. 565 AH / 1170 CE) - who traveled around the Volga Basin for about thirty years and traded between them and married them - that Islam had spread and settled there, and that the mosques had increased during his reign.

The historian Ibn al-Atheer (d.630 AH / 1233 CE) - in al-Kamil - states that a delegation of them came for the Hajj and descended in Baghdad in 433 AH / 1043 CE.

Zarazir and frogs

Ibn Fadlan walked - within an official delegation - through stations that led him to Khurasan, Khwarazm and Bukhara, then made his way between the Ural Lake and the Caspian Sea, penetrating into the Turkic countries along the Volga River until he reached the lands of Saqqaliyah and the Russians;

On a journey that took - in its sure-way course - 11 months, during which it traveled nearly 5,000 km, via a route that started from Baghdad in the west to Bukhara in the east and from there to the regions of the Russian city of Kazan today in the north.

And since the man had come from Baghdad - which is at the time the capital of civilization full of etiquette, conversation, cleanliness of clothing and etiquette - it was natural for him to denounce the "brutality" he saw of the Turks, Russians and Saqalabahs he met.

Therefore, when he descended in the city of Jarjaniya - which is present today in western Uzbekistan and during its days the capital of the Kingdom of Khwarazm - he described its people as “the most wild of speech and nature”, and told us that “their words are like a shouting of a Zarazir” (= the plural of starzor, which is a small bird), and we talked about other people Next door to them that their words are like "frog crying".

There is no doubt that this type of impression on describing the pronunciation of the peoples' languages ​​is hasty and stems from the ear's familiarity with its mother tongue.

Al-Biruni, for example - and if he was recommending Arabic as a language for science - tells us - in his book “The Sidonization” - that “every nation becomes permissible with its language that it is familiar with, accustomed to and used in its purposes with its thousands and forms.”

Ibn Fadlan’s words about the languages ​​of these peoples does not deviate from the description of the great Umayyad poet al-Shaybani (d. 125 AH / 744 CE) of the Roman language as: the

sounds of ajam if they are close to them ** as the kings vote in the morning

Then Ibn Fadlan describes the 'Ghaziyya' (= the tribes of Gaza - or the Oguz - the Turks, including the Seljuks and the Ottomans) in his talk about the nomadic herding life that they live;

That they “are like lost asses, they do not owe a debt to God and do not return to reason, nor do they worship anything, but rather call their pride as lords,” and “they do not conspiracy from faeces or urine, and they do not wash from impurity or otherwise, and there is no action between them and water.”

He adds that their Muslim merchants used to wash in secret, because if they saw someone wash, they would think that he wanted to bewitch them, and that their women did not hide from men. Rather, the woman does not care about exposing her vagina to strangers, even if they “do not know fornication” and the punishment for an adulterer is to cut it in half!

Ibn Fadlan also talked about 'the country of the Bashkard' and said that they are “a people of the Turks who are called the Bashkard. We warn them with the utmost caution, and that is because they are the worst of the Turks and the dirtiest and most aggressive murderers, the man meets the man, sorting his ham, taking it and leaving it, and they shave their beards and eat lice.”

Accurate details and

away from judgments of value from disapproval and denial;

Ibn Fadlan is fluent 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 peoples have taken, such as isolating the patient - for the Turkish and the Russians - and not approaching him until he cures or dies.

And on the pagan beliefs of some of them in the worship of twelve Lords of natural phenomena: for winter a Lord, for summer as a Lord, for wind and death ... etc., and on the worship of some abandoned animals and blessing Saqalabah with the barking of dogs;

And about the Saqlabah habit of eating alone, each one has his own table, with no one sharing it.

He also gave us information about the burial customs of different peoples.

He drew for us a detailed picture in ten pages of the burial of one of their chiefs by the Russians, some of his followers and concubines volunteering to die with him, how they burned his body (a note received later by Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni, who compared it to India), and what they sing, drink, and do during those rituals.

Ibn Fadlan's description is still the most important description of death rites for the Russians.

Ibn Fadlan was not an exacting geographer or informative who examined what he conveyed with the balance of reason or transmission, and he was - according to the habit of travelers - fond of mentioning the wonders.

Therefore, Yaqut al-Hamawi - who said on the journey of Ibn Fadlan that it is “a well-known blog that is well-known in the hands of the people, of which I have seen several copies,” but that it was transmitted in the “dictionary of countries” close to two-thirds of it according to the estimation of its investigator Al-Dahan- corrects many of his descriptions in geography and denies some of his statements. He controls some of the customs he mentioned, saying that they are specific to the countryside, not to the city, and so on.

