The definitive account of the life and thought of the medieval Arab genius who wrote the Muqaddima Ibn Khaldun 13321406 is generally regarded as the greatest intellectual ever to have appeared in the Arab worlda genius who ranks as one of the worlds 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 Khalduns 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 Khalduns life and thought fit into historical and intellectual context including medieval Islamic theology philosophy politics literature economics law and tribal life. Because Ibn Khalduns 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 Irwins 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 timea devout Sufi mystic who was obsessed with the occult and futurology and who lived in an oftenstrange world quite different from our own.show more