"He who finds a new path is a pathfinder, even if the trail has to be found again by others; and he who w alks far in advance of his contemporaries is a leader, even though centuries may pass before he is recognized as such and intelligently followed."
Ibn Khaldun was a North African Arab historian, sociologist, and statesman best known for the Muqaddimah. His work on historiography, society, and state formation made him one of the most influential thinkers of the medieval Islamic world.