Ibn Jaldun o el precursor de les ciències econòmiques

Ahd-ar-Rahnut Ibn Muhammad Ibn Khaldun al-Hadrami of Tunis (1332-1406) was an
Arabic genius who achieved a piece of literature which can bear comparison with the work of
Thuydides or the work of Machiavelli for both breadth and profundity of vision as well as for
sheer intellectual power Ibn Khaldun's star shines the more brightly by contrast with the foil of
darkness against which it flashes out; for while Thucydides and Machiavelli and Clarendon are
all brilliant representatives of brilliant times and places, Ibn Khaldun is the sole point of light
in his quarter of the firmament. He is indeed the one outstanding personality in the history of a
civilisation whose social life on the whole was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". In his
chosen field of' intellectual activity he appears to have been inspired by no predecessors, and to
have found no kindled souls among his contemporaries, and to have kindled no answering spark of inspiration in any successors; and yet, in the Prolegomenon to his Universal History he has
conceived and formulated a philosophy of' history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its
kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place (Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, vol. III).