The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History - Abridged Edition

by Ibn Khaldûn, N. J. Dawood, Franz Rosenthal, Bruce B. Lawrence

Overview

The Muqaddimah, often translated as "Introduction" or "Prolegomenon," is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406), this monumental work established the foundations of several fields of knowledge, including the philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and economics. The first complete English translation, by the eminent Islamicist and interpreter of Arabic literature Franz Rosenthal, was published in three volumes in 1958 as part of the Bollingen Series and received immediate acclaim in the United States and abroad. A one-volume abridged version of Rosenthal's masterful translation first appeared in 1969.

This Princeton Classics edition of the abridged version includes Rosenthal's original introduction as well as a contemporary introduction by Bruce B. Lawrence. This volume makes available a seminal work of Islam and medieval and ancient history to twenty-first century audiences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691166285
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/27/2015
Series:	Princeton Classics , #13
Edition description:	Abridged
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	191,187
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

	Introduction to the 2005 Edition	vii
	From the Translator's Introduction to the 1958 Unabridged Edition	xxvii
	Introduction	xxxvii
	Invocation	3
	Foreword	5
	The Introduction	11
	Book One of the Kitab Al-`Ibar	33
Chapter 1	Human civilization in general	45
	First Prefatory Discussion	45
	Second Prefatory Discussion	49
	Third Prefatory Discussion	58
	Fourth Prefatory Discussion	63
	Fifth Prefatory Discussion	65
	Sixth Prefatory Discussion	70
Chapter 2	Bedouin civilization, savage nations and tribes and their conditions of life, including several basic and explanatory statements	91
Chapter 3	On dynasties, royal authority, the caliphate, government ranks, and all that goes with these things. The chapter contains basic and supplementary propositions	123
Chapter 4	Countries and cities, and all other forms of sedentary civilization. The conditions occurring there. Primary and secondary considerations in this connection	263
Chapter 5	On the various aspects of making a living, such as profit and the crafts. The conditions that occur in this connection. A number of problems are connected with this subject	297
Chapter 6	The various kinds of sciences. The methods of instruction. The conditions that obtain in these conditions	333
	Prefatory Discussion
	Concluding Remark	459
	Index	460

Editorial Reviews

"[The] most remarkable book written during the entire Middle Ages, one of the great intellectual achievements of all time."

Virginia Quarterly Review

"From review of Princeton's original edition: [N. J. Dawood] has, by skillful abridgement and deft but unobtrusive editing, produced an attractive and manageable volume, which should make the essential ideas of Ibn Khaldûn accessible to a wide circle of readers."

Times Literary Supplement

"From review of Princeton's original edition: Undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever been created by any mind in any time or place . . . the most comprehensive and illuminating analysis of how human affairs work that has been made anywhere."—-Arnold J. Toynbee, Observer

From the Publisher