Sometimes he assigns responsibility for what he conveys on him, disbelieving his accuracy, saying: "And he must be entrusted with what he told, and God knows its authenticity."

Ibn Fadlan also tells us that the custom of raising the hat has been in place in the lands of Saqqala since the tenth century AD, so if the king crossed the market, “no one remained but he got up and took his hoods off his head and put it under his armpits, and if he passed them, they put their caps back to their heads,” and also if they entered the king.

What was conveyed here refutes the famous saying that the modern custom of raising the hat dates back to the Middle Ages, when a European knight would remove his war helmet from his head for women, kings or his peers, to indicate that he believed them and that he was not needed to protect himself in their presence, or for Christians to take off their hats on the door Churches are revered;

These Saqlabs were not Christians before their conversion to Islam, but were pagans.

And deciding on this matter needs further investigation.

Among the anecdotes of his news among the Saqalabah is that a man of them called “Taloot” converted to Islam on his hand, so he was called “Muhammad.” Then his wife and children converted to Islam, so the man asked him to name them all “Muhammad”!

On his way back, Ibn Fadlan passed through the countries of the Khazar kingdom, where he transferred from them a nice mechanism for the transfer of power, which is that if the king reigned for more than forty years, the parish would kill him, and they said: “This has lost his mind and his opinion has been disturbed.”

I said: Forty years are many, but at least they have set a limit that the king should not cross!

Ibn Fadlan was an example expressing the state of the travelers and their approach, and it is an approach characterized by the accuracy of the description and the truthfulness of the news - as much as possible - without the use of criticism in the news received, neither in terms of comparing it with other news nor in terms of presenting it to the mind (= current habit), which allows the passing of myths And wonders without explanation or explanation of their causes, and it is an approach based in its judgments on personal impressions - hasty at times - so that he becomes despised of what he is not familiar with, and despises that which contravenes the morals and Sharia of Muslims, and abhors what deviates from their morals.

An encyclopedic shift

has emerged since the fourth century - whose first decade witnessed the organization of Ibn Fadlan’s journey and perhaps writing his treatise on it - a class of encyclopedic authors who took the method of studying the "other" a major step forward.

The authors of this class - including Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni - were not merely travelers, and the doors of their scientific work could not be confined to "history." The truth is that their compositions were encyclopedic, including astronomy, history, geography, geology, mineral sciences, anthropology, ethnography, animal and botanical sciences, and even included something of comparative religion And the study of civil politics and its comparison between different nations.

And perhaps the classification proposed by the French orientalist André Mikel to describe their field of work (Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni) as "human geography" is true, in that this geography was not only measuring distances between countries and informing about their architecture, but rather put people at the center of their perceptions, understanding the subject of the study and its essence. .

The Belgian historian of science, George Sarton (d. 1376 AH / 1956 CE), had previously realized - in his book 'Introduction to the History of Science' - the scientific importance of both Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni;

The first half of the fourth century was called the "Era of Al-Masoudi", and the first half of the fifth century AH "the era of Al-Biruni".

And before starting to talk about the method of Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni, and what they meet and separate in;

A brief introduction to them is required.

This is because their approach to telling about the other has been affected by their scientific formation, ideological doctrine, economic and political position, and even their personal nature.

As for Al-Masoudi,

He is Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali, and his lineage is related to the great companion Abdullah bin Masoud (d. 32 AH / 654 CE).

He was born in the Babylon region of Iraq, to ​​which he longs and is proud of him, and we do not know the date of his birth. As for his death, it was "in Jumada al-Akhirah in the year forty-five hundred (345 AH / 956 AD)."

As al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH / 1347 CE) says in “Siyar Aalam al-Nubala '”.

He was a Mu'tazili, as al-Dhahabi asserts, and a “Mu'tazili Shiite,” as Ibn Hajar (d. 852 AH / 1448 CE) says in “Lisan al-Mizan”.

It seems that he was a student of the Sheikh of the historians al-Tabari (d. 310 AH / 922 CE), so he borrowed much of his encyclopedia and historical methodology.

As we find him saying in his book 'The Warning and the Supervision': “Abu Jaafar Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari told us ... etc.”

Diversity of knowledge

Al-Masoudi's books varied from speech and the origins of religion to geography and astronomy. Ibn Hajar said that “his classifications are dear (= rare in circulation) except for the 'promoter', he became famous.” And his greatest book is 'Akhbar al-Zaman', which reached thirty volumes, but time has not passed away. We only get a small portion.

