Analysis of Al-Biruni’s Methodology in the Anthropology of Religion

Restructuring and rethinking, ideas and works of ancient scientists and adaptation of works by modern scientists thought leads to knowledge production and development goals. Biruni is a thinker with his own style and deep insight in the field of anthropology of religion. He made a new avenue of research. His effect was so grat that the late researches of eighteenth and nineteenth century considered him as one of the pioneers of anthropology and comparative religion studies. This study reviews this question that what was Al-Biruni’s approach in studying the religious believes and how he studied other religions. This study is designed in five chapters: the first chapter, includes a general review of major concepts and a review of the study plus life ,the time, and some of Al-Biruni’s works. Second chapter covers the aprcoaches and paradigms of anthropology   origin of the study ,the historic and comparative view, and methodology of the study. Chapter three is about Biruni’s thinking in areas such as phenomenology, epistemology, and the orign of his thinking. Chapter four which is entitled Biruni’s anthropologic viewpoint includes anthropology of relatives, anthropology of beliefs, and religious beliefs and their social functions. Chapter five includes analysis of Biruni’s approach in anthropology of religion. Considering the major themes of Biruni’s approach in anthropology of religion ((confrontation, comparison, experiment, evaluation and understanding the language of other nations in the forms of beliefs, and cusoms, the researcher has tried to take into account the major concepts of Biruni and by using graphs and charts he has tried to present him as a leading figure in this very important field. In the following results of other chapters are presented:

Al-Biruni’s is one of the scholar and thinker of his own time who has used the experimental approach to a happy marriage between “science and religion” “rationality and truth”. He also established the critical approach by an unbiased and scientific understanding of the language of other religious, nations, classes and customs of other people.