the concept of critical historiography in the islamic world of the ...

THE CONCEPT OF CRITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY 307
(1960), 173-179. 'Umar Famkh, Ta'rikh al- 'Uliim 'ind al-'Arab, (13901
1970), 154-156; 223-225. The Hyderabad text of his work on India is a
revised edition based on thc oldest extant Ms. at the B.N. Paris, (Schefer,
6080). See Zeki Velidi Togin and Fatin Gokmen, "Biriini? in IAns.
(1944), 11, 645-647. A.A. Dehkhodl', LN, (A-Abii Sa'id, Tehran, 1325
A.H. Shamsf), 461-487. M.S. Khln, ''A Select Bibliography of Soviet
Publications on al-Biriini" in Janus(Amsterdam), Oct. 1975, pp. 279-288;-
"Al-Biriini and the Political History of India" in Oriens, FFM, Vol. 25-26,
pp. 86-1 15.
(N) About the impartiality of al-Biriini as displayed in his book
Kitiib al-Hind, Edward Sachau writes, "His impartiality, which to many
a Muslim may seem to exceed due limits, is such that the reader may
pursue many pages of his book without even noticing that the author is a
Muslim". Preface to the English translation, pp. VI, VII.
(0) AI-mu'lmaIiit al- Wad'iya means business transactions with
money as the basis, expressed in Greek as thesei as opposed to Greek
physei which expresses the idea of natural or barter economy or al-Mu'cima-
llt af-Tabi'iya as expressed by al-BIriini. See an unknown author's views
on the subject who flourished before al-Biriinl. Helmut Ritter, "Eine
arabisches Handbuch der Handelwissenschaft" in DI, VII, (1916). Mu-
'Zmala only means the business of buying and selling; E.W. Lane, Lexicon,
(1874) Bk 115, p. 2158; and for Tabi'l; see ibid. 1823.
"The problem of the role of money in a monetary economy has to
be separated into three successive stages both analytically and in a loose
sense historically; the replacement of a barter economy by a commodity
money system, in' which money of necessity bears no interest'. Henry
G.Johnson, Essays in Monetary Economics (1969), VI.
(P) Stones and fossils. The science that deals with fossil animals
and plant fossils are now called Paleontology and Paleobotany. The
study of the stones and other mineral compositions of the strata is called
geological paleontology. For a bibliography see EB (1973), XVII, 153.
The statements of al-Biriini seem to be remarkably modem. All modem
theories about the origin of the earth, like that of al-Birnni, admit the mol-
ten stage in the earth's evolution. Al-Biriini considered India as a recent
alluvial formation because stones are huge near the mountains and where
the rivers have a violent current but they are of smaller size at greater
distana from the mountains and where the streams flow more slowly.