Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldun set out his philosophy of history in the Muqaddimah — the Introduction — and the assessment of it by the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee is the one most often quoted: "undoubtedly, the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place."

What He Actually Did

Before him, history was chronicle: this king reigned, this battle was fought, this city fell. Ibn Khaldun asked a different question — why do civilizations rise, hold together, and then come apart? — and he answered it by looking at social cohesion, economics, geography and the effects of prosperity on a ruling group.

That shift is why Europeans later dubbed him both the Father of Sociology and the Father of Economics. He was doing social science several centuries before the disciplines had names.

What This Book Is

An accessible introduction rather than the Muqaddimah itself — the life, the times, and enough of the thinking to make a reader understand why the claims made for him are not exaggerated.

Who It Is For

Older students and general readers. Anyone who has met the name and never understood the fuss. Also useful for Muslim students in the social sciences, who are rarely told that a foundational figure in their subject came from their own tradition.

Related Reading

• Book of Ibns — the wider circle of Muslim scholars, for young readers
• Science and Technology in Islamic History — the science and technology of the same civilization
• Atlas of the Islamic Conquests — the history he was writing about, mapped