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.
Awards and Recognition
- One of the Financial Times' Best Books of the Year: Critics' Picks
- One of Asian Review of Books' Books of the Year (Biography & Memoir)
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.
"In Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun has finally found a biographer and interpreter almost as versatile and learned as he was himself."—Eric Ormsby, Wall Street Journal
"A compelling new account of the 14th-century Arab historian and polymath. . . . Irwin has produced an exemplary work."—Gavin Jacobson, Financial Times
"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
"Irwin offers his readers a superb work of intellectual recovery."—Francis Ghilès, The Spectator
"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. . . . Concise and compelling."—Nile Green, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Few scholars are more fun to read than Robert Irwin."—Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic and author of Classics for Pleasure and Browsings