It appears that Al-Masoudi was from a rich family, and that he was traveling at his own expense, independent of any political purpose, so his goal was to write his most famous book 'The Mourouj al-Dahab and the Metals of the Essence': “Love to follow the pattern that the scholars intended and stood by the wise men, and to keep the world a praiseworthy male and an orderly knowledge. Should be. "

The area of ​​his travels expanded to include Persia, Sindh, India, China, the eastern coast of Africa and its islands, then Azerbaijan, Armenia, Syria, the Levantine Thaghur, Palestine, and he settled in Egypt, where he died.

He knew of the languages: Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Syriac and Greek.

That is why the Russian orientalist Alexander Vasilyev (d. 1373 AH / 1953 CE) says - in his book 'The Arabs and the Romans': “We see that Al-Masoudi deserves the title 'Herodotus of the Arabs', which Cromer added to him.”

He refers to what the Austrian orientalist von Kremer (d.1306 AH / 1889 CE) said about him in his book 'History of Culture in the East'.

As for Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni,

He was born in 362 AH / 974 CE, and he was attributed - in one statement - to the city of "Berun" which was then within the Khwarizmian state and is located today in western Uzbekistan, and he died in 440 AH / 1050 AD 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, and more.

Al-Biruni - who called the philosopher Ibn Sina in his youth - was faithful to the tradition of philosophy and its arts.

He was a scholar of Greek, Syriac, Khwarezmian, Persian and Sanskrit (and translated from it) in addition to Arabic.

Al-Biruni contacted the Ghaznawi court, and accompanied Sultan Masoud al-Ghaznawi (d. 432 AH / 1042 CE) in his conquest of northwestern India, but we know that he remained autonomous and independent of opinion, and he informed a witness of that - if the historical narrative is correct - that the Sultan wanted to reward him for his book “Al-Qanun Al-Masoudi” in Astronomy and meteorology, so he sent him to carry three silver camels !!

But Al-Biruni apologized.

Al-Biruni's political position cast a shadow over his book on India 'The Verification of India's Sayings'.

When referring to the purpose of his authorship, he stated that “the professor” (probably referring to Abu Sahl Abd al-Mun'im bin Ali al-Tiflisi, who died after 423 AH / 1033 CE) had “made sure to edit what I knew from their side (= the Indians) in order to support those who wanted to oppose them and ammunition for those who wanted to contact them. ".

But he continues immediately by saying: “And he asked that, and I did it indefinitely to an opponent (= slandered by what he did not say), and he was not reluctant to tell the story of his words, and if the truth was evident and he was heard by his family, it is his belief and he saw it."

Systematic participants

when reviewing the Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni curriculum;

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 agree that the goal of their two books (in particular here is 'The Promoter of Gold' by al-Masoudi, and 'The Realization of what India says' by al-Biruni) is to tell and tell about the “other”, without arguing with him or judging the correctness of his opinion from his mistake.

Al-Masoudi says: “Our book is a book of news, not a book of opinions and solutions,” and he repeats this meaning over and over.

Al-Biruni praises the approach of “the abstract story without inclination or flattery,” and says about his book that “it is not… a book of pilgrims and controversy, until I use it in it to mention the arguments of opponents and contradict those who deviate from the truth, but rather it is a book of a story and he cites the words of India on his face.”

Al-Masoudi - who lived in the heyday of the populist controversies - mentioned one part of these arguments and the responses to them, but - despite the nobility of his agitated one - he concluded an important ethical and methodological principle, which is that “the duty of the noble lineage and the high glory is not to make this a ladder to lax in business ... Genealogical honor exhorts business honor. "

It is as if he wants to end the debate about bragging about genealogy, knowing that every nation claims credit for itself and thinks itself is unique to it, and this is truly the case of those who traveled, experimented and mixed with nations.

Did Al-Biruni not say - in the context of defamation of the Indians ’self-isolation and their ignorance of others - that" if they traveled and mixed with others, they would have recanted from their opinion. "

and, most importantly;

Al-Masoudi - in his practical application - was open to the wisdom of all peoples, as he dwells on the commandments of the Persian kings (Ardashir and Kusra Anushirwan in particular) and details the wisdom of India and Greece, even in contradiction to the norms of Arabs and Muslims.

Therefore, we find him - may God glorify you, my reader - conveying the wisdom of the Indians in the prohibition of holding the wind in the jaw, and their lack of modesty from releasing it because of the harm it generates, and he does not express any objection to that. Rather, his statement appears to be admiring their wisdom!

