Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun (full name, Arabic: أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي , Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥmān bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn Al-Ḥaḍrami, May 27, 1332 AD/732 AH – March 19, 1406 AD/808 AH) was a Muslim historiographer and historian who is often viewed as one of the forerunners of modern historiography,[n 1] sociology[n 1] and economics[1][n 2].
He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in English), which was discovered, evaluated and fully appreciated first by 19th century European scholarship,[2] although it has also had considerable influence on 17th-century Ottoman historians like Ḥajjī Khalīfa and Mustafa Naima who relied on his theories to analyze the growth and decline of the Ottoman empire.[3] Later in the 19th century, Western scholars recognized him as one of the greatest philosophers to come out of the Muslim world.[4]
Ibn Khaldun's life is relatively well-documented, as he wrote an autobiography (التعريف بابن خلدون ورحلته غربا وشرقا; Al-Taʻrīf bi Ibn-Khaldūn wa Riħlatuhu Gharbān wa Sharqān[5]) in which numerous documents regarding his life are quoted word-for-word. However, the autobiography has little to say about his private life, so little is known about his family background. Generally known as "Ibn Khaldūn" after a remote ancestor, he was born in Tunis in AD 1332 (732 A.H.) into an upper-class Andalusian family, the Banū Khaldūn. His family, which held many high offices in Andalusia, had emigrated to Tunisia after the fall of Seville to Reconquista forces around the middle of the 13th century. Under the Tunisian Hafsid dynasty some of his family held political office; Ibn Khaldūn's father and grandfather however withdrew from political life and joined a mystical order. His brother, Yahya Ibn Khaldun, was also a historian who wrote a book on the Abdalwadid dynasty, and who was assassinated by a rival for being the official historiographer of the court.[6]
In his autobiography, Ibn Khaldun traces his descent back to the time of Muhammad through an Arab tribe from Yemen, specifically Hadhramaut, which came to Spain in the eighth century at the beginning of the Islamic conquest. In his own words: "And our ancestry is from Hadhramaut, from the Arabs of Yemen, via Wa'il ibn Hajar, from the best of the Arabs, well-known and respected." (p. 2429, Al-Waraq's edition). However, the biographer Mohammad Enan questions his claim, suggesting that his family may have been Muladis who pretended to be of Arab origin in order to gain social status.[7] Enan also mentions a well documented past tradition, concerning certain Berber groups, whereby they delusively "aggrandize" themselves with some Arab ancestry. The motive of such an invention was always the desire for political and societal ascendancy. Some speculate this of the Khaldun family; they elaborate that Ibn Khaldun himself was the product of the same Berber ancestry as the native majority of his birthplace. A point congenial to this posits that Ibn Khaldun's unusual written focus on, and admiration for Berbers reveals a deference towards them that is born of a vested interest in preserving them in the realm of conscious history; such is that which the true Arabs of his day would find no enthusiasm for and indeed a vested interest in suppressing. Moreover the special position that he affords Berbers in his work is fully vindicated upon comparing it with his vitriolic attitudes towards the Arab, and his relative disinterest in the state of affairs outside the Maghreb. In contrast, Muhammad Hozien chooses to believe: "The false [Berber] identity would be valid however at the time that Ibn Khaldun’s ancestors left Andalusia and moved to Tunisia they did not change their claim to Arab ancestry. Even in the times when Berbers were ruling in Al-Andalus, the reigns of Almoravids and Almohads, the Ibn Khalduns did not reclaim their Berber heritage.".[8] This point ignores the aforementioned phenomenon of adopting an Arab ancestry to garner prestige.
His family's high rank enabled Ibn Khaldun to study with the best teachers in Maghreb. He received a classical Islamic education, studying the Qur'an which he memorized by heart, Arabic linguistics, the basis for an understanding of the Qur'an, hadith, sharia (law) and fiqh (jurisprudence). He received certification (ijazah) for all these subjects.[9] The mystic, mathematician and philosopher, Al-Abili of Tlemcen, introduced him to mathematics, logic and philosophy, where he above all studied the works of Averroes, Avicenna, Razi and Tusi. At the age of 17, Ibn Khaldūn lost both his parents to the Black Death, an intercontinental epidemic of the plague that hit Tunis in 1348–1349.
