ABSTRACT
In his critic of Eurocentrism, Boruch (1984) confronts the myth that “the techniques of applied social research in general and statistical evaluation in particular are more compatible with Western culture than Eastern” (p. 823). He demonstrates how modern concerns of current social research were attended to by many Eastern scholars centuries ago. Following this lead, I attempted to examine how social research was conducted in Medieval Islamic era. Using content analysis, I explored the nature of scientific thought, and the characteristics of valid evidence in the works of Biruni as a great thinker of Medieval Islam. I specifically investigated how Biruni tended to separate facts from speculations/beliefs in his search for knowledge. This entailed examining whether and how the presence of other, rival epistemologies was acknowledged or disputed in his writings. The analysis unveiled rhetorical strategies in Biruni’s writing to signal subjectivity/objectivity of information and the way he attempted to resolve the observed controversies. To fulfill the purpose of this investigation, Biruni’s research on India was analyzed for the ‘scientific content’ as well as the ‘language’ used for knowledge dissemination. The findings call for a serious re-examination of the information now presented to us as the (hi)story of science.
