Product Description
14th-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun founded a special science to deal with the problem of history and culture based on the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle and their Muslim followers. This work examines the philosophic foundation and principles of Ibn Khaldun's new science of culture, to show that an adequate understanding of his contribution to the study of the various aspects of human society requires an understanding of his all-comprehensive approach to sociology. ... Read more

Book Description

The Muqaddimah, often translated as "Introduction" or "Prolegomenon," is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406), this monumental work laid down the foundations of several fields of knowledge, including philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and economics. The first complete English translation, by the eminent Islamicist and interpreter of Arabic literature Franz Rosenthal, was published in three volumes in 1958 as part of the Bollingen Series and received immediate acclaim in America and abroad. A one-volume abridged version of Rosenthal's masterful translation was first published in 1969.

This new edition of the abridged version, with the addition of a key section of Rosenthal's own introduction to the three-volume edition, and with a new introduction by Bruce B. Lawrence, will reintroduce this seminal work to twenty-first-century students and scholars of Islam and of medieval and ancient history.

Customer Reviews (19)

great book, good price
it arrived fast, in mint condition, and it is a great book that I plan to keep. thanks

A Must Read
This book is of true worth to anyone interested in sociology, history , art and religion. It offers a unique medeival perspective on many fields of knowledge. It iswell-written and highly organized which makes it highly accessible and apprehendible. Ibn Khaldoun was a great Islamic scholar in the Middle Ages. He uses al Muqqadimah to offer a variety of explanations to social phenomena and historical events. The conclusions he draws are of a high philoshpical value, well-reasoned, and most of which could be efficaciously applied to the modern world. At many instances you will be amazed how this man, who lived centuries ago, knew so much about the modern world we live in. The chapters discussing poetry and magic are especially interesting. This is by no means one of the greates books ever written.

The first work of historiography ever written.
The first work of historiography ever written. ibn Khaldûn is the sanest kind of Aristotelian, a Sufi, and a very unique rationalist in that for him, men and djinn coexist. His theory of history is fascinating, and greatly informs my view of the 21st century. For him, the human world is divided into wild people, and civilized people; for him, the Bedouin and the medieval urban Muslim are the two polar extremes. The city people generate wealth, culture, technology, and reason. They lose their moral fiber through decadent living, and become fat, weak, lazy, and sinful. Meanwhile, the wild people are hungry, wiry and pious. They are closer to God because they do not have the distractions the city people do. Eventually, the wild people sack the cities. Their genetic stock fortifies the indolent urban gene pool, their piety reinvigorates the religious life of the city, and their austerity reforms the city. On the other hand, the town people teach reason, science, technology and culture to the wild people, and get them to be less savage and cruel. After a few generations, the invaders and the urbans are indistinguishable from each other, and a new crop of wild people come and sack the cities. This is the cycle of history. Very compelling.

Dated in ways, but nonetheless carries some core truths
You can chisel out the sections on temperature and race, temperature and behavior, for these are silly and offensive.He compares Sub-Saharan Africans as just a hair above dumb animals, and he slams Arabs and Bedouin in other ways.However, his sections on economics and social politics are still valid, and he was a pioneer in areas that other Westerners tend to get credit for.

Before Adam Smith outlined the need for "Specialized labor" in a commercial society, there was Ibn Khaldun.Khaldun wrote of the pivotal role of "crafts" and specialization of crafts in a functioning human society.He even suggests that skills in crafts are limited, that is, if you're a master shoe-maker you in all likelihood won't be a master farmer.Therefore, master shoe-makers should make as many shoes as they can and farmers should farm as they can, so as to produce as many goods between the two of them than if they shared their time doing both.Before there was Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises, Ibn Khaldun implied the need for Rule of Law.Khaldun chastized the Bedouin who disrupted the social order through their raids, and sent the craftsmen packing.Some sort of consistent legal standard and social order is needed to ensure that specialized labor has the ability to perform its "crafts".Before there was Reaganomics and Arthur Laffer, there was Ibn Khaldun.You want more tax revenue?Cut taxes, which provides incentive for people to work harder and expand their enterprises.More business, more economic growth, more tax revenue.High taxes deter enterprise and shrinks tax revenue.Arthur Laffer?Yes, but Ibn Khaldun 300+ years earlier.

The issue Khaldun is most known for is "squadness", Group Feeling, Group Narcissism, Tribalism, whatever you wish to call it.Governments and regimes come and go based on the strength of the leaders to appeal to group cohesion.This could be religious, blood, nationalist, whatever, but regimes need ideological cohesion in order to survive.Once that group feeling is lost, the regime becomes weak and conquerable if not self destructive.Multiculturalism and Postmodernism would be signs of cultural disorder and eventual social crumbling to Ibn Khaldun.Crane Brinton, Erich Fromm, Erik Hoffer all touched on the "Group Feeling" themes in their own works, in different ways and emphases, and in many ways did it better (they had more historical examples to pull from, since history has dramatically accelerated since Khaldun's time), nonetheless, Khaldun was the one who first articulated this concept of political and social (dis)order.

