 It was first identified as at Crimea-Nauchnij in 1981, extending the body's observation arc by 5 years prior to its official discovery at Rozhen.A rotational lightcurve of "Al-Biruni" was obtained from photometric observations made at the U.S. Goodsell Observatory (), Minnesota, in August 2002.The lightcurve gave a rotation period of hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.14 in magnitude ()

According to the space-based surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, "Al-Biruni" measures between 23.9 and 27.8 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has a corresponding albedo of 0.048 to 0.065.