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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Write brief essay on Al-Biruni’s India.

  • UPSC 1998
  • Cultural Traditions in India, 750-1200

Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni (973-1048), a Khwarezmian polymath who spent much of his career at the Ghaznavid court, produced in the Kitab al-Hind (also known as Tahqiq ma li'l-Hind, roughly 1030 CE) the most methodologically self-conscious account of Indian civilization written by any medieval outsider. What distinguishes "Al-Biruni's India" from other Perso-Arabic travel or conquest narratives…

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • The Man and the Occasion of the Work
  • Method: What Makes the Kitab al-Hind Distinctive
  • The Scope of "India" as Al-Biruni Presents It
  • Assessing Al-Biruni's India

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