Following family tradition, Ibn Khaldūn strove for a political career. In the face of a tumultuous political situation in North Africa, this required a high degree of skill developing and dropping alliances prudently, to avoid falling with the short-lived regimes of the time. Ibn Khaldūn's autobiography is the story of an adventure, in which he spends time in prison, reaches the highest offices and falls again into exile.
At the age of 20, he began his political career at the Chancellery of the Tunisian ruler Ibn Tafrakin with the position of Kātib al-'Alāmah, which consisted of writing in fine calligraphy the typical introductory notes of official documents. In 1352, Abū Ziad, the Sultan of Constantine, marched on Tunis and defeated it. Ibn Khaldūn, in any case unhappy with his respected but politically meaningless position, followed his teacher Abili to Fez. Here the Marinid sultan Abū Inan Fares I appointed him as a writer of royal proclamations, which didn't prevent Ibn Khaldūn from scheming against his employer. In 1357 this brought the 25-year-old a 22-month prison sentence. Upon the death of Abū Inan in 1358, the vizier al-Hasān ibn-Umar granted him freedom and reinstated him in his rank and offices. Ibn Khaldūn then schemed against Abū Inan's successor, Abū Salem Ibrahim III, with Abū Salem's exiled uncle, Abū Salem. When Abū Salem came to power, he gave Ibn Khaldūn a ministerial position, the first position which corresponded with Ibn Khaldūn's ambitions.
The treatment Ibn Khaldun received after the fall of Abū Salem through Ibn-Amar ʻAbdullah, a friend of Ibn Khaldūn's, was not to his liking, he received no significant official position. At the same time, Amar successfully prevented Ibn Khaldūn – whose political skills he was well aware of – from allying with the Abd al-Wadids in Tlemcen. Ibn Khaldūn therefore decided to move to Granada. He could be sure of a positive welcome there, since at Fez he had helped the Sultan of Granada, the Nasrid Muhammad V, regain power from his temporary exile. In 1364 Muhammad entrusted him with a diplomatic mission to the King of Castile, Pedro the Cruel, to endorse a peace treaty. Ibn Khaldūn successfully carried out this mission, and politely declined Pedro's offer to remain at his court and have his family's Spanish possessions returned to him.
In Granada, Ibn Khaldūn quickly came into competition with Muhammad's vizier, Ibn al-Khatib, who saw the close relationship between Muhammad and Ibn Khaldūn with increasing mistrust. Ibn Khaldūn tried to shape the young Muhammad into his ideal of a wise ruler, an enterprise which Ibn al-Khatib thought foolish and a danger to peace in the country – and history proved him right. At al-Khatib's instigation, Ibn Khaldūn was eventually sent back to North Africa. Al-Khatib himself was later accused by Muhammad of having unorthodox philosophical views, and murdered, despite an attempt by Ibn Khaldūn to intercede on behalf of his old rival.
In his autobiography, Ibn Khaldūn tells us little about his conflict with Ibn al-Khatib and the reasons for his departure. The orientalist Muhsin Mahdi interprets this as showing that Ibn Khaldūn later realised that he had completely misjudged Muhammad V.
Back in Africa, the Hafsid sultan of Bougie, Abū ʻAbdallāh, (who had been his companion in prison) received him with great enthusiasm, and made Ibn Khaldūn his prime minister. During this period, Ibn Khaldūn carried out a daring mission to collect taxes among the local Berber tribes. After the death of Abū ʻAbdallāh in 1366, Ibn Khaldūn changed sides once again and allied himself with the ruler of Tlemcen, Abū l-Abbas. A few years later he was taken prisoner by ʻAbdu l-Azīz, who had defeated the sultan of Tlemcen and seized the throne. He then entered a monastic establishment, and occupied himself with scholastic duties, until in 1370 he was sent for to Tlemcen by the new sultan. After the death of ʻAbdu l-Azīz, he resided at Fez, enjoying the patronage and confidence of the regent.
