Ibn Khaldun

Abdurrahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun (732-808 AH / 1332-1406 CE) was a Maliki jurist, historian, and social thinker who is widely regarded as the founder of the modern disciplines of historiography, sociology, and economics. Born in Tunis to a family of Andalusian origin that had long served in government and scholarship, he received a thorough classical education in the Islamic sciences before entering the turbulent world of North African and Iberian politics.

Ibn Khaldun's masterpiece is the Muqaddimah (Introduction), originally written as the first volume of his larger universal history, Kitab al-Ibar. The Muqaddimah is a groundbreaking work that analyzes the rise and fall of civilizations, the nature of political authority, the role of group solidarity (asabiyyah) in state formation, the cyclical patterns of dynastic power, and the economic foundations of society. His theory that civilizations follow predictable patterns of growth, maturity, and decline was centuries ahead of its time and anticipated many concepts of modern social science. The work also contains penetrating analyses of education, economics, and the classification of the sciences.

Ibn Khaldun served as a judge, diplomat, and political advisor in Tunis, Fez, Granada, and Cairo, where he spent his final years as the Maliki chief judge. He even met Tamerlane (Timur) during the Mongol siege of Damascus in 803 AH (1401 CE). He died in Cairo in 808 AH (1406 CE). His Muqaddimah has been translated into most major languages and is studied across the world as a foundational text in social science, philosophy of history, and Islamic intellectual history.