“L’espressione ‘apoteosi’ suona male alle orecchie dei musulmani”. Al-Bīrūnī tra falsafa e comparazione religiosa

Abstract This article is devoted to the third chapter of the Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind by Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (973-1048) from the viewpoint of his vision of the history of religions and their relationship with the issue of human languages. The opinions held by the inhabitants of the Hind about the intelligibilia and sensibilia form the focus of the chapter, and as an introduction to these opinions al-Bīrūnī embarks on a complex series of comparisons involving texts and concepts of the classical Greece, the sufi tradition, as well as of the Hebrew, Christian, and Manichean doctrines. Such comparisons attest not only al-Birūnī’s linguistic skills and broad knowledge of multifarious religious traditions, but also his endeavour to include elements of the Sanscrit heritage in the intellectual context of the Islam of his age.