The Muqaddima

"Al-Muqaddima" (The Introduction) by Abd al-Rahman ibn Khaldun, a book on the value of the science of history, the verification of its methods, and awareness of the errors that historians fall into. It treats the nature of human social organisation, group solidarity, the state, the caliphate, kingship, the crafts and the sciences. ²

In the conclusion he apologises for any digressions that may have appeared. He says that whoever comes after him, whom God supports with sound thought, will dive deeper into its questions than he wrote, and that it falls to the one who draws out a discipline to fix its place and arrange its chapters, while later scholars add questions bit by bit. ³

He reports that he completed the first volume, which contains the Introduction, before revising and refining it, in five months, the last of which was mid-779 AH. He then revised it and added to it the histories of the Arabs and the Berbers that he chose for the book titled "Al-Ibar". ³