The Polymath

"This historical novel deals with the stormy life of the outstanding Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun, using historical sources and 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." "Ibn Khaldun's ideas on history, philosophy, family, friendship, and love are introduced through extracts from his own works and those of other Arab scholars. But beyond the man of the mind there is a man of action: Himmich's multilayered storytelling sees the scholar coping with the imminent horrors of invading armies and his strenuous efforts to avert the sack of Damascus by the Mongol leader Timur Lang, starting a family with a new, much younger wife after the loss of his first family at sea, and contemplating his own role in history and his relationship with God."--BOOK JACKET.