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- Historian Ibn Khaldoun, 1332
- Composer Joseph Joachim Raff, 1822
- Stadtholder of the United Provinces William II, Prince of Orange, 1626
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Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun (full name, Arabic: أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥman bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn Al-Hadrami, May 27, 1332 AD / 732 AH – March 19, 1406 AD / 808 AH) was an Arab historiographer and historian born in North Africa in present day Tunisia and is sometimes viewed as one of the forerunners of modern historiography, sociology and economics (alongside the earlier Indian scholar Chanakya).
He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in English), which was discovered, evaluated and fully appreciated first by 19th century European scholarship, although it has also had considerable influence on 17th century Ottoman historians like Ḥajjī Khalīfa and Mustafa Naima who relied on his theories to analyze the growth and decline of the Ottoman empire. Later in the 19th century, Western scholars recognized him as one of the greatest philosophers to come out of the Arab world.
Ibn Khaldun's life is relatively well documented, as he wrote an autobiography (التعريف بابن خلدون ورحلته غربا وشرقا; Al-Taʻrīf bi Ibn-Khaldūn wa Riħlatuhu Gharbān wa Sharqān) in which numerous documents regarding his life are quoted word - for - word. However, the autobiography has little to say about his private life, so little is known about his family background. Generally known as "Ibn Khaldūn" after a remote ancestor, he was born in Tunis in AD 1332 (732 A.H.) into an upper class Andalusian family, the Banū Khaldūn. His family, which held many high offices in Andalusia, had emigrated to Tunisia after the fall of Seville to Reconquista forces around the middle of the 13th century. Under the Tunisian Hafsid dynasty some of his family held political office; Ibn Khaldūn's father and grandfather however withdrew from political life and joined a mystical order. His brother, Yahya Ibn Khaldun, was also a historian who wrote a book on the Abdalwadid dynasty, and who was assassinated by a rival for being the official historiographer of the court.
In his autobiography, Ibn Khaldun traces his descent back to the time of Muhammad through an Arab tribe from Yemen, specifically Hadhramaut, which came to Spain in the eighth century at the beginning of the Islamic conquest. In his own words: "And our ancestry is from Hadhramaut,
from the Arabs of Yemen, via Wa'il ibn Hajar, from the best of the
Arabs, well known and respected.". However, the biographer Mohammad
Enan questions his claim, suggesting that his family may have been Muladis who pretended to be of Arab origin in order to gain social status. Enan
also mentions a well documented past tradition, concerning certain
Berber groups, whereby they delusively "aggrandize" themselves with
some Arab ancestry. The motive of such an invention was always the
desire for political and societal ascendancy. Some speculate this of
the Khaldun family; they elaborate that Ibn Khaldun himself was the
product of the same Berber ancestry as the native majority of his
birthplace. A point congenial to this posits that Ibn Khaldun's unusual
written focus on, and admiration for Berbers reveals a deference
towards them that is born of a vested interest in preserving them in
the realm of conscious history; such is that which the true Arabs of
his day would find no enthusiasm for and indeed a vested interest in
suppressing. Moreover the special position that he affords Berbers in
his work is fully vindicated upon comparing it with his vitriolic
attitudes towards the Arab, and his relative disinterest in the state
of affairs outside the Maghreb. In contrast, Muhammad Hozien chooses to
believe: "The false [Berber] identity would be valid however at the
time that Ibn Khaldun’s ancestors left Andalusia and moved to Tunisia
they did not change their claim to Arab ancestry. Even in the times
when Berbers were ruling, the reigns of Al-Marabats and al-Mowahids, et
