Ibn Khaldūn SignificanceMuslim historian in full Walī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn Khaldūn

born May 27, 1332, Tunis [Tunisia] died March 17, 1406, Cairo, Egypt

Just as Ibn Khaldūn had no known predecessors in the history of Muslim thought, so he had no worthy successors. But he did make an impact on his students in Cairo, one of whom, al-Maqrīzī, showed an insight worthy of his master in analyzing the inflation that was rampant in his time and was the author of several voluminous works that cast much light on contemporary social conditions. Indeed, it is perhaps not too fanciful to attribute to Ibn Khaldūn’s influence the remarkable revival of historical writing in 15th-century Egypt. Later, several distinguished 16th- and 17th-century Ottoman scholars and statesmen took a keen interest in Ibn Khaldūn’s work, and a partial translation of the Muqaddimah into Turkish was made in the 18th century. But it was only after the 1860s, when a complete French translation of the Muqaddimah appeared, that Ibn Khaldūn found the worldwide audience his incomparable genius deserved.