1

These words are written in Maghribi script in B and C. MSS written later in Ibn Khaldun's life are more effusive. A already has: "The Shaykh, jurist, imam, (religious) scholar, chief judge, Wali-ad-din'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Khaldun-God lengthen his life-has said...." C adds in the margin: "This is the Muslim Judge, Wali-ad-din Abu Zayd al-Malikl." D reads: "Our Lord and Master, the servant of God who needs God, Wali-ad-din, the Muslim Judge, Abu Zayd'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Khaldun al-Hadrami al-Maliki -God lengthen his days and strengthen his judgments and repair all his powers [cf. n, 145, below] and seal his actions with good deeds in His excellence and and generosity, for He is likely and able to do that, and He 'has power over everything'-has said...."

2

These terms (mulk and malakut) are commonly used to refer to the natural and supernatural worlds, respectively.

3

The root 'mr, from which 'umran "civilization" is derived, is used here. It is the purpose of the khulbah "invocation" of Arabic works to summarize the main theme of the work, and this is what Ibn Khaldun attempts to do here in two paragraphs.

The word "races," Arabic ill, may also mean "generations." It is occasionally translated by "groups." See p. 249, 1. 2, below.

4

Bulaq adds "illiterate."

5

In the medieval polemics between Muslims and Christians and Muslims and Jews, an important subject of discussion was the references to Muhammad that, according to Muslim theologians, could be found in Scripture. Cf., for instance, Maimonides, Epistle to Temen, ed. and tr. A. S. Halkin and B. Cohen (New York, 1952), p. viii; J. Horovitz in El, s.v. "Tawrat"; W. M. Watt, "His Name is Ahmad," in The Muslim World, XLIII (1953), 110-17.

6

Muhammad existed prior to time and space, if not in body at least in soul and through the divine light of prophecy, which, as something divine, was also primeval. The (Neo-Platonic, mystic, Shi'ah) theory of the primeval prophetic light was common in orthodox Islam long before Ibn Khaldun's time and had been spread mainly through the medium of Sufism. Cf. T. Andrae, Die Person Muhammeds in Lehre and Glauben seiner Gemeinde (Stockholm, 1917), pp. 313 fl.; L. Massignon in El, s.v. "Nur Muham­madi."

Saturn occupies the seventh heaven and, therefore, represents the most remote distance, Cf. W. Hartner in El, s.v. "Zubal."

.Al-Bah(a)mut is the Biblical Behemoth of Job 40:15, which Jewish tradition identified with Leviathan. Some commentators of Qur'an 68.1 (1) (cf. al-Baydawi and the references given by de Slane) identify the mythologi­cal fish upon which the earth rests with Behemoth.

7

When Muhammad left Mecca to go to Medina, he stayed in a cave for some time. Meccans who went after him saw that two pigeons had built a nest over the entrance to the cave, and/or a spider had spread a web over it. They concluded that no one could have used the cave recently. This famous legend, which is mentioned by the commentaries on Qur'an 9.40 (40), is of rather late origin and was considered with some suspicion even by medieval biographers of the Prophet. Cf. Ibn Kathir, Biddyah (Cairo, 1351-581932-40), III, 181 f.

8

Sahbatihl, as in B and D. A, C, and E have mahabbatihi "loving him."