Someone introduced a very similar theory to Darwin’s theory of evolution in the 1300s!

His name was Ibn Khaldun and he was an Islamic scholar who lived from 1332-1406. He is best known for a work called Muqaddimah, which was first discovered by European intellectuals in the 19th century. He was a historiographer and historian, but is now recognized as one of the most influential and profound Islamic philosophers of all time. 

The Muqaddimah was a work that was an attempt to outline universal history and is largely looked upon as the first work on the philosophy of history. Within the work, Khaldun touches on subjects such as sociology, historiography, chemistry, economics, and even theology, but perhaps none is more interesting than his attempt to explain where humanity came from. 

Khaldun writes that humans developed “from the world of the monkeys.” He says that species that are more successful in life will procreate more often, outlining survival of the fittest and many more of Darwin’s future theories. He also theorized that humans are simply animals who have successfully developed the ability to reason, and that is why we have become the world’s dominant species!