Abu’l-Raihan al-Biruni was a Persian polymath born in 973 AD. His contributions to mathematics, geography, astronomy, and physics are most well known. During his travels in India, he not only taught Greek science, but in exchange he became acquainted with Indian science. This made him a strong promoter of this science in the Islamic world.
At the court of sultan Mas’ud, al-Biruni wrote an important work on minerals and gemstones, called the Kitab al-jamahir fi ma’rifat al jawahir (The book of the multitude of knowledge of precious stones) [1–3]. In this lapidary, al-Biruni gives a detailed description of the colors of many minerals and gemstones. Color is used as a clear way to identify minerals and gemstones. He discusses extensively the slight color differences between minerals originating from different mines or having different degrees of purity, relating them to the effect this may have on their financial value.
The Kitab al-jamahirdoes not contain a separate chapter on color...
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References
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Kirchner, E. (2016). Al-Biruni. In: Luo, M.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8071-7_330
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