Which of the following historians noted the insular attitude of the learned people of India during the Medieval Period?

• Al-Biruni was a noted scientist and scholar from Central Asia, who lived in India for about ten years, during the early part of the eleventh century.

• Although a great admirer of Indian science and learning, Al-Biruni noted the insular attitude of the learned people of the country, viz., the Brahmans. He says: ‘They are haughty, foolish, vain, self-conceited and stolid. They are, by nature, niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigners. According to their belief, no other created beings besides them have any knowledge of science whatsoever”.