al. the Ibn Khalduns did not reclaim their Berber heritage.". This point ignores the aforementioned phenomenon of adopting an Arab ancestry to garner prestige. His family's high rank enabled Ibn Khaldun to study with the best teachers in Maghreb. He received a classical Islamic education, studying the Qur'an which he memorized by heart, Arabic linguistics, the basis for an understanding of the Qur'an, hadith, sharia (law) and fiqh (jurisprudence). He received certification (ijazah) for all these subjects. The mystic, mathematician and philosopher, Al-Abili, introduced him to mathematics, logic and philosophy, where he above all studied the works of Averroes, Avicenna, Razi and Tusi. At the age of 17, Ibn Khaldūn lost both his parents to the Black Death, an intercontinental epidemic of the plague that hit Tunis in 1348 – 1349. Following
family tradition, Ibn Khaldūn strove for a political career. In the
face of a tumultuous political situation in North Africa, this required
a high degree of skill developing and dropping alliances prudently, to
avoid falling with the short lived regimes of the time. Ibn Khaldūn's
autobiography is the story of an adventure, in which he spends time in
prison, reaches the highest offices and falls again into exile. At the age of 20, he began his political career at the Chancellery of the Tunisian ruler Ibn Tafrakin with the position of Kātib al-'Alāmah, which consisted of writing in fine calligraphy the
typical introductory notes of official documents. In 1352, Abū Ziad,
the Sultan of Constantine, marched on Tunis and defeated it. Ibn
Khaldūn, in any case unhappy with his respected but politically
meaningless position, followed his teacher Abili to Fez. Here the Marinid sultan Abū
Inan Fares I appointed him as a writer of royal proclamations, which
did not prevent Ibn Khaldūn from scheming against his employer. In 1357
this brought the 25 year old a 22-month prison sentence. Upon the death
of Abū Inan in 1358, the vizier al-Hasān ibn-Umar granted him freedom
and reinstated him in his rank and offices. Ibn Khaldūn then schemed
against Abū Inan's successor, Abū Salem Ibrahim III, with Abū Salem's
exiled uncle, Abū Salem. When Abū Salem came to power, he gave Ibn
Khaldūn a ministerial position, the first position which corresponded
with Ibn Khaldūn's ambitions. The
treatment Ibn Khaldun received after the fall of Abū Salem through
Ibn-Amar ʻAbdullah, a friend of Ibn Khaldūn's, was not to his liking,
he received no significant official position. At the same time, Amar
successfully prevented Ibn Khaldūn – whose political skills he was well
aware of – from allying with the Abd al-Wadids in Tlemcen. Ibn Khaldūn therefore decided to move to Granada. He could be sure of a positive welcome there, since at Fez he had helped the Sultan of Granada, the Nasrid Muhammad V, regain power from his temporary exile. In 1364 Muhammad entrusted him with a diplomatic mission to the King of Castile, Pedro the Cruel,
to endorse a peace treaty. Ibn Khaldūn successfully carried out this
mission, and politely declined Pedro's offer to remain at his court and
have his family's Spanish possessions returned to him. In
Granada, Ibn Khaldūn quickly came into competition with Muhammad's
vizier, Ibn al-Khatib, who saw the close relationship between Muhammad
and Ibn Khaldūn with increasing mistrust. Ibn Khaldūn tried to shape
the young Muhammad into his ideal of a wise ruler, an enterprise which
Ibn al-Khatib thought foolish and a danger to peace in the country –
and history proved him right. At al-Khatib's instigation, Ibn Khaldūn
was eventually sent back to North Africa. Al-Khatib himself was later
accused by Muhammad of having unorthodox philosophical views, and
murdered, despite an attempt by Ibn Khaldūn to intercede on behalf of
his old rival. In
his autobiography, Ibn Khaldūn tells us little about his conflict with
Ibn al-Khatib and the reasons for his departure. The orientalist Muhsin Mahdi interprets this as showing that Ibn Khaldūn later realised that he had completely misjudged Muhammad V. Back in Africa, the Hafsid sultan of Bougie,
Abū ʻAbdallāh, (who had been his companion in prison) received him with
great enthusiasm, and made Ibn Khaldūn his prime minister. During this
period, Ibn Khaldūn carried out a daring mission to collect taxes among
the local Berber tribes. After the death of Abū ʻAbdallāh in 1366, Ibn
Khaldūn changed sides once again and allied himself with the ruler of Tlemcen,
Abū l-Abbas. A few years later he was taken prisoner by ʻAbdu l-Azīz,
who had defeated the sultan of Tlemcen and seized the throne. He then
entered a monastic establishment, and occupied himself with scholastic
duties, until in 1370 he was sent for to Tlemcen by the new sultan.
