ERC Project ‘Calendars in Antiquity and the Middle Ages’, Workshop 7
Al-Biruni and his world
15 February 2016
Calendars in Antiquity and the Middle Ages’
Source: ERC Project ‘Calendars in Antiquity and the Middle Ages’, Workshop 7
Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, who flourished at the end of the 10th and the beginning of the 11th century CE, was a famous Central Asian astronomer, mathematician and polymath. His book known in English as “The Chronology of Ancient Nations” is probably the most important book ever on the history of calendars and technical and historical chronology. In our workshop we will be examining different aspects of this work, and also of his great astronomical compendium “al-Qanun al-Mas’udi”.
Programme
9:30 Registration and coffee
9:55 Welcome and introduction
10:00 François de Blois (UCL): The new edition of al-Biruni’s ‘Chronology’: work in progress
11:00 Eleonora Bacchi (Bologna): The manuscript tradition of al-Biruni’s ‘al-Qanun al-Masʻudi’
12.00 coffee break
12.15 Raymond Mercier (Cambridge): Al-Biruni and the astronomy of ‘al-Qanun al-Mas’udi’
13:15 lunch
14.15 Frantz Grenet (Collège de France): Al-Biruni as a source for Chorasmian history
15:00 Carole Hillenbrand (St Andrews): Al-Biruni on Islamic history
16.00 tea break
16:20 Robert Hillenbrand (St Andrews): The miniatures in the Edinburgh manuscript of al-Biruni’s ‘Chronology’
17.20 Concluding discussion
18:00 end of workshop
James Montgomery (Cambridge) will attend as a discussant.