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The Forum: Ibn Khaldun: 14th Century sage

Drawing of Ibn Khaldun on a 10 Dinar Tunisian banknote

12/12/2019 GMT

Ibn Khaldun: 14th Century sage

BBC World Service - The Forum, Ibn Khaldun: 14th Century sage

The life and work of a pioneering social scientist and historiographer

A maverick intellectual as well as a wily politician who often found himself in trouble.

There were many sides to Ibn Khaldun - a top scholar, a scheming political mastermind, a peripatetic political guru to many a dynasty in North Africa, an inventor of a social science or two. He also spent a month talking to one of the world’s most dangerous conquerors and was imprisoned several times. At a time when the Black Death was raging through the area he suffered terrible personal tragedies. One of his books, the Muqaddimah, is now regarded as a classic text. And how many historians from the Middle Ages have come up with theories that are invoked by modern-day economists and American presidents?
Rajan Datar follows Ibn Khaldun's life and work with the help of historians Syed Farid Alatas, Josephine van den Bent and Robert Irwin.

(Image: Drawing of Ibn Khaldun on a 10 Dinar Tunisian banknote. Credit Georgios Art/Getty Images)

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