Ibn Khaldūn's political skills, above all his good relationship with the wild Berber tribes, were in high demand among the North African rulers, whereas he himself began to tire of politics and constant switching of allegiances. In 1375, sent by Abū Hammu, the ʻAbdu l Wadid Sultan of Tlemcen, on a mission to the Dawadida Arabs tribes of Biskra. Thereafter Ibn Khaldūn returns to the West sought refuge with one of the Berber tribes, in the west of Algeria, in the town of Qalat Ibn Salama. He lived there for over three years under their protection, taking advantage of his seclusion to write the Muqaddimah "Prolegomena", the introduction to his planned history of the world. In Ibn Salama, however, he lacked the necessary texts to complete the work. As a result, in 1378, he returned to his native Tunis, which in the mean time had been conquered by Abū l-Abbas, who took Ibn Khaldūn back into his service. There he devoted himself almost exclusively to his studies and completed his history of the world. His relationship with Abū l-Abbas remained strained, as the latter questioned his loyalty. This was brought into sharp contrast after Ibn Khaldūn presented him with a copy of the completed history omitting the usual panegyric to the ruler. Under pretence of going on the Hajj to Mecca – something a Muslim ruler could not simply refuse permission for – Ibn Khaldūn was able to leave Tunis and sail to Alexandria.
Ibn Khaldun said of Egypt, "He who has not seen it does not know the power of Islam." While other Islamic regions had to cope with border wars and inner strife, under the Mamluks Egypt experienced a period of economic prosperity and high culture. However, even in Egypt, where Ibn Khaldūn lived out his days, he could not stay out of politics completely. In 1384 the Egyptian Sultan, al-Malik udh-Dhahir Barquq, made him Professor of the Qamhiyyah Madrasah, and grand Qadi of the Maliki school of fiqh (one of four schools, the Maliki school was widespread primarily in West Africa). His efforts at reform encountered resistance, however, and within a year he had to resign his judgeship. A contributory factor to his decision to resign may have been the heavy personal blow that struck him in 1384, when a ship carrying his wife and children sank off the coast of Alexandria. Ibn Khaldun now decided to complete the pilgrimage to Makkah after all.
After his return in May 1388, Ibn Khaldūn concentrated more strongly on a purely educational function at various Cairo madrasas. At court he fell out of favor for a time, as during revolts against Barquq he had – apparently under duress – together with other Cairo jurists issued a Fatwa against Barquq. Later relations with Barquq returned to normal, and he was once again named the Maliki qadi. Altogether he was called six times to this high office, which for various reasons he never held long.
In 1401, under Barquq's successor, his son Faraj, Ibn Khaldūn took part in a military campaign against the Mongol conqueror Timur, who besieged Damascus. Ibn Khaldūn cast doubt upon the viability of the venture and didn't really want to leave Egypt. His doubts were vindicated, as the young and inexperienced Faraj, concerned about a revolt in Egypt, left his army to its own devices in Syria and hurried home. Ibn Khaldūn remained at the besieged city for seven weeks, being lowered over the city wall by ropes in order to negotiate with Timur, in a historic series of meetings which he reports extensively in his autobiography. Timur questioned him in detail about conditions in the lands of the Maghreb; at his request, Ibn Khaldūn even wrote a long report about it. As he recognized the intentions behind this, he did not hesitate, on his return to Egypt, to compose an equally extensive report on the history of the Tartars, together with a character study of Timur, sending these to the Merinid rulers in Fez (Maghreb).
Ibn Khaldūn spent the following five years in Cairo completing his autobiography and his history of the world and acting as teacher and judge. During this time he is alleged to have joined an underground party named Rijal Hawa Rijal. Their reform oriented ideals attracted the attention of local political authorities and the elderly Ibn Khaldun was placed under arrest. He died on 19 March 1406, one month after his sixth selection for the office of the Maliki qadi (Judge).
| When civilization [population] increases, the available labor again increases. In turn, luxury again increases in correspondence with the increasing profit, and the customs and needs of luxury increase. Crafts are created to obtain luxury products. The value realized from them increases, and, as a result, profits are again multiplied in the town. Production there is thriving even more than before. And so it goes with the second and third increase. All the additional labor serves luxury and wealth, in contrast to the original labor that served the necessity of life.[10] |
| Ibn Khaldun on economic growth |
Ibn Khaldūn has left behind few works other than his history of the world, al-Kitābu l-ʻibār. Significantly, such writings are not alluded to in his autobiography, suggesting perhaps that Ibn Khaldūn saw himself first and foremost as a historian and wanted to be known above all as the author of al-Kitābu l-ʻibār. From other sources we know of several other works, primarily composed during the time he spent in North Africa and Al-Andalus. His first book, Lubābu l-Muhassal, a commentary on the Islamic theology of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, was written at the age of 19 under the supervision of his teacher al-Ābilī in Tunis. A work on Sufism, Sifā'u l-Sā'il, was composed around 1373 in Fes, Morocco. Whilst at the court of Muhammed V, Sultan of Granada, Ibn Khaldūn composed a work on logic, ʻallaqa li-l-Sultān.
