Muqaddimah

The *Muqaddimah* (Arabic: مقدّمة, meaning "the introduction") is a 14th-century Arabic treatise covering historiography, sociology, and the philosophy of history, authored by Ibn Khaldun. Certain modern scholars regard it as the earliest work to address the social sciences of sociology, demography, and cultural history. The text also explores Islamic theology, historiography, the philosophy of history, economics, political theory, and ecology.

Ibn Khaldun composed the work in 1377 as the introduction and first book of his planned universal history, the *Kitab al-ʿIbar* ("Book of Lessons"). Even during his lifetime, however, it came to be seen as an independent work.

The word *Muqaddimah* is Arabic for "prologue" or "introduction," used to preface a larger work.

Within the *Muqaddimah*, Ibn Khaldun begins by sharply criticizing common errors made by historians and the difficulties they face. He identifies seven critical issues: all records are inherently prone to error; partisanship toward a creed or opinion; overconfidence in one's sources; failure to grasp intended meaning; mistaken belief in truth; inability to place events in their real context; and the desire to gain favor from the powerful by praising them. Most important, he argues, is ignorance of the laws governing the transformation of human society. Against this seventh point, he presents his own theory of society.

Sati' al-Husri suggested the *Muqaddimah* is essentially a sociological work, sketching a general sociology across its six books, along with a sociology of politics, urban life, economics, and knowledge.

Ibn Khaldun frequently criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data." He introduced the scientific method to the social sciences—something "new to his age"—calling it his "new science" and developing his own terminology.

Ibn Khaldun wrote the first version of the *Muqaddimah* in Qalʿat ibn Salama, where he secluded himself for nearly four years after withdrawing from political life. It forms the first of three parts of a project he worked on for almost thirty years: the *Kitab al-ʿIbar*, a seventeen-volume universal history. A draft was completed in 1377. Manuscripts copied during his lifetime survive, some with autographed marginal notes.

In the *Muqaddimah*, Ibn Khaldun expounds on a "new science" he had kept secret until his retirement: *ʿilm al-ʿumrān* (the science of civilization). Based on Greco-Arab philosophy, it sought to study the evolution of humanity and society using a method that was historical, empirical, rational, and demonstrative.

The *Muqaddimah*—shaped by Ibn Khaldun's moderation in politics and religion—received little enthusiasm or clear hostility in its first centuries. It was mentioned by two Moroccan writers, Muḥammad Ibn al-Sakkāk and Yaʿqūb b. Mūsā al-Saytānī, but Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Ibn al-Azraq appears to be the only contemporary Maghrebi writer who clearly approved, quoting it extensively. It was cited more often in Egypt, celebrated by disciples like Al-Maqrizi and Ibn ʿAmmār, and opposed by others such as Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani.

In later centuries, Ibn Khaldun appeared as an authority on political history in biographical dictionaries, especially in Ahmed Muhammad al-Maqqari's *Nafḥ al-ṭīb*, but the *Muqaddimah* itself remained largely absent. Ottoman historians like Kâtip Çelebi and Mustafa Naima valued its social and political theories but did not apply them to their own society. The first five chapters were translated into Ottoman Turkish by Mehmed Pirizade, the sixth by Ahmed Cevdet, with a complete translation published in 1860/61.

The *Muqaddimah* was first printed in 1857 at the Bulaq Press in Cairo, edited by Naṣr al-Hūrīnī with support from Rifa'a at-Tahtawi, and later as the first volume of a seven-volume *Kitab al-ʿIbar*. Abdesselam Cheddadi concludes that Ibn Khaldun's scientific contribution to history and social sciences was not fully recognized in the Muslim world until the late nineteenth century.

The work was first discovered in France through the partial Turkish translation by Mehmed Pirizade. In 1858, Étienne-Marc Quatremère published an Arabic edition in three volumes in Paris as *Les Prolégomènes d’Ebn Khaldoun*. William McGuckin de Slane produced a French translation in three volumes in 1863, which Aziz al-Azmeh considers the best translation of the text.