Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldun, full name Abu Zayd 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun al-Hadrami (عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي), May 27, 1332/ah732 to March 19, 1406/ah808) was a famous Tunisian historiographer and historian born in what is modern day Tunisia, and is widely acclaimed as a forerunner of modern historiography, sociology and economics. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (Prolegomena).

Works

Unlike most Arab scholars, Ibn Khaldun has left behind few works other than his history of the world, the kitAb al-`ibAr. Significantly, such writings are not alluded to in his autobiography, suggesting perhaps that Ibn Khaldun saw himself first and foremost as a historian and wanted to be known above all as the author of the kitAb al-`ibAr. From other sources we know of several other works, primarily composed during the time he spent in North Africa and Spain. His first book, lubAb al-muhassal, a commentary on the theology of ar-Razî, was written at the age of 19 under the supervision of his teacher al-Âbilî in Tunis. A work on Sufism, ^sifA' al-sA'il was composed around 1373 in Fez. Whilst at the court of Mohammed V., the Sultan of Granada, Ibn Khaldun composed a work on logic, `allaqa li-l-sultAn.

Related Topics:
Theology - Sufism

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The kitAb al-`ibAr (full title: kitAb al-'ibAr wa-diwAn al-mubtada' wa-l-_habar fI ayyAm al-`arab wa-l-a^gam wa-l-barbar wa-man `A.sarahum min _dawI al-sul.tAn al-akbar – Book of Evidence, Record of Beginnings and Events from the Days of the Arabs, Persians and Berbers and their Powerful Contemporaries), Ibn Khaldun's main work, was originally conceived as a history of the Berbers. Later the focus was widened so that in its final form (including its own methodology and anthropology) it represents a so-called "universal history". It is divided into seven books, the first of which, the Muqaddimah, can be considered a separate work. Books two to five cover the history of mankind up to the time of Ibn Khaldun. Books six and seven cover the history of the Berber peoples and of the Maghreb, which for the present-day historian represent the real value of the kitAb al-`ibAr, as they are based on Ibn Khaldun's personal knowledge of the Berbers.

Related Topics:
Anthropology - Muqaddimah

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For sociology it is interesting that he conceived both a central social conflict ("town" versus "desert") as well as a theory (using the concept of a "generation") of the necessary loss of power of city conquerors coming from the desert. Following a contemporary Arab scholar, Sati' al-Husri, it can be suggested that the Muqaddimah is essentially a sociological work, sketching over its six books a general sociology; a sociology of politics; a sociology of urban life; a sociology of economics; and a sociology of knowledge. The work is based around Ibn Khaldun's central concept of 'asabiyah, or "social cohesion." This cohesion arises spontaneously in tribes and other small kinship groups; and it can be intensified and enlarged by a religious ideology. Khaldun's analysis looks at how this cohesion carries groups to power but contains within itself the seeds - psychological, sociological, economic, political - of the group's downfall, to be replaced by a new group, dynasty or empire bound by a stronger (or at least younger and more vigorous) cohesion.

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Assessments of Ibn Khaldun's Contribution

• British historian Arnold J. Toynbee called the Muqaddimah "undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place."
• Bernard Lewis describes Ibn Khaldun as "the greatest historian of the Arabs and perhaps the greatest historical thinker of the Middle Ages" (from The Arabs in History, 1950, page 160)
• Abderrahmane Lakhsassi writes: "No historian of the Maghreb since and particularly of the Berbers can do without his historical contribution."