The Kitābu l-ʻibār (full title: Kitābu l-ʻibār wa Diwānu l-Mubtada' wa l-Ħabar fī tarikhi l-ʻarab wa l-Barbar wa man ʻĀsarahum min Đawī Ash-Sha'n l-Akbār "Book of lessons, Record of Beginnings and Events in the history of the Arabs and Berbers and their Powerful Contemporaries"), Ibn Khaldūn's main work, was originally conceived as a history of the Berbers. Later, the focus was widened so that in its final form (including its own methodology and anthropology), to represent a so-called "universal history". It is divided into seven books, the first of which, the Muqaddimah, can be considered a separate work. Books two to five cover the history of mankind up to the time of Ibn Khaldūn. Books six and seven cover the history of the Berber peoples and the Maghreb, which remain invaluable to present-day historians, as they are based on Ibn Khaldūn's personal knowledge of the Berbers.[11]
| Businesses owned by responsible and organized merchants shall eventually surpass those owned by wealthy rulers.[10] |
| Ibn Khaldun on economic growth and the ideals of Platonism |
Concerning the discipline of sociology, he conceived a theory of social conflict. He developed the dichotomy of sedentary life versus nomadic life as well as the concept of a "generation," and the inevitable loss of power that occurs when desert warriors conquer a city. Following a contemporary Arab scholar, Sati' al-Husri, the Muqaddimah may be read as a sociological work: six books of general sociology. Topics dealt with in this work include politics, urban life, economics, and knowledge. The work is based around Ibn Khaldun's central concept of 'asabiyyah, which has been translated as "social cohesion", "group solidarity", or "tribalism". This social cohesion arises spontaneously in tribes and other small kinship groups; it can be intensified and enlarged by a religious ideology. Ibn Khaldun's analysis looks at how this cohesion carries groups to power but contains within itself the seeds – psychological, sociological, economic, political – of the group's downfall, to be replaced by a new group, dynasty or empire bound by a stronger (or at least younger and more vigorous) cohesion. Ibn Khaldun has been cited as a racist, but his theories on the rise and fall of empires had no racial component, and this reading of his work has been claimed to be the result of mistranslations.[12]
Perhaps the most frequently cited observation drawn from Ibn Khaldūn's work is the notion that when a society becomes a great civilization (and, presumably, the dominant culture in its region), its high point is followed by a period of decay. This means that the next cohesive group that conquers the diminished civilization is, by comparison, a group of barbarians. Once the barbarians solidify their control over the conquered society, however, they become attracted to its more refined aspects, such as literacy and arts, and either assimilate into or appropriate such cultural practices. Then, eventually, the former barbarians will be conquered by a new set of barbarians, who will repeat the process. Some contemporary readers of Khaldun have read this as an early business cycle theory, though set in the historical circumstances of the mature Islamic empire.
Ibn Khaldun's outlines an early (possibly even the earliest) example of political economy. He describes the economy as being composed of value-adding processes; that is, labour and skill is added to techniques and crafts and the product is sold at a higher value. He also made the distinction between "profit" and "sustenance", in modern political economy terms, surplus and that required for the reproduction of classes respectively. He also calls for the creation of a science to explain society and goes on to outline these ideas in his major work the Muqaddimah.
Ibn Khaldun was also known for his work Tahrir al Ahkam fi Tadbeer ahl al Islam, which is concerned with questions of political legitimacy in Islamic societies.
Ibn Khaldun was first brought to the attention of the Western world in 1697, when a biography of him appeared in Barthélemy d'Herbelot de Molainville's Bibliothèque Orientale. Ibn Khaldun began gaining more attention from 1806, when Silvestre de Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe included his biography together with a translation of parts of the Muqaddimah as the Prolegomena.[13] In 1816, de Sacy again published a biography with a more detailed description on the Prolegomena.[14] More details on and partial translations of the Prolegomena emerged over the years until the complete Arabic edition was published in 1858, followed by a complete French translation a few years later by de Sacy.[15] Since then, the work of Ibn Khaldun has been extensively studied in the Western world with special interest.[16]
- The British philosopher Robert Flint wrote the following on Ibn Khaldun: "...as a theorist of history he had no equal in any age or country until Vico appeared, more than three hundred years later. Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine were not his peers, and all others were unworthy of being even mentioned along with him".
