Ibn Khaldun

An Intellectual Biography

Robert Irwin

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Hardback

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English

Princeton University Pres
08 May 2018

Biography; Biography: historical, political & military; Middle Eastern history; Medieval history; History of religion; Islam

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

By: Robert Irwin
Imprint: Princeton University Pres
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9780691174662
ISBN 10: 0691174660
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 08 May 2018
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Robert Irwin is senior research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and a former lecturer at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. 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 is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Reviews for Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

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 Ghiles, The Spectator A compelling new account of the 14th-century Arab historian and polymath. . . . Irwin has produced an exemplary work. --Gavin Jacobson, Financial Times