Ibn Khaldun ‘First’ Social Theorist and World Historian

Ibn Khaldun (A.D. 1332– 1406)                            

Main Text, Al-Muqaddimah in 3 Volumes translated by Franz Rosenthal Arnold Toynbee said: “Ibn Khaldun has conceived and formulated a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place.” H.A.R.Gibb said: “ The originality of Ibn Khaldun’s work is to be found in his detailed and objective analysis of the political , social and economic factors underlying the establishment of political units and the evolution of the state, and it is the result of this detailed analysis that constitute the ‘new science’ which he claims to have founded. The axioms or the principles on which his study rests are those of practically all the earlier Sunni jurists and social philosophers.” Franz Rosenthal “ A qualitative turn in historical analysis” The first to develop “important theories of historical analysis” according to Dictionary of World History.

Ibn Khaldun’s place in Islamic philosophy In the line of the prominent Islamic philosophy, al-Kindi (800-865), First major Arab philosopher al-Farabi (870-950), Ranked with Aristotle as ‘the second teacher’. IbnSina(Avicenna)(980-1036),al-qanun(Canon of Medicine) al-Ghazali (1058-1111), jurisprudence and theology al-Suhrawardi(d.1191), Illuminationism Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126-1198) Commentator on Aristotle Ibn Khaldun (1332-1395) The age of modern Islamic philosophy 1830- (al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdu) (History of Islamic Philosophy according to Anthony Black and Majid Fakhry)

Life Sketch Born in Tunis, North Africa in 1332 died in Cairo in 1406, 5 years after meeting Tamerlane His parents died from the plague when he was 17. The first of several tragedies he was to suffer. He came from a family of Muslim legal scholars and studied law as a young man. Ibn khaldun served several rulers in the Maghrib and Granada. He served on a mission to Pedro the Cruel of Castile in 1364. His friend Ibn al-Khatib the Vizier of Granada killed in prison Disillusioned with politics ‘cured of the temptation of office’ retreated to Finally be able to enjoy four years of uninterrupted study (1375-9). Wrote most of the Muqaddima 1382 he moved to Cairo to pursue his research. Became a popular teacher of Fiqh and became Maliki Chief Judge. Family shipwrecked off Alexandria Spent 14 years as head of Sufi hospice

Main Goals To explicate as clearly as possible the main social and historical theory of Ibn Khaldun to render it useful for comparative purposes. Theoretical relevance; to outline the conditions for the emergence of a coherent social theory from within a religious context. The beginnings of the social sciences. Contemporary empirical relevance; Islam and state formation, tribe–state relations, cyclical theories of history.

Theoretical Background 1. Neoplatonism and Islamic Philosophy a. Division of the sciences b. The three intellects 2. The Andalusian Renaissance (Ibn Rushd) and Persian thought (al-Ghazzali) as predecessors 3. The separation of theology from the study of politics

Central ideas Competing thesis Muhsin Mehdi Doubts about the received notions about Islamic philosophy and the realization that Islamic thought “was capable of being much more secular, political and realistic than I had assumed.” Ibn Rushd and the Aristotelian base of Ibn Khaldun’s thought Or more recently and following Gibb’s lead, Lakhsassi argues “It is probably the fact of standing on such purely theological ground that helped him to avoid the now sterile question that preoccupied medieval philosophers, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim: how to reconcile faith with reason.”

In Brief Ilm al-Umran- The Science of Social Association 1. The “New Science” as a historical and social science 2. The new social categories and their dynamics. 3. Tribe and state The Dynastic Cycle 1. al-Assabiya – political leadership and social cohesion 2. the political cycle Theory of History 1. Ibn Khaldun and al-Masudi 2. The need for a Global history