4 Reasons to Read Al-Biruni

Above, Al-Biruni as depicted by Russian currency in 1973. From Al-Biruni's Wikipedia page.
1. Al-Biruni was a very unique person. This book follows Al-Biruni through his life, and it is quite an interesting one. Al-Biruni is considered a polymath, meaning that he was an expert in a multitude of different fields. However, even among other polymaths, the extent of his knowledge was absolutely astounding. He was an expert in mathematics, physics, medicine, poetry, linguistics, history, astronomy, religion, and much more. He could also speak many different languages. The most impressive fact about him is that he also managed to make major contributions in almost every field he studied, making him a very important scholar and scientist. His life and his studies are very interesting and will keep you sucked in.
2. He is a lesser-known historical figure. Let's be honest, most of you have probably never heard of Al-Biruni before this blog post. However, he was an important scientist who made many contributions to different areas of science. He was on the level of other famous scientists of his time, such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Al-Battani. Learning about him would be a good way to increase your knowledge of history and scientific history.
3. The book is not very long and well written. Some people may not want to get stuck reading a huge book that will take them a while. This book goes just barely over 200 pages, and the authors did an excellent job of writing it. When reading the book, simple and understandable language keeps you from scanning pages and realizing you have no idea what you just read. An example of this comes from when the authors describe the geography of the Middle East and the political powers during that time period at the very beginning of the book. Most history books will use complicated language and rely heavily on previous knowledge you may have, but not this book. They keep the background knowledge to a minimum and write the passages in a way that you only need to know the very basics. Overall, this makes reading the book a far more casual experience than one would otherwise expect.
4. This book also covers the time period he lived in quite extensively. If you aren't someone who would care about knowing anyone specific historical figure, but are more interested in historical politics, then this book also caters to your tastes. Since the environment that Al-Biruni was living in also influenced his decisions and research, the authors focus heavily on the politics and conflicts going on during his time period, and slightly before him as well. For example, near the beginnings of the book, the author talks about conflicts between the Abbasids and the Umayyads and how that shaped the Middle East Al-Biruni lived in. To summarize, it's a great history book as well.