Ibn Khaldūn

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Ibn Khaldūn

Muslim historian

Also known as: Walī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn Khaldūn

Written by Charles Issawi

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Nov 8, 2024 • Article History

Quick Facts

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 (aged 73)

Subjects Of Study:: North Africa; philosophy of history

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Ibn Khaldūn (born May 27, 1332, Tunis [Tunisia]—died March 17, 1406, Cairo, Egypt) was the greatest Arab historian, who developed one of the earliest nonreligious philosophies of history, contained in his masterpiece, the Muqaddimah (“Introduction”). He also wrote a definitive history of Muslim North Africa. Ibn Khaldūn was born in Tunis in 1332; the Khaldūniyyah quarter in Tunis still stands almost unchanged and, in it, the house where he is believed to have been born. As Ibn Khaldūn relates in his autobiography (Al-taʿrīf bi Ibn Khaldūn), the family claimed descent from Khaldūn, who was of South Arabian stock, and had ...(100 of 2754 words)

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