Page "Participant observation" Paragraph 1

According to Ahmed S. Akbar, participant observation has its roots in anthropology and its use as a methodology can be attributed to Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī ( 973-1048 ), a Persian anthropologist who carried out extensive, personal investigations of the peoples, customs and religions of the Indian subcontinent.

Like modern anthropologists, he engaged in extensive participant observation with a given group of people, learned their language and studied their primary texts, and presented his findings with objectivity and neutrality using cross-cultural comparisons.