PREFACE.
It was Sir Henry Rawlinson who first directed public attention to this work of Albîrûnî, in his celebrated article on Central Asia in the "Quarterly Review" for 1866, in which he gave some valuable information derived from his own manuscript copy, now the property of the British Museum. In offering the book, both in text and translation, to the learned world, I feel bound to premise that it is scarcely of a nature to attract the interest of the general reader. It appeals to minds trained in the schools of various sciences. Even competent scholars will find it no easy matter to follow our author through all the mazes of his elaborate scientific calculations. Containing, as it does, all the technical and historical details of the various systems for the computation of time, invented and used by the Persians, Sogdians, Chorasmians, Jews, Syrians, Ḥarránians, and Arabs, together with Greek traditions, it offers an equal interest to all those who study the antiquity and history of the Zoroastrian and Jewish, Christian and Muhammadan religions.[1]
The work of Albîrûnîhas the character of a primary source. Oriental philologists are accustomed to see one book soon superseded by another, Barhebraeus by Ibn-al'athīr, Ibn-al'athīr by Al-Ṭabarī. Although it is likely enough
- ↑ By Christians, I understand the Melkite and Nestorian Churches, whilst the author does not seem to have known much more of the Jacobites than the name.
