A research scholar in Aligarh is preparing a lecture on a long eleventh-century Arabic text about India, divided into eighty chapters. Her students ask where in today's world its author could have been easily understood if he still knew the same languages. Reading the chapters closely, she finds that most of them, though not all, follow one fixed pattern from beginning to end. She tells her students that this regular plan makes the work easy to follow and asks them to work out what the plan is and why the author may have chosen it.
Keeping in mind the language in which the work was written, which readers did its author most probably have in mind?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Peoples living along the frontiers of the subcontinent
Option (1) Peoples living along the frontiers of the subcontinent — Correct. The text is Al-Biruni's Kitab-ul-Hind. Because he wrote in Arabic, he probably wrote it for peoples living along the frontiers of the subcontinent.
Option (2) Brahmana scholars in the towns of north India — Incorrect. Brahmanas wrote and read in Sanskrit. Few people inside India would have read Al-Biruni before 1500.
Option (3) Officials at the court of Sultan Mahmud in Ghazni — Incorrect. Al-Biruni did live in Ghazni, but his readers were the frontier peoples who knew Arabic.
Option (4) Arab merchants at the ports of the Malabar coast — Incorrect. Arab traders did know Arabic, but the readers linked with the work were peoples on the frontiers of the subcontinent.
NCERT (2026-27): “1.2 The Kitab-ul-Hind … |