Not for Everyone
Arnold Toynbee described this book as " Undoutedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever been created by any mind in any time or place ..." That is what convinced me to read the book, but I don't think it is for everyone.

In addition to being the "earliest critical study of history", the book is truely encyclopedic, coverying sociology, culture, theology, and economics , in addition to history. It covers the rise and fall of dynasties and civilizations ( you can see why Toynbee liked it), the necessary conditions for civilization to arise and what determines the level of civilization that will be achieved by a given population.

To pick one topic on which I have some backgroud, economics , the author sucessfully analyzes the effect of demand and supply on prices, the effect of population growth on the economy, the effect of low stable prices on commerce, and the different ways merchants make profits. All, long before these were understood in Western Europe. He also presents the case for Supply Side Economics ( the proposition that raising taxes will result in lower revenue) 600 years before Art Laffer and Ronald Reagan.

Although he refers frquently to God, Muhammad, and the Qur'an (Koran), and has an entire section devoted to theology , his approach is consistently analytical rather than religious. In many was he is influenced by Aristotle, whom he quotes favorably several times.

Unfortunately I found this a difficult book to read. Although I realize that the book has tremendous historical importance, and was highly original at the time it was written , reading it in the 21st Century I found much of the theory of history to be obvious. Not being familiar with Muslim history , I found many of his examples to be incomprehensible. Lacking a knowledge of MedeivalMuslim society and culture, I found much of the institutional discussion to lack content and therefore interest.

I'm sure that for someone better read on early Muslim history and society, this is a great book.But if you are not, I do not reccomend it. ... Read more

Product Description
Study of Ibn Khaldun, 14th century Arab historian. ... Read more

Book Description
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 civilization, 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's views on

Historical Method

Geography

Economics

Public Finance

Population

Society and State

Religion and Politics

Knowledge and Society

The Theory of Being

The Theory of Knowledge

This translation is intended for students of thought, rather than specialized Arabic scholars, and for those interested in the intellectual background of the Arab world.

First published in 1950 and reprinted several times, this revision contains a new chapter and a thoroughly revised and updated bibliography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The most original of all philosophers
Khaldum was an amazing person. Preceeding Machiavelli by 300 years he ismore profound, more knowledgable and better read than the great Italianprince.Add to this the fact that Machiavelli comes from the Renaissancewith all that that indicates while Kaldum came from a civilization that was- at the very least - morbund.How to account for such a book from such atime?He was hounded by his own time and neglected by later ages.

Ifyou do not read Khaldum your knowledge of the subject is sadly lacking. ... Read more

Book Description
Within a short compass, the book gives a fair indication of Ibn Khaldun's patterns of thought and meassures, their historic worth, comparing them with the heritage of later scholars and philosophers. The present work gives in popular language a full review of Ibn Khaldun's life from original sources and an analysis of his worth. It abounds in useful information about the work of a remarkable thinker of Islam. ... Read more

Book Description
This is an analytical examination of Ibn Khaldun's epistemology, centred on Chapter Six of the Muqaddima. In this chapter, entitled 'The Book of Knowledge' (Kitab al'Ilm), Ibn Khaldun sketched his general ideas about knowledge and science and its relationship with human social organisation and the establishment of a civilisation. ... Read more

Book Description
A reinterpretation of Ibn Khaldun, 14th-century Arabic philosopher, historian and politician. ... Read more

Book Description
This is the third, slightly revised edition of this book, after 1981 Frank Cass and 1990 Routledge. Since its first publication, Al-Azmeh's book has established itself as the major new interpretation of Ibn Khaldûn's work.

Ibn Khaldûn (1332 Tunis - 1406 Cairo) was a great figure of Arab-Islamic letters and of historical thought overall, is a figure on a par with Thucydides, Herder, Vico and others of similar stature.

The Middle East Journal: "Even those who disagree with Dr. Al-Azmeh's demystification of Ibn Khaldûn will have to admit that his "reinterpretation" is provocative and profound."

Starting with an interpretation of Ibn Khaldûn's narration of history in the context of classical Arabic historical writing, the author's interpretation then moves on to a meticulous reconstruction of Ibn Khaldûn's conception of history. The book then goes on to sketch the content and structure of Ibn Khaldûn's most celebrated work, the Muqaddima. The book ends with "bibliographic orientations" for the help of the reader. ... Read more