Good but one serious let down

Great book, as many other reviews will testify, but the performance was poor, specifically the awful pronunciation of Arabic terms, which the book is littered with. can't blame the narrator, he did his best, it's the publishers that need to be more sensible.

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4 people found this helpful

a very negative view of Ibn Khaldun

I became curious about Ibn Khaldun and his ideas, wanted to know more. Bought this book on audible as I like to move when I learn things. I have a science background and agnostic. This is an interesting book about Ibn Khaldun's life, ideas, history of the times and conditions he lived in. I am not familiar with this era so I found it particularly fascinating. I have no issue with the reader John Telfer. He has a nice voice and reads very clearly. I don't mind if he is not pronouncing certain Arab words perfectly.

What makes me cringe about this book is the writer's attitude towards Ibn Khaldun. Majority of the book seems very negative towards Ibn Khaldun. Debunking his views, writings, pointing out any kind of short comings. For example book starts with Ibn Khaldun saying sun is warmer closer to earth's surface, gets colder as we get away. From his perspective probably this was true. He noticed in low areas it is warmer, as you go up in the mountains it gets colder. So he concludes that this is the case. Of course with today's science we know this wasn't the case. But how did we reach this seemingly simple piece of information? It took years of scientific research, which is easily available for anybody to find out today. It is irrelevant he gets something like this wrong. It doesn't mean he was an unreliable person who got most things wrong. Today it is so easy to access so much information. 700 years ago this was not the case. Not only it was a lot more difficult to reach info back then, writing certain ideas could get you very easily killed. If he was as truthful and headstrong as the writer expects from him, probably he wouldn't live long and we would have no idea such a person even lived. Writer I believe is very harsh in evaluating his work and character. Portrays him as a calculating, disloyal, morally questionable person with very little regard to his Sufi beliefs, strength of his religious thoughts and the times he was living in. He was a human being, he tried to fit in. He also made justifications in his mind to be able to continue to believe his religion. I don't but a lot of people do that and I understand why they do this. There were several occasions Ibn Khaldun could have chosen the easier path but he didn't. I think he had an idealistic side in him. I believe when he was younger he wanted to create an islamic utopia, where there was a better system of government, a reliable system, which was fair and successful. He stayed close to governing class and tried to nudge things into the direction he wanted. It seems to me as he got older he realised this is impossible. Human nature is against it. this was his view, his conclusion. We may or may not agree but hard to conclude that he was a morally weak person. His conclusions were based on his interactions with others, observations, readings, psychology, experiences, major personal losses he experienced. A biography which is so against to its subject feels hard to read.

If the book was very positive towards its subject I might also have had a problem with it but this is way too negative to be perceived as fair.

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Fabulous

An interesting and balanced interpretation of the life and times of Ibn Khaldun. Enjoyable listening.

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GREAT BIOGRAPHY

it is great to be able to have this as an audio book. a lot of work goes into creating story telling of this amazing character in history of islam. the narrator is awesome and really enjoyable to listen to.

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Such a useful perspective!

I was very pleasantly surprised to find this book at all. I’ve Kaldoon is as much a world classic as Beds or Eusebius and yet all we have is this introduction, however useful and informative. It has the very great merit of placing the reader fairly and squarely within the Islamic world of the Middle Ages when half a dozen books deal with the reconuest of Spain. Accounts of his life and it’s political and social environment are unique inAudible: Ibn Batutah and vIbn Fadlam, available in Penguin, are represented by a few minutes taken from an anthology about world exploration when both should have been been recorded years ago, so leet’s have them both please, and an edition of excerpts from this guy!

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Good listen this

Ok so this is good and I leant a lot from this about the life of Ibn Khaldun, my only criticism is that the narrator could have been an native Arab speaker so pronunciation of the Arab words would sound more authentic and accurate other than this it's good

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The is a good summary and a great biography

This was an interesting read. Even though a bit too critical at times of khaldun’s fans and merits, but nevertheless an enjoyable, entertaining and engaging book.

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1 person found this helpful

Perfect if studying it at uni,but no casual listen

It's not a bad book per se, just too scholarly for what I'm looking for

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Poor Audio, derogatory tone of reader spoils book

John Telfer is a very poor choice as narrator of this audiobook. His tone and attitude is inconsistent with that of the writers. Telfer's appalling pronunciation of non English words further demonstrates his ignorance and underlines how he failed to grasp the essence of this book. Very disappointed. Couldn't listen past first half an hour. A prompt refund was given by Audible and the book was thankfully returned!

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Wrong voice for audible

I was looking forward to listening to this audio book, but it was spoilt by the reader. His mispronunciation of Arabic words is beyond belief. Whenever he read an Arabic word, it was so irritating. Could the author of the book not find anyone better?

Apologies for being so harsh, but a disservice has been done here. Instead of learning about a great historical figure, I was so distracted by the quality of reading.

Please consider re-recording this. My review is based on the first 30 minutes. I'm not sure I can carry on listening.

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6 people found this helpful