Books by Ibn Khaldun

About the author

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) was born in Tunis to a family from al-Andalus, served the courts of North Africa and Granada, and wrote his Muqaddimah in a few months of retreat at the fortress of Qal'at Ibn Salama in Algeria; he died a judge in Cairo.

The Muqaddimah, the introduction to his universal history, explains the rise and fall of states through group solidarity ('asabiyya'), which is why he is often called a founder of sociology.