[The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History]. Arabic Title: .

8vo. (23.5 x 15.5 cm). pp 588+[1]+11 (table of contents). Publisher's original red cloth with gilt-stamped title to upper cover and spine, decorative green patterned endpapers. Text in Arabic. Front inner hinge weakened, front free endpaper neatly detached (but present), some old pencil annotation to title-page, occasional light waterstains to the margins, otherwise well preserved. Undated Cairo edition of Ibn Khaldun's famous Muqaddimah or 'Introduction,' to a comprehensive history of the world written in 1377 by the Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn. Though it is the preliminary section of the history, the Muqaddimah treats in almost encyclopaedic detail the general problems of the philosophy of history and sociology, and it has become known as a self-contained work. Among writings of the manuscript age the Muqaddimah is unique for the breadth and freshness of its analytic insights. It attempts a total view of mankind and of the forms of social organisation, their driving forces and motivations, the purpose and functions of government, the roles of labour and money and of the arts, crafts, sciences, and religions. It is a summing up of the achievements of historical Islam a work considered to be far in advance of similar studies eventually undertaken by Europeans. A. J. Toynbee has called the Muqaddimah "undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place." "Ibn Khaldun's title to enduring fame [.] is bound up with that remarkable product of his pen, the Prolegomena to History. Here his genius reveals itself in its full splendour. Here he scatters with lavish hands the ripe fruits of his reflection on the course of human history. Hammer-Purgstall hailed him as an Oriental Montesquieu [.] He was indeed the first to describe comprehensively the state of the various sciences in the Muslim world: the arts, the trades, the commerce, the means of obtaining a living; the forms of government and the administration of justice and public affairs; every important aspect of the social life known to him" (Schmidt, p. 14). References: OCLC 918530389. Cf. Schmidt, Ibn Khaldun, p. 56 (citing only the Bulaq editions of the complete works published between 1857 and 1872).…