SOURCE: "On the Presumed Darwinism of Alberuni Eight Hundred Years before Darwin" in Isis, Vol. 50, No. 162, December, 1959, pp. 459-66.

[In the following essay, Wilczynski examines the theory of natural selection as it is discussed by al-Bīrūnī in his study of Indian philosophy and history.]

The name of Abû-Alraihân Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Albernmi, who lived between 973 and 1048 of our era, must be well known to all Arabists and Indologists but cannot be found in any of the treatises dealing with the history of biology.¹ This circumstance seems to be quite understandable since Alberuni's interests and specialization were centred chiefly on astronomy and, as he lived near the border of India, were penetrated by his eagerness to control the Hindu language in order to impart its knowledge to Arab-speaking nations at the beginning of the eleventh century.

T. I. Raïnow called attention only quite recently...