Muqaddimah

The *Muqaddimah* (Arabic for "the introduction") is a 14th-century Arabic treatise on historiography, sociology, and the philosophy of history, written by the scholar Ibn Khaldun. Some modern thinkers consider it the first work to address the social sciences of sociology, demography, and cultural history. It also covers Islamic theology, historiography, the philosophy of history, economics, political theory, and ecology.

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

The word *Muqaddimah* (مُقَدِّمَة) is Arabic for "prologue" or "introduction," used to introduce a larger work.

In the *Muqaddimah*, Ibn Khaldun begins by criticizing common mistakes made by historians. He identifies seven critical issues: the inherent liability of records to error; partisanship toward a creed or opinion; over-confidence in one's sources; failure to understand what is intended; a mistaken belief in the truth; the inability to place an event in its real context; the desire to gain favor of those in high ranks by praising them; and, most importantly, ignorance of the laws governing the transformation of human society. Against this seventh point, he lays out his theory of human society. Scholar Sati' al-Husri suggested the *Muqaddimah* is essentially a sociological work, sketching a general sociology, a sociology of politics, of urban life, of economics, and of knowledge across its six books.

Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data." He introduced the scientific method to the social sciences, something considered "new to his age," and referred to it as his "new science," developing his own terminology.

Ibn Khaldun wrote the first version of the *Muqaddimah* in Qalʿat ibn Salama, where he secluded himself for almost four years after withdrawing from political life. It is the first of three parts of a project he worked on for nearly thirty years: his *Kitab al-ʿIbar*, a massive universal history filling seventeen volumes of 500 pages each in its modern edition. A draft was completed in 1377. Manuscripts copied in his lifetime survive, some with autographed marginal notes. In the work, he expounds on a "new science" he had kept secret until his retirement, called *ʿilm al-ʿumrān* (the science of human civilization). Based on Greco-Arab philosophy, it sought to study the evolution of humankind and society using a method that was historical, empirical, rational, and demonstrative.

Shaped by Ibn Khaldun's moderation in politics and religion, the *Muqaddimah* was met without much enthusiasm or clear hostility in its first few centuries. It was alluded to by two Moroccan writers, but Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Ibn al-Azraq (d. 1496) is apparently the only contemporary Maghrebi writer who clearly approved, quoting it abundantly. It was cited more often in Egypt, celebrated by disciples like Al-Maqrizi and Ibn ʿAmmār, and met with hostility by others such as Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. In following centuries, Khaldun appeared as an authority on political history in biographical dictionaries, 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 (d. 1749), the sixth by Ahmed Cevdet (d. 1895), with a complete translation published in 1860/61.

The *Muqaddimah* was first printed in 1857 at the Bulaq Press in Cairo as a standalone volume by Naṣr al-Hūrīnī, with support from Rifa'a at-Tahtawi, and a decade later as the first volume of a seven-volume set of *Kitab al-ʿIbar*. Abdesselam Cheddadi concluded that its scientific contribution to history and social sciences was not fully recognized in the Muslim world until the late 19th century. In France, it was first discovered through the partial Turkish translation. In 1858, Étienne-Marc Quatremère printed an Arabic edition in three volumes in Paris under the title *Les Prolégomènes d’Ebn Khaldoun*. William McGuckin de Slane published a French translation in three volumes in 1863, which Aziz al-Azmeh regards as the best translation of the text.