The Prolegomena of Ibn Khaldun are in many ways the most remarkable manifestation of Islamic philosophical thought. Not only did Ibn Khaldun sum up the accumulated knowledge and leading doctrines of his civilisation, but in many fields he broke new ground and anticipated the findings of Western social scientists of the last two centuries. The passages have been grouped to illustrate Ibn Khaldun…
This book, first published in 1957, is the study of 14th-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who founded a special science to consider history and culture, based on the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and their Muslim followers. In no other field has the revolt of modern Western thought against traditional philosophy been so far-reaching in its consequences as in the field of history. Ibn Kha…
The writings of Ibn Khaldūn, particularly the Muqaddimah (Prolegomenon) have rightly been regarded as being sociological in nature. For this reason, Ibn Khaldūn has been widely regarded as the founder of sociology, or at least a precursor of modern sociology. While he was given this recognition, however, few works went beyond proclaiming him as a founder or precursor to the systematic applica…