ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that analyses of the Muqaddimah are also quite selective. It follows Polybius as he set down three judgements about the idea of history that intersected with the interests of metaphysicians. The chapter turns to pre-modern Islamic historiography, which is rarely, if ever, explored in introductory histories of history or general historiographical texts. It contains textual fragments and one translation into German rather than English. The chapter brings the Poetics to the forefront, and with it, affective and physiological notions of wonder. It argues that the Arabic translation of Poetics from a Syriac intermediary text epitomises 'the strange and the transferred, the altered, and the foreign' uses of language that Ibn Rushd pinpointed as triggers for wonder. The chapter provides an interesting counterpoint to the all-seeing, judgemental God that was needed in the European medieval histories to provide a caution against the shift from wonder to unconstrained, sinful curiosity.
