In 1381, nearing the end of the “Golden Ages” of Arabic literature, there appeared a manuscript by a Tunisian statesman, Ibn Khaldun. Ibn Khaldun’s philosophical and historical masterpiece, Muqaddimah, is a work of literary genius that analyzes the Arabic language as between habit and craft and makes distinctions between speaking, writing, and reading.
Ibn Khaldun and Language: From Linguistic Habit to Philological Craft