ABSTRACT
Unfortunately, the names of Muslim scholars are not as well known in the West today as I believe they should be. When I talk of Ibn Khaldu¯n (d. 1406), people usually ask: Who is he? Another terrorist? Any links to Osama bin Ladin? Or is he an oil sheik or an Arab minister? Even the scholars who have heard of Ibn Khaldu¯n may well ask: How is Ibn Khaldu¯n, the Arab in question, relevant to our problems in the twentieth-first century?