- Abderrahmane Lakhsassi writes: "No historian of the Maghreb since and particularly of the Berbers can do without his historical contribution."[18]
- The British philosopher-anthropologist Ernest Gellner considered Ibn Khaldun's definition of government, "an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself", the best in the history of political theory.[19]
- Egon Orowan, who termed the concept of socionomy, was influenced by Ibn Khaldun's ideas on the evolution of societies.[20]
- In 2006, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation launched an annual essay contest [1][dead link] for Muslim students named in Ibn Khaldun's honor. The theme of the contest is "how individuals, think tanks, universities and entrepreneurs can influence government policies to allow the free market to flourish and improve the lives of its citizens based on Islamic teachings and traditions."
- In 2006, Spain commemorated the 600th anniversary of the death of Ibn Khaldun. [2]
- Notes
- ^ a b
- "...regarded by some Westerners as the true father of historiography and sociology".[22]
- "Ibn Khaldun has been claimed the forerunner of a great number of European thinkers, mostly sociologists, historians, and philosophers".(Boulakia 1971)
- "The founding father of Eastern Sociology".[23]
- "This grand scheme to find a new science of society makes him the forerunner of many of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries system-builders such as Vico, Comte and Marx." "As one of the early founders of the social sciences...".[24]
- ^
- "Ibn Khaldun is the forerunner of many economists, he is an accident of history and has had no consequence on the evolution of economic thought...His name should figure among the fathers of economic science".(Boulakia 1971)
- "He is considered by some as a father of modern economics, or at least a major forerunner. The Western world recognizes Khaldun as the father of sociology but hesitates in recognizing him as a great economist who laid its very foundations. He was the first to systematically analyze the functioning of an economy, the importance of technology, specialization and foreign trade in economic surplus and the role of government and its stabilization policies to increase output and employment. Moreover, he dealt with the problem of optimum taxation, minimum government services, incentives, institutional framework, law and order, expectations, production, and the theory of value".Cosma, Sorinel (2009). "Ibn Khaldun's Economic Thinking". Ovidius University Annals of Economics (Ovidius University Press) XIV:52–57
- Citations
- ^ • Joseph J. Spengler (1964). "Economic Thought of Islam: Ibn Khaldun," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 6(3), pp. 268-306.
• Jean David C. Boulakia (1971). "Ibn Khaldûn: A Fourteenth-Century Economist," Journal of Political Economy, 79(5), pp. 1105-1118.
- ^ Bernard Lewis: "Ibn Khaldun in Turkey", in: Ibn Khaldun: The Mediterranean in the 14th Century: Rise and Fall of Empires, Foundation El Legado Andalusí, 2006, ISBN 978-84-96556-34-8, pp. 376–380 (376)
- ^ Lewis, Bernard (1986). "Ibn Khaldūn in Turkey". In Ayalon, David; Sharon, Moshe. Studies in Islamic history and civilization: in honour of Professor David Ayalon. BRILL. pp. 527–530. ISBN 978-965-264-014-7
- ^ S. M. Deen (2007) "Science under Islam: rise, decline and revival". p.157. ISBN 1-84799-942-5
- ^ Published by Muħammad ibn-Tāwīt at-Tanjī, Cairo 1951
- ^ (French) « Lettre à Monsieur Garcin de Tassy », Journal asiatique, troisième série, tome XII, éd. Société asiatique, Paris, 1841, p. 491
- ^ A., Ibn Khaldun: His life and Works for Mohammad Enan
- ^ IBN KHALDUN: His Life and Work by Muhammad Hozien
- ^ Muhammad Hozien. "Ibn Khaldun: His Life and Work". Islamic Philosophy Online. http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/klf.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-19.
