1332-1406
Historian, Legal Scholar

Early Life. The colorful life of historian 'Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun is in some ways typical of the career of a Muslim scholar, as he flourished in many different lands and pursued a diversity of occupations. Ibn Khaldun was bom in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, to a family of Spanish Muslims who had been part of the scholarly gentry for several generations. In 1349, at the age of seventeen, his parents died of the Black Death, the same epidemic that devastated the population of Europe.

Career. In 1350, at only eighteen, Ibn Khaldun took a post as a clerk in a government office in Tunis but aspired to leave his birthplace. After spending a few years in the service of various local governors in Algeria, he reached the court of the Marinid sultan of Morocco at Fas in 1354. He benefited from...