And with Al-Masoudi's description of East African zing that "among them are certain tooth-specific races that eat each other," and that they “do not have a law to which they refer, but rather fees for their kings and types of policies with which they decay their flock."

He praises their political justice and the strength of their keenness on him, because they believe in their king that God "chose him for their king and justice in them, so when the king goes against them in his rule and departs from the truth, they kill him and forbid the king."

He also praises their linguistic fluency, saying: “Zanj are eloquent in their tongues, and there are preachers in their language. The ascetic man stands among them and preaches to many of them to the creation, and he wants them to be close to their innocent (= their creator), and he sends them to obey him and terrifies them of his punishment.”

Although Al-Masoudi confirmed Ibn Fadlan’s essays - without mentioning his name - when he described the Russians, for example, that they are a “jahiliyya” nation that is not led to a king or to Sharia.

For we do not find - in his history of their events and news of their conditions - on the tone of disapproval and Istisna'a that we find in the folds of Ibn Fadlan's story.

Rather, he committed himself to avoiding that explicitly when he said: “Let those who review it (= his book 'The Meadows of Gold') know that I have not won in it for a doctrine or prejudiced to a saying, and I do not talk about people except their news councils, and I do not show anything else."

2- Al-Masoudi and Al-Biruni agree on the necessity to explain phenomena and not be satisfied with the news without analysis and interpretation.

Al-Masoudi quotes to us what Galen mentioned about the nature of Sudan, and he says, “Galen mentioned in the black ten characteristics that were combined in him and were not found in others: thinning hair, thinning of the eyebrows, spreading nostrils, thickening of the lips, defining teeth, stinking skin, darkening of the pupils, and cracked hands and feet And the height of the male, and the abundance of rapture. "

However, Galen attributes "excessive rapture" to corruption in the brain, which Al-Masoudi responds to and begins by establishing the principle of "illness" according to the Canadian philosopher (d. 256 AH / 870 AD).

Al-Masoudi's explanation of the nature of peoples is based on two causes: the influence of astronomy and the environment (climate and soil).

And if today we describe these two causes as naive and classify them as "pseudoscience" in the language of researchers in knowledge issues (epistemology);

The adoption of the principle of reasoning and its use according to the sciences of the age is a sure scientific virtue.

The explanation of peoples' character by climate remained in circulation until recently before the development of genetics and more complex economic / social analyzes.

It was used by the French philosopher Montesquieu (d. 1169 AH / 1755 AD), and before that the Andalusian ascendant (d. 462 AH / 1071 AD) and Ibn Khaldun (d. 808 AH / 1406 AD).

And if their opinions differed in determining the nature of peoples, then the coldness in the North inherits the activity of the mind and the love of adventure in Montesquieu, while the dullness inherits and the imprecision of understanding is inherited by the ascendant.

Perhaps Al-Biruni’s smartest remarks in explaining and explaining phenomena - which were preceded by scholars of human societies (anthropology) - was what he said about the interpretation of the Indians ’prohibition of cows and refraining from slaughtering them, as he proposes a procedural or“ political ”reason in Al-Biruni's expression.

And it is that “cows are the animals that serve on travels that carry loads and weights, and in cultivation with anguish and agriculture ... and with milk, and what comes out of it, then benefit from its semen (= its droppings), but in the winter by its breath; it was forbidden [among the Indians] just as the pilgrims forbade it when it was complained of ruin. Al-Sawad (= an agricultural region in Iraq).

That is, the economic benefit resulting from the survival of the cow is greater than the economic benefit resulting from its slaughter and use of its meat.

This reasoning is the same that we read in the American anthropologist Marvin Harris (d. 1422 AH / 2001 CE) 'Sacraments, prohibitions and wars.'

Differences and disparities

As for the methodological differences between them, they are discrepancies within a circle of agreement, and are summarized as follows:

1- The two men agree on the need to scrutinize the news and not transmit everything that reached them, but their approach to examining the news varies.

Al-Masoudi relies on the method of the hadiths in judging the news through its chain of narrations and comparing it to other narratives, but if he delivers the chain of transmission, then his method of mental acceptance is based on the fact that everything that falls within the circle of mental possibility is permissible waiting for a narration that testifies to him to accept it.

The mental potential here is not equal to the "current habit" of Al-Biruni, but rather is the existential possibility, pursuant to dividing the speakers of the states of existence into: duty, impossible and possible.

