IBNU KHALDUN

IBN KHALDŪN OR IBN KHALDOUN

 Full name (Arabic): ‫ أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بنمحمد بنخلدون الحضرمي‬- Abū Zayd
‘Abdu r-Raḥman bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn Al-Hadrami

 Born in North Africa in present-day Tunisia on May 27, 1332 AD/732 AH

 Died on March 19, 1406 AD/808 AH

 He was an Arab polymath --
*an astronomer
*economist *Islamic theologian 
*historian *hafiz
*mathematician
*Islamic jurist *military strategist 
*Islamic lawyer  *nutritionist
*Islamic scholar  *philosopher
*social scientist
*statesman
 He is considered a forerunner of several social scientific disciplines:
  - demography
- cultural history
- historiography
- the philosophy of history
- sociology

 He is also considered one of the forerunners of modern economics

 alongside the earlier Indian scholar Chanakya and the father of a
number of these disciplines, and of social sciences in general, for
anticipating many elements of these disciplines centuries before
they were founded in the West.

 He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in

English), the first volume of his book on universal history, Kitab al-
Ibar.
EDUCATION
 His
family's high rank enabled Ibn Khaldun to study with the best 
North African teachers of the time.
 He received a classical Islamic education, studying theQur'an which
he memorized by heart, Arabic linguistics, the basis for an understanding
of the Qur'an, hadith, syariah (law) and fiqh (jurisprudence).
 He received certification (ijazah) for all these subjects.
 The mystic, mathematician and philosopher, Al-Abili,
introduced him
to mathematics, logic andphilosophy, where he above all studied the
works of Averroes, Avicenna, Razi and Tusi.
 At the age of 17, Ibn Khaldūn lost both his parents to the 
Black Death, an intercontinental epidemic of the plague that hit 
Tunis in 1348–1349.

 Following family tradition, Ibn Khaldūn strove for a political

career.

 In the face of a tumultuous political situation in North Africa, this

required a high degree of skill developing and dropping alliances
prudently, to avoid falling with the short-lived regimes of the time.

 Ibn Khaldūn's autobiography is the story of an adventure, in which

he spends time in prison, reaches the highest offices and falls
again into exile.
WORKS

 Ibn Khaldun’s works can be classified in the categories of historical,

and religious.

 Of his works on history, only his Universal History has survived to

our day.

 Another work that is lost is the history that was written specifically
for Tamerlane, as Ibn Khaldun mentioned in his autobiography.

 His religious books are: Lubab al-Mahsul (Summary of the Result);

a commentary on an usul al-fiqh poem, and a few works which are of
questionable attribute to him