This publication is presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

Princeton University Press

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
Home Princeton University Press Ibn Khaldun
book: Ibn Khaldun
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Ibn Khaldun

An Intellectual Biography
  • and
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2018

About this book

The definitive account of the life and thought of the medieval Arab genius who wrote the Muqaddima

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) is generally regarded as the greatest intellectual ever to have appeared in the Arab world--a genius who ranks as one of the world's great minds. Yet the author of the Muqaddima, the most important study of history ever produced in the Islamic world, is not as well known as he should be, and his ideas are widely misunderstood. In this groundbreaking intellectual biography, Robert Irwin provides an engaging and authoritative account of Ibn Khaldun's extraordinary life, times, writings, and ideas.

Irwin tells how Ibn Khaldun, who lived in a world decimated by the Black Death, held a long series of posts in the tumultuous Islamic courts of North Africa and Muslim Spain, becoming a major political player as well as a teacher and writer. Closely examining the Muqaddima, a startlingly original analysis of the laws of history, and drawing on many other contemporary sources, Irwin shows how Ibn Khaldun's life and thought fit into historical and intellectual context, including medieval Islamic theology, philosophy, politics, literature, economics, law, and tribal life. Because Ibn Khaldun's ideas often seem to anticipate by centuries developments in many fields, he has often been depicted as more of a modern man than a medieval one, and Irwin's account of such misreadings provides new insights about the history of Orientalism.

In contrast, Irwin presents an Ibn Khaldun who was a creature of his time—a devout Sufi mystic who was obsessed with the occult and futurology and who lived in an often-strange world quite different from our own.

Author / Editor information

Robert Irwin (1946–2024) was senior research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and a former lecturer at the University of St Andrews. His many books include Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents and Memoirs of a Dervish: Sufis, Mystics, and the Sixties, as well as seven novels. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Reviews

"I did enjoy this style of biography as Irwin brought the mind of Ibn Khaldun into focus and showed the genius that [is] worthy of standing with other ‘well-regarded’ thinkers of the past."---Gaele Hince, I am, Indeed blog --- "In his highly readable appraisal of Ibn Khaldun’s life and work, Robert Irwin sets out to demythologize and, at the same time, remystify a man whose mind was formed far from the seminar rooms of 20th-century social science. . . . [C]oncise and compelling."---Nile Green, Los Angeles Review of Books --- "Irwin’s book lives up to its name. . . . [It is] a work that will be of interest not only to students of Islamic intellectual history, but also to students of historiography, sociology, and anthropology. Irwin’s writing is accessible to all levels of readership. Well suited for seminar discussions, as it offers much to debate."---T.M. May, Choice --- "The great merit of Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography is that it encourages us to treat the intellectual history of the Islamic world not as a battleground for contemporary ideological struggles but as a subject worthy of investigation in its own right."---Fitzroy Morrissey, Standpoint --- "Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography is both an introduction to his work and an intervention into Ibn Khaldun studies."---Sameer Rahim, Prospect --- "Irwin wears his immense erudition lightly and gives an often very funny account of how orientalists, historians and modern Arab nationalist have interpreted Ibn Khaldun’s most famous work. . . . Irwin offers his readers a superb work of intellectual recovery, one which presents Ibn Khaldun as a creature of his time. . . . He has resurrected for us the medieval Muslim mind."---Francis Ghilès, The Spectator --- "As an introduction to Ibn Khaldun’s fascinating life and times, his ideas, and how they have been understood and misunderstood over the centuries, you could hardly wish for something better."---Thomas Small, Times Literary Supplement --- "A compelling new account of the 14th-century Arab historian and polymath. . . . Irwin has produced an exemplary work."---Gavin Jacobson, Financial Times --- "One of Asian Review of Books' Books of the Year (Biography & Memoir)" --- "One of the Financial Times' Best Books of the Year: Critics' Picks"

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    vii
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Preface

    ix
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Acknowledgments

    xvii
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chronology

    xix
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter One. Ibn Khaldun among the Ruins

    1
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Two. The Game of Thrones in Fourteenth-Century North Africa

    20
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Three. The Nomads, Their Virtues, and Their Place in History

    39
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Four. Underpinning the Methodology of the Muqaddima: Philosophy, Theology, and Jurisprudence

    65
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Five. Ibn Khaldun’s Sojourn among the Mamluks in Egypt

    84
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Six. The Sufi Mystic

    108
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Seven. Messages from fhe Dark Side

    118
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Eight. Economics before Economics Had Been Invented

    143
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Nine. What Ibn Khaldun Did for a Living: Teaching and Writing

    153
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Ten. The Strange Afterlife of the Muqaddima

    162
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Eleven. Ending Up

    204
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    209
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Bibliography

    227
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    237
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
August 21, 2018
eBook ISBN:
9781400889549
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.23943/9781400889549
eBook ISBN: 9781400889549
Keywords for this book
Ibn Khaldun; Berbers; Quran; Ibn al-Khatib; Sufism; Arabs; Islam; Al-Ghazali; North Africa; Almohad Caliphate; Writing; Maghreb; Caliphate; Qadi; Kitab; Theology; Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo); Astrology; Treatise; Muslim; Patricia Crone; Timur; Muslim world; Al-Maqrizi; Sunni Islam; Religious law; Hadith; Abbasid Caliphate; Bedouin; Banu Salama; Marinid dynasty; Sheikh; Barquq; Literature; Algeria; Princeton University Press; Averroes; Banu Sulaym; Banu Hilal; Infidel; God; Philosopher; Philosophy; Mercenary; The Other Hand; Universal history; Religion; Agriculture (Chinese mythology); The Sufis; Religious Science; Civilization; Modernity; Acknowledgment (creative arts and sciences); Muhammad; Madrasa; Morocco; Istislah; Vizier; Fakhr al-Din al-Razi; Morality; Warfare; Tunisia; Sharia; Tax; Ernest Gellner; Polemic; Fatimid Caliphate; Egyptians; Hajib; Umayyad Caliphate
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Winner of the OpenAthens UX Award 2026
Winner of the OpenAthens UX Award 2026
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2026 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 21.3.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.23943/9781400889549/html
Scroll to top button