From September 4th to 8th, 2023, a new exhibition titled "Abu Rayhan Beruni: Geographical and Intellectual Journeys" will take place at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The project is timed to coincide with the 1050th anniversary of the birth of the distinguished scholar and thinker.
Thanks to the visual elements of the scenography and multimedia installations, as well as the displayed manuscript copies, visitors to the exhibition able to familiarize themselves with the life and work of Abu Rayhan Beruni. They can learn about his travels, discoveries, and research that largely shaped the development of medieval science and remain relevant to this day. As part of the grand opening ceremony of the exhibition, a concert held during which the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan, under the direction of Alibek Kabdurakhmanov, will present the world premiere of Dmitry Yanov-Yanovsky's composition "Zij — Music of Constellations."
Beruni was born in the capital of ancient Khorezm - the city of Kath. From an early age, he showed a keen interest in both the exact and humanities sciences. In addition to his native Khorezmian language, Beruni learned Arabic, Sogdian, Persian, Assyrian, and Greek. Later, in India, he also mastered Sanskrit.
Abu Rayhan Beruni left behind numerous works in astronomy, physics, mathematics, geodesy, geology, mineralogy, history, and ethnography, making significant contributions to the development of these sciences.
Along with an interactive multimedia projection, where visitors can acquaint themselves with the high-quality pages of Beruni's manuscripts, a short video about the scholar's life will also be shown. The total exhibition space spans over 400 square meters. A special place in the exhibition is reserved for copies of Abu Rayhan Beruni's manuscripts prepared by specialists of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Academy of Sciences from the collection of the National Library of France:
- "Chronology of Ancient Peoples", which contains information about the calendars of ancient civilizations — Persian, Christian, Jewish, and Indian, their holidays, and methods of time calculation. In this work, Beruni links deep astronomical knowledge with people and their sociocultural traditions.
- "Elements of Astronomy" - essentially a basic medieval textbook designed for teaching the fundamentals of astronomy.
- "Al-Qanun al-Masudi" - a mathematical-astronomical treatise. It encompasses fundamental mathematical definitions, calendars of various population groups, constellations, latitudes and longitudes of cities, the movements of stars and planets, as well as discussions on trigonometry.
- "Book on India" - an ethnographic work about Indian society. Beruni wrote it based on observations of people's lives in northern Pakistan and through interactions with Indian thinkers and reading Sanskrit literature.
On the occasion of the exhibition's opening on September 4th, a world premiere of a composition by the renowned composer Dmitry Yanov-Yanovsky will take place in the first hall of UNESCO's headquarters. The composition "Zij — Music of Constellations" was created by the author as a tribute to four great minds of the East: Al-Khwarizmi, Ibn Sina, Abu Rayhan Beruni, and Mirzo Ulughbek. The performance by the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan under the direction of Alibek Kabdurakhmanov will be accompanied by 3D mapping, immersing the audience in the atmosphere of great scientific discoveries and introducing them to new facets of Uzbekistan's cultural-historical heritage.
source: acdf.uz