The Polymath: A Modern Arabic Novel

This award-winning historical novel deals with the stormy life of the outstanding Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun, using historical sources, and particularly material from the writer's works, to construct the personal and intellectual universe of a fourteenth-century genius. The dominant concern of the novel— the uneasy relationship between intellectuals and political power, between scholars and authority— addresses our times through the transparent veil of history.

In the first part of the nov...