The Muqaddimah often translated as "Introduction" or "Prolegomenon " is the most important
Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar
Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406) this monumental work established the foundations of several fields of
knowledge including the philosophy of history sociology ethnography and economics. The
first complete English translation by the eminent Islamicist and interpreter of Arabic
literature Franz Rosenthal was published in three volumes in 1958 as part of the Bollingen
Series and received immediate acclaim in the United States and abroad. A one-volume abridged
version of Rosenthal's masterful translation first appeared in 1969. This Princeton Classics
edition of the abridged version includes Rosenthal's original introduction as well as a
contemporary introduction by Bruce B. Lawrence. This volume makes available a seminal work of
Islam and medieval and ancient history to twenty-first century audiences.