- ^ a b Muqaddimah 2:272–73 quoted in Weiss (1995) p 30
- ^ Recently there has been a tendency to modify this view. Ibn Khaldun relied not just on his own research, but for the history of the Berber tribes utilized a large number of written sources including some of poor quality (e.g. the Rawd al-Qirtas). He has been criticised for often presenting only a synthesis of multiple (sometimes contradictory) sources where a more careful historian such as ar-Raqiq or al-Maliki would always give the original texts before pronouncing an opinion. See articles by Modéran and Benabbès in Identités et Cultures dans l'Algérie Antique, University of Rouen, 2005 (ISBN 2-87775-391-3). This criticism applies only to his factual work, not to the theoretical parts like the Muqaddimah
- ^ http://www.jstor.org/pss/3590803 Translation and the Colonial Imaginary: Ibn Khaldun Orientalist, by Abdelmajid Hannoum © 2003 Wesleyan University.
- ^ Enan, Muhammed Abdullah (2007). Ibn Khaldun: His Life and Works. The Other Press. p. 118. ISBN 983-9541-53-6
- ^ Enan, Muhammed Abdullah (2007). Ibn Khaldun: His Life and Works. The Other Press. pp. 118–9. ISBN 983-9541-53-6
- ^ Enan, Muhammed Abdullah (2007). Ibn Khaldun: His Life and Works. The Other Press. p. 119. ISBN 983-9541-53-6
- ^ Enan, Muhammed Abdullah (2007). Ibn Khaldun: His Life and Works. The Other Press. pp. 119–20. ISBN 983-9541-53-6
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 9, p. 148.
- ^ Lakhsassi, A. (1996) 'Ibn Khaldun', in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge, ch. 25, 350–64. ... http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H024.htm
- ^ Ernest Gellner, Plough, Sword and Book (1988), p. 239
- ^ * Egon Orowan. 1901–1989. A Biographical Memoir by F.R.N. Nabarro and A. S. Argon. 1996. National Academies Press. Washington D.C.
- ^ Arthur Laffer (June 1, 2004). "The Laffer Cruve, Past, Present and Future". Heritage Foundation. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg1765.cfm. Retrieved 2007-12-11.
- ^ Gates, Warren E. (1967). "The Spread of Ibn Khaldûn's Ideas on Climate and Culture". Journal of the History of Ideas (University of Pennsylvania Press) 28 (3): 415–422. DOI:10.2307/2708627.
- ^ Dhaouadi, M. (1 September 1990). "IBN KHALDUN: THE FOUNDING FATHER OF EASTERN SOCIOLOGY". International Sociology 5 (3): 319–335. DOI:10.1177/026858090005003007.
- ^ Haddad, L. (1 May 1977). "A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT". Kyklos 30 (2): 195–213. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-6435.1977.tb02006.x.
- Bibliography
- Fuad Baali. 2005 The science of human social organization : Conflicting views on Ibn Khaldun's (1332–1406) Ilm al-umran. Mellen studies in sociology. Lewiston/NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
- Walter Fischel. 1967 Ibn Khaldun in Egypt : His public functions and his historical research, 1382–1406; a study in Islamic historiography. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Ibn Khaldun. 1951 التعريف بإبن خلدون ورحلته غربا وشرقا Al-Taʻrīf bi Ibn-Khaldūn wa Riħlatuhu Gharbān wa Sharqān. Published by Muħammad ibn-Tāwīt at-Tanjī. Cairo (Autobiography in Arabic).
- Ibn Khaldūn. 1958 The Muqaddimah : An introduction to history. Translated from the Arabic by Franz Rosenthal. 3 vols. New York: Princeton.
- Ibn Khaldūn. 1967 The Muqaddimah : An introduction to history. Trans. Franz Rosenthal, ed. N.J. Dawood. (Abridged).
- Mahmoud Rabi'. 1967 The political theory of Ibn Khaldun. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
- Róbert Simon. 2002 Ibn Khaldūn : History as science and the patrimonial empire. Translated by Klára Pogátsa. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Original edition, 1999.
- Allen Fromherz. 2010 "Ibn Khaldun : Life and Times". Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
| Persondata |
| Name |
Ibn Khaldun |
| Alternative names |
Ḥaḍramī, Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥman ibn Muḥammad ibn Khaldūn al- (full name, strict transliteration); ابو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي (Arabic) |
| Short description |
historian |
| Date of birth |
May 27, 1332 |
| Place of birth |
Tunis, Tunisia |
| Date of death |
March 19, 1406 |
| Place of death |
Cairo, Egypt? |
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