The narration of historical events and the reflexion upon their causes are old scholarly concerns since ancient times. In Islamic culture, a specific Arabic historiographical tradition emerged very early, since the late 7th century, to account for the history of Islam and the development of its civilisation. The following article presents a general outline on the Islamic historical literature, from the first biographies of the Prophet to the great endeavour of Ibn Khaldun who, in the Muqaddima, laid the foundation of a philosophy of history based on sociology and material factors for the explanation of human and social events.