On this basis, Al-Masoudi conveys, for example, news that exaggerates the size of the whale, and he conveys the news of elderly people over the age of three hundred years !!

Perhaps that is what prompted an interviewer like Al-Dhahabi to describe him as "the owner of ... strange and wonders."

Later, we will discuss some of the exaggerations and mistakes that occurred about India and compare them with what Al-Biruni mentioned shortly.

It is noticeable in general that Al-Masoudi was more critical and careful in matters of geography than in matters of people, their customs and fees.

As for Al-Biruni, he was more dependent on the mind. We see him rejecting the “abstaining mind” by virtue of the current habit, even if it was included in the “existential potential” with the convention of the speakers.

Therefore, he explains the magic of the Indians as a kind of camouflage and games of lightness, and is not a find for the refrained as the commoners believe, and he mentions what they are famous for from hunting antelopes with compositions until they take them into their own hands, and he mentions that this and its like "properties in which sophistication has no entrance .. All nations are equal in this meaning. ";

They are therefore natural technologies that all peoples can use equally.

His story about India is devoid of any mention of the wonders that were extravagantly described by Bazar Bin Shahriar Al Ramhurmzi (who died in the fourth century AH) in his book 'The Wonders of India'.

Al-Biruni was not mentioning it except as "they claimed that such-and-such."

Al-Biruni is stronger in reasoning and analysis than Al-Masoudi and has more insight.

He explains, for example, idolatry by the tendency of the public to the sensible, the personified, and he may be content with the news without explanation and say, "The mind has no entrance in this."

His analysis may reach an investigation of the difference between the theoretical ideal of the people and the practical application subject to human natures and political constraints.

Al-Biruni opens the door that he made to punishments in India by saying: “The situation in them is similar to that of Christianity, for it is based on good and stopping evil from leaving the killing in the first place (= the principle of 'ahimsa' / nonviolence) ... and enabling the slamming of the other cheek, and praying for the enemy with good and prayers for him. It is for my life a virtuous life, but the people of this world are not all philosophers, but most of them are ignorant delusions and only the sword and the whip can correct them, and since the victorious Constantius was Christianized, both of them (= the sword and the whip) did not rest from the movement, so without them politics would not take place. Likewise India ", then proceeds to detail them. The emergence of the political governance mechanism for them and the statement of 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 on them from others.

The first issue that Al-Biruni complicates in his book is the eye and the news, and what is attached to the news in terms of pests, and an analogy of that in the introduction to Al-Masoudi was mentioned by the query "Badaa Al-Ummah by observation" and knowledge of "the characteristics of the regions by inspection."

Rather, Al-Masoudi reproaches those who "adhered to the embers of his homeland and was convinced of the news that he had grown to."

Despite this, Al-Masoudi sometimes relays news of the country that he did not visit, about those he trusted among its people, their knowledge and understanding.

It is when he talks to us about the “country of oases” in western Egypt and the power of its emir, he says: “I saw the owner of this man (= the prince) who resides in the oases ... and I asked him about many of the news of their country, and what I needed to inform him of the characteristics of their land, as well as what I had with others - in the rest The times - for those who did not come to their country. "

Comprehensiveness and specialization,

therefore, we find Al-Masoudi hardening Al-Jahiz in more than one place, and his book 'Al-Amsaar and the Wonders of the Countries' describes that he is “extremely affectionate, because the man did not walk the seas or most of his travels, and the kingdoms and regions are not recognized, but he was a night owner who transferred from the books of the paperworkers.

As a comparison between the temperaments of the two men:

We recall that Al-Biruni responded very politely to Al-Jahiz’s opinion on the same issue by saying: “Al-Jahiz thought - with the integrity of his heart and his distance from knowing the streams of rivers and the seas - that the Mahran River (located southwest of Iran) is a branch of the Nile."

The need to inspect, then, is a matter decided upon by the two men.

However, they differ in an important part ruled by their destinies and circumstances, and subsequently affected the quality of their work.

It is the breadth of geography that Al-Masoudi covers in contrast to Al-Biruni's competence in India alone.

It is true that Al-Biruni was constantly comparing the wisdom of India and the wisdom of Greece and between the beliefs of India and the beliefs of Sufism and the Christians "to bring the matter closer between all of them in solutions and union." However, he remained devoted to studying a particular region, which allowed him to deepen and deepen its conditions and languages, and scrutinize its beliefs. Examining its history and myths, which made it a more accurate and reliable reference in describing the conditions of those countries.

