Al-Bīrūnī was born and raised in the town of Khwarazm, which lies south of the Aral Sea; his family history and early life remain obscure, but his interest in scientific experimentation developed at a young age and was cultivated through formal studies with a well-known mathematician, Abu Nasr Mansur. Due to civil unrest, al-Bīrūnī was forced to interrupt his formal studies and soon found a patron in the ruler of Gurgan, to whom he dedicated his earliest extant work, the Chronology (written c. 1000), a treatise on time and various religious calendars. Around this time he also began a somewhat confrontational correspondence with one of his contemporaries, Avicenna, a philosopher and physician. In 1003 al-Bīrūnī moved to the court of the reigning Shah of Kwarazm, Abu'l 'Abbas Ma'mun, who was later overthrown by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (in present-day Afghanistan)—both became patrons of...