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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Polymath: A Modern Arabic Novel

The Polymath: A Modern Arabic Novel

Himmich, Bensalem
Allen, Roger

Paperback

Series: Modern Arabic Literature (Paperback)

General FictionHistorical FictionLiterary Fiction

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 9774162528
ISBN13: 9789774162527
Publisher: Amer Univ In Cairo Pr
Published: Apr 1 2009
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.75
Height: 0.60 Width: 4.90 Depth: 7.80
Language: English

WINNER OF THE NAGUIB MAHFOUZ MEDAL FOR LITERATURE
WINNER OF THE GRAND ATLAS AWARD
ONE OF THE 50 MOST IMPORTANT ARABIC NOVELS OF THE 21ST CENTURY (THE NATIONAL)

This magnificent novel deals with the stormy life of the outstanding Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun, using historical sources, and particularly material from the writer's works, to construct the personal and intellectual universe of a fourteenth-century genius. The dominant concern of the novel--the uneasy relationship between intellectuals and political power, between scholars and authority--addresses our times through the transparent veil of history.

In the first part of the novel, we are introduced to the mind of Ibn Khaldun as he dictates his work to his scribe and interlocutor. The second part delves into the heart of the man and his retrieval of a measure of happiness and affection in a remarriage, after the drowning of his first wife and their children at sea. Finally we see Ibn Khaldun as a man of action, trying to minimize the imminent horrors of invading armies and averting the sack of Damascus by Tamerlane, only to spend his last years lonely and destitute, having been fired from his post as qadi, his wife having gone to Morocco, and his attempts at saving the political situation having come to nil.

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