Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 June 7

= June 7 =

Al Biruni, What did he say?
Regarding Tashabbuh bi’l-kuffār (Link to draft in user sandbox) an anecdote seem to have been covered by couple of WP:RS sources. Though a little, but there seems some difference in versions of the anecdote.


 * ".. Al-Biruni rejoined: 'The Byzantines also eat food. Then do not imitate them in this!' .. Al-Biruni was sarcastic yet he made a point worth stressing: .." ~ As covered by Lawrence, Bruce. Muslim Cosmopolitanism, The Idea of Islam. United Kingdom, C Hurst & Company, 2012. p 22.


 * ".. Other mu’adhdhins were of “excessive ignorance.” One of them was upset that all available measurement devices and time tables were based on the (solar) “Byzantine year,” not the Arab (lunar) year, and “his ignorance made him at the end refuse to accept anything based on the Byzantine months, not allowing it into the mosque, since [those] people are not Muslims. Then I said to him: The Byzantines also eat food and walk around the market. Do not imitate them in these two things [either]?” .." ~ As covered by Barbara Freyer Stowasser in “Time Sticks”: How Islam and Other Cultures Have Measured Time.


 * Which version is likely to be more correct?
 * Whether Al-Biruni was answered by any theologians, if yes, then by whom and how?
 * Any other sources covers any similar anecdote on topic of Tashabbuh ?

&#32;Bookku   (talk) 05:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Stowasser's version is what Al-Biruni himself reports in his book The Exhaustive Treatment of Shadows (in the translation by Edward Stewart Kennedy; the original text is in Persian). Curiously, although having been called "the most important book on shadow ever written", I do not find it mentioned on Wikipedia. --Lambiam 10:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. I updated one of the prime editor (at User talk:Reify-tech) of the article Shadow in case they find information shared by you interesting. &#32;Bookku    (talk) 11:06, 6 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Al Biruni said, what he said actually was, "My name is Al, and I like Biryani". 2.28.124.7 (talk) 11:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Initially I also did not know that in WP discussions WP user's own humour ought to be tagged as  :). &#32;Bookku    (talk) 11:26, 6 June 2024 (UTC)