After the death of ʻAbdu l-Azīz, he resided at Fez, enjoying the
patronage and confidence of the regent. Ibn
Khaldūn's political skills, above all his good relationship with the
wild Berber tribes, were in high demand among the North African rulers,
whereas he himself began to tire of politics and constant switching of
allegiances. In 1375, sent by Abū Hammu, the ʻAbdu l Wadid Sultan of Tlemcen,
on a mission to the Dawadida Arabs tribes of Biskra. Thereafter Ibn
Khaldūn returns to the West sought refuge with one of the Berber
tribes, in the west of Algeria, in the town of Qalat Ibn Salama. He lived there for over three years under their protection, taking advantage of his seclusion to write the Muqaddimah "Prolegomena",
the introduction to his planned history of the world. In Ibn Salama,
however, he lacked the necessary texts to complete the work. As a
result, in 1378, he returned to his native Tunis, which in the mean
time had been conquered by Abū l-Abbas, who took Ibn Khaldūn back into
his service. There he devoted himself almost exclusively to his studies
and completed his history of the world. His relationship with Abū
l-Abbas remained strained, as the latter questioned his loyalty. This
was brought into sharp contrast after Ibn Khaldūn presented him with a
copy of the completed history omitting the usual panegyric to the ruler. Under pretence of going on the Hajj to Mecca – something a Muslim ruler could not simply refuse permission for – Ibn Khaldūn was able to leave Tunis and sail to Alexandria. Ibn
Khaldun said of Egypt, "He who has not seen it does not know the power
of Islam." While other Islamic regions had to cope with border wars and
inner strife, under the Mamluks Egypt
experienced a period of economic prosperity and high culture. However,
even in Egypt, where Ibn Khaldūn lived out his days, he could not stay
out of politics completely. In 1384 the Egyptian Sultan, al-Malik
udh-Dhahir Barquq, made him Professor of the Qamhiyyah Madrasah, and
grand Qadi of the Maliki school of fiqh (one
of four schools, the Maliki school was widespread primarily in West
Africa). His efforts at reform encountered resistance, however, and
within a year he had to resign his judgeship. A contributory factor to
his decision to resign may have been the heavy personal blow that
struck him in 1384, when a ship carrying his wife and children sank off
the coast of Alexandria. Ibn Khaldun now decided to complete the
pilgrimage to Makkah after all. After
his return in May 1388, Ibn Khaldūn concentrated more strongly on a
purely educational function at various Cairo madrasas. At court he fell
out of favor for a time, as during revolts against Barquq he had –
apparently under duress – together with other Cairo jurists issued a Fatwa against Barquq. Later relations with Barquq returned to normal, and he was once again named the Maliki qadi. Altogether he was called six times to this high office, which for various reasons he never held long. In 1401, under Barquq's successor, his son Faraj, Ibn Khaldūn took part in a military campaign against the Mongol conqueror Timur, who besieged Damascus.
Ibn Khaldūn cast doubt upon the viability of the venture and did not
really want to leave Egypt. His doubts were vindicated, as the young
and inexperienced Faraj, concerned about a revolt in Egypt, left his
army to its own devices in Syria and
hurried home. Ibn Khaldūn remained at the besieged city for seven
weeks, being lowered over the city wall by ropes in order to negotiate
with Timur, in a historic series of meetings which he reports
extensively in his autobiography. Timur questioned him in detail about
conditions in the lands of the Maghreb; at his request, Ibn Khaldūn
even wrote a long report about it. As he recognized the intentions
behind this, he did not hesitate, on his return to Egypt, to compose an
equally extensive report on the history of the Tartars, together with a character study of Timur, sending these to the Merinid rulers in Fez (Maghreb). Ibn
Khaldūn spent the following five years in Cairo completing his
autobiography and his history of the world and acting as teacher and
judge. During this time he is alleged to have joined an underground
party named Rijal Hawa Rijal.
Their reform oriented ideals attracted the attention of local political
authorities and the elderly Ibn Khaldun was placed under arrest. He
died on 19 March 1406, one month after his sixth selection for the
office of the Maliki qadi (Judge). Ibn Khaldūn has left behind few works other than his history of the world, al-Kitābu l-ʻibār.
Significantly, such writings are not alluded to in his autobiography,
suggesting perhaps that Ibn Khaldūn saw himself first and foremost as a
historian and wanted to be known above all as the author of al-Kitābu l-ʻibār. From other sources we know of several other works, primarily composed during the time he spent in North Africa and Al-Andalus. His first book, Lubābu l-Muhassal, a commentary on the Islamic theology of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, was written at the age of 19 under the supervision of his teacher al-Ābilī in Tunis. A work on Sufism, Sifā'u l-Sā'il, was composed around 1373 in Fes, Morocco. Whilst at the court of Muhammed V, Sultan of Granada, Ibn Khaldūn composed a work on logic, ʻallaqa li-l-Sultān. The Kitābu l-ʻibār (full title: Kitābu
l-ʻibār wa Diwānu l-Mubtada' wa l-Ħabar fī Ayyāmu l-ʻarab wa l-Ājam wa
l-Barbar wa man ʻĀsarahum min ĐawIu s-Sultānu l-Akbār "Book
of Evidence, Record of Beginnings and Events from the Days of the
Arabs, Persians and Berbers and their Powerful Contemporaries"), Ibn Khaldūn'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), to represent 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 Khaldūn. Books six and seven cover the history of the Berber peoples and the Maghreb, which remain invaluable to present day historians, as they are based on Ibn Khaldūn's personal knowledge of the Berbers. Concerning the discipline of sociology, he conceived a theory of social conflict.
He developed the dichotomy of sedentary life versus nomadic life