The effect of these two methodological differences appears in the comparison between what Al-Masoudi reported on India and what Al-Biruni said about it.

Al-Masoudi says, "India forbids drinking and abusing his drinkers, not on the path of religiosity, but rather reluctance to report to their minds what he puts in them and removes them from what they put in them. And if it is true for them about one of their kings drinking it deserves to be stripped of his possession, since he was not taking the measure. And politics with promiscuity. "

As for Al-Biruni, it shows that the sanctity of alcohol is specific to the upper classes, without the lower class (i.e., the shudra class = the outcasts) in the Hindu caste system.

Then we find that Al-Masoudi exaggerates what he tells about the gambling of the people of India, saying: “Most of them gamble in their playing with chess and dice over clothes and jewels. And perhaps one of them has run out of what he has, so he plays in cutting a member of his body ... If he plays with one of his fingers and a moon (= he loses) In gambling), he cut it ... [with] the dagger, which is like fire ... Then he went back to playing it, so if he was directed to play (= cut) a finger again, and perhaps he was directed to play by cutting the fingers and the palm, then the arm, the ulna and the rest of the limbs !! "

And this is news that minds turn away from and abstain from the current habit, and Al-Biruni does not mention it.

In addition to the above;

Al-Biruni corrects what was mentioned by more than one of the travelers (Al-Serafi who died after 237 AH / 851AD and Ibn Khordadabeh) about the punishments of India and their killing of the adulterer and the thief.

He mentions their punishments in precise detail, saying that among their “major sins” is the killing of cows, then drinking alcohol, then adultery ... As for theft, the punishment of the thief is as much as it may have necessitated excessive abuse and intercession (= split the body of the criminal in half), and perhaps it necessitated discipline and fine, and perhaps necessitated exclusion. The scandal and slander ... and the punishment for the adulteress is to leave the husband's house and exile. "

Obstacles and criticism that

praises Al-Biruni for his awareness of the method and the pitfalls of the story about the other, and I believe that the epistemological lesson he provided in fairness is still valid today.

He presented - in the introduction to his book - a detailed explanation of the pests that befell the news, stating that they are: 1- The disparity of concern among informants;

2- Bias resulting from "the predominance of brash and strife between nations";

3- The false news that the informant intends to "maximize his gender";

4- Or the false news about a class that loves them to thank or hates them to deny.

5- Or false news with the intention of drawing closer to good and benefit, or preventing evil;

6- Ignorance and imitation of those who preceded;

7 - Including - and see the accuracy of understanding - that the informant tends and flatters by virtue of his character "as if he is being carried on him and he is not capable of others."

This last scourge is the deadliest type of bias because it comes from unconscious bias.

In the face of these pitfalls:

Al-Biruni reminds us and reminds himself that honesty is "pleasing to itself and desirable in its goodness", and that the duty of the historian - and indeed the Muslim in general - is to say the truth, even if it is to himself, and that this degree of honesty can only come with courage, which in reality is "underestimating death"!

Moreover, Al-Biruni is humble in the hands of the subject of his study, as he mentions the obstacles that prevent correct knowledge and exploring the conditions of India: “The people contrast us with all that the nations have in common, the first of which is the language” which possesses exits of letters that are unparalleled in Arabic, where the sukun meet, and are complicated in them Methods of expression and metaphors abound, and their meanings govern the context of the phrase, and the single noun falls on several names.

Then he details his method of transferring and Arabizing terms.

The second of these obstacles is that they (= the Indians) differ from us in religion altogether, and none of us comes from acknowledging what they have or from them with something from what we have.

And they “contrast us in fees and customs” and despise the customs of Muslims and denounce “our compromise among the people,” that is, the rejection of the class division of society (which Al-Biruni believes is one of the greatest barriers to the entry of Indians into Islam);

They see the non-Indian - and they call him "mulij" (= filthy) - unclean, not to be eaten or mixed, and they insist on him with their knowledge and news;

Then, the Muslims' conquest of their land increased them at the expense of the Muslims.

In addition to these obstacles;

Al-Biruni admits his limitations - and the limitations of every researcher - in collecting everything that the people have written about themselves, and repeatedly declares that he transmits to us what he heard from their knowledge "until the time these letters are edited", as if he intends to increase it and correct it if new knowledge arrives;

He admits that one of the hindrances is reading their sciences "from outside", and this is an accurate understanding, because there is a big difference between knowing the cultural tradition from within, and trying to understand it from outside, something that orientalists rarely understood!