Muqaddimah, The. Ibn Khald ¯ un (1377). Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature

The important Islamic jurist, philosopher, and historian IBN KHALDUN ¯ is best known for his Muqaddimah (Introduction). What we think of as the
Muqaddimah is the preface and first book of his
Kit¯ ab al-‘Ibar, or “Universal History.” Its well-deserved reputation rests on the fact that it is the
world’s first attempt to find a rational explanation
for the historical changes in human society, outside of religious myth or conventional cliché. Ibn
Khald¯ un’s revolutionary methods have led subsequent generations to call him the first sociologist,
or the first true philosopher of history.
Ibn Khald¯ un begins by considering the effect of
the physical environment on human beings, and
concludes that the middle or temperate latitudes,
away from the extremes of the northern and southern climates, provide the ideal setting for human
civilization. He then considers the nature of the
human species, in an Aristotelian manner: God has
given us the gift of rational thought, so we realize
that we need to cooperate with others because it is
impossible for us to produce everything we need by
ourselves. However, we are animals, Ibn Khald¯ un
says, so we must be governed by someone with the
power to prevent our harming one another if we are
to live in a cooperative society. Once this cooperative
society is formed, the result is what Ibn Khald¯ un
calls
‘umrân, or “civilization.” As the organization
becomes more populous,
‘umrân increases until the
state is formed, the highest form of
‘mrân.
What enables some groups to achieve this advanced state more readily than others is a quality
Ibn Khald¯ un calls
‘asabîyah, a word meaning
something like “group consciousness.” Generally
one feels this
‘asabîyah, toward one’s family or
tribe, with whom one has a blood relationship, but
in the more advanced civilization the attitude is
broadened to include the larger political entity of
the nation. Certain groups with a very strong sense
of
‘asabîyah. are able to dominate other groups,
and further, within the dominant group the leading family, founder of a dynasty, will be the one
with the strongest
‘asabîyah. For Ibn Khald¯ un, the
word
dawlah means both “dynasty” and “state,” for
he sees the two as inseparable—when the dynasty
falls, so does the state itself.

It is under a dynasty that human cultural
achievement reaches its apex. In the large cities and
towns necessary for the
‘umr¯an of the dynasty,
human needs are more easily met and the excess
labor available goes into the production of arts,
crafts, and sciences. But the desire for luxuries on
the part of the ruling dynasty encourages them to
seek higher and higher taxes to pay for the luxuries they desire, and to consolidate their power as
their
‘asabîyah decreases. They are forced to rely on
outside military support from a group whose own
‘asabîyah is stronger. Ultimately, this group overthrows the reigning dynasty and founds its own
state, only to succumb ultimately to the same fate
in what Ibn Khald¯ un describes as the cyclical pattern of history.
Despite the constant rise and fall of states, Ibn
Khald¯ un sees that the arts and sciences, the higher
aspects of civilization, are maintained and advanced through what he calls
malakuh or “habit.”
The new rulers generally keep the things they admired in the previous dynasty, and individuals
who have learned the arts and sciences will educate those of the new order willing to learn them.
Thus Ibn Khald¯ un argues that, despite historians
who claim that the world has declined from a previous golden age, and that the current civilization
is inferior to that of the past, the only difficulty
with the present civilization is a decline in political organization. In the cycle of history, it will rise
again.
Bibliography
Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Ibn Khaldûn: An Essay in Reinterpretation. London: Routledge, 1990.
Baali, Fuad.
Social Institutions: Ibn Khaldûn’s Social
Thought.
Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1992.
Ibn Khaldûn.
The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to
History.
Translated by Franz Rosenthal, abridged
and edited by N. J. Dawood, with a new introduction by Bruce B. Lawrence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Mahdi, Muhsin.
Ibn Khaldûn’s Philosophy of History:
A Study in the Philosophic Foundation of the Science of Culture.
London: G. Allen and Unwin,
1957.

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