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The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups and individuals including anthropology, communication studies, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, and sociology. The word "science" is older than its modern use. Through the influence of positivism, the word has become a short-form for "natural science". It is a recent development that society has become the object of an organized body of knowledge which can be standardized and taught objectively, while following its own rules and methodology. In ancient philosophy, there was no difference between mathematics and the study of history, poetry or politics.[citation needed] Only with the development of mathematical proof did there gradually arise a perceived difference between "scientific" disciplines and others. Thus, Aristotle studied planetary motion and poetry with the same methods, and Plato mixes geometrical proofs with his demonstration on the state of intrinsic knowledge. Significant contributions to the social sciences were made by Muslim scientists in the Islamic civilization. Al-Biruni (973–1048) has been called "the first anthropologist".[1] He wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of peoples, religions and cultures in the Middle East, Mediterranean and South Asia. Al-Biruni's anthropology of religion was only possible for a scholar deeply immersed in the lore of other nations.[2] Biruni has also been praised by several scholars for his Islamic anthropology).[3]
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