The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History

In 1377 CE, the North African scholar Ibn Khaldun finished his Introduction (The Muqaddimah) to his universal History (Kitâb al-‘Ibar), arguably the greatest example of Muslim historiography (writing about history) before the modern era. Ibn Khaldun combined the practical experience of a statesman and jurist with years of research to create a work that broke new ground in considering historiography as a unique discipline with its own rules (particularly for evaluating evidence) and with the goal of understanding why society changes over time. In the process, he made new breakthroughs in what are now the disciplines of sociology and economics.

Over the next four years, he would finish his three-part Kitâb al-‘Ibar by adding books to The Muqaddimah that applied his theories to narrating and analyzing the entire history of Arab, “Berber” (contemporary Imazighen), and neighboring peoples. While his ideas overlap with many later developments in Western scholarship, his theories remain original and firmly rooted in the assumptions and insights of his own culture. In this way, Ibn Khaldun’s work offers insight into the dynamic Muslim intellectual world of the Maghrib (North Africa) and the “Near East” (a term that generally encompasses the geography and cultures of Southwest Asia and the East Mediterranean) while reflecting on the nature of historiography and human society.