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Al Banna, Sabri (1937-2002): Palestinian leader Born into a prosperous, plantation owning family in Jaffa al Banna and his family fled to the al Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza strip after the established of Israel in May 1948. They then moved to the West Bank city of Nablus. In August 2002, the Iraqi government claimed that al Banna had entered the country illegally and that when confronted by a security unit in his Baghdad apartment, he committed suicide. Other reports suggested that al Banna had been killed by the Iraqi security unit in a shoot out.
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Al-Battani (850–922): An astronomer who accurately determined the length of the solar year. He contributed to numeric tables, such as the Tables of Toledo, used by astronomers to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets across the sky. Some of Battani’s astronomic tables were later used by Copernicus. Battani also developed numeric tables which could be used to find the direction of Mecca from different locations. Knowing the direction of Mecca is important for Muslims, as this is the direction faced during prayer.
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Al Baz, Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah (1911-1999): Saudi Arabian religious leader Born into a religious family in Riyadh al Baz studied the Quran and Sharia. After going blind at sixteen he became a student of Shaikh Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, the grand lufti, to train as an Islamic judge. The next year he was appointed grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, a job that had been left vacant since 1969, and president of the Supreme Religious Council. Among his several books is Inquiry and clarification of Many Hajj and Umra Issues.
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Al-Beidh, Ali Salim (1939- ): South Yemeni and Temeni political Born into a religious family in the Hadramaut region, al Beidh participated in the armed nationalist struggle of the South Yemen conducted by the National Liberation Front against Britain. In 1996 as leader of the National Opposition Front, al Beidh demanded a referendum in the south to secure better terms for the region. Two years later he was sentenced to death in absentia for his role in the 1994 civil war.
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Al-Biruni, Abu al-Ray
Al-Biruni is regarded as one of the greatest scholars of the medieval Islamic era and was well versed in physics, mathematics, astronomy and natural sciences. He also distinguished himself as a historian, chronologist and linguist. He was conversant in Chorasmian, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and Turkic, and also knew Greek, Hebrew and Syriac. He spent a large part of his life in Ghazni in modern-day Afghanistan, capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty which ruled eastern Iranian lands and the northwestern Indian subcontinent.
In 1017 he traveled to the Indian subcontinent and became the most important interpreter of Indian science to the Islamic world. He is given titles such as the “founder of Indology” and the “first anthropologist”. He was an impartial writer on custom and creeds of various nations and was given the title al-Ustdadh (“The Master”) for his remarkable description of early 11th century India. He also made contributions to Earth sciences and is regarded as the “father of geodesy” for his important contributions to that field, along with his significant contributions to geography.
Life:
He was born in the outer district of Kath, the capital of the Afrighid dynasty of Chorasmia. The word Biruni means “outer-district” in Persian and so this became his nisba: “al-Bīrūnī” = “the Birunian”. His first twenty-five years were spent in Chorasmia where he studied Fiqh, theology, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, medics and other sciences.
He was sympathetic to the Afrighids, who were overthrown by the rival dynasty of Ma’munids in 995. Leaving his homeland, he left for Bukhara, then under the Samanid ruler Mansur II the son of Nuh. There he also corresponded with Avicenna.
In 998, he went to the court of the Ziyarid Amir of Tabaristan, Shams al-Mo’ali Abul-Hasan Ghaboos ibn Wushmgir. There he wrote his first important work, al-Athar al-Baqqiya ‘an al-Qorun al-Khaliyya (literally: “The remaining traces of past centuries” and translated as “Chronology of ancient nations” or “Vestiges of the Past”) on historical and scientific chronology, probably around 1000 A.D., though he later made some amendments to the book. Accepting the definite demise of the Afrighids at the hands of the Ma’munids, he made peace with the latter who then ruled Chorasmia. Their court at Gorganj (also in Chorasmia) was gaining fame for its gathering of brilliant scientists.
In 1012, al-Biruni returned to his native Khwarizm where he resumed his studies. In 1017, Mahmud of Ghazni took Rey. Most scholars, including al-Biruni, were taken to Ghazna, the capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty. Biruni was made court astrologer and accompanied Mahmud on his invasions into India, living there for a few years. Biruni became acquainted with all things related to India. He may even have learned some Sanskrit. During this time he wrote the Kitab Ta’rikh al-Hind, finishing it around 1030.
Mathematics and Astronomy:
Ninety-five of 146 books known to have been written by Bīrūnī, about 65 percent, were devoted to astronomy, mathematics and related subjects like mathematical geography. Biruni’s major work on astrology is primarily an astronomical and mathematical text, only the last chapter concerns astrological prognostication. His endorsement of astrology is limited, in so far as he condemns horary astrology as ‘sorcery’.
Biruni wrote an extensive commentary on Indian astronomy in the Kitab Ta’rikh al-Hind, in which he claims to have resolved the matter of Earth’s rotation in a work on astronomy that is no longer extant, his Miftah-ilm-alhai ‘a (Key to Astronomy):
“The rotation of the earth does in no way impair the value of astronomy, as all appearances of an astronomic character can quite as well be explained according to this theory as to the other. There are, however, other reasons which make it impossible.”
Physics:
Al-Biruni contributed to the introduction of the experimental scientific method of mechanics, unified statics and dynamics into the science of mechanics and combined the fields of hydrostatics with dynamics to create hydrodynamics.
Geography:
Biruni also devised his own method of determining the radius of the earth by means of the observation of the height of a mountain and carried it out at Nandana in India.
Pharmacology and Mineralogy:
Due to an apparatus he constructed himself, he succeeded in determining the specific gravity of a certain number of metals and minerals with remarkable precision.
History and Chronology:
Biruni’s main essay on political history, Kitab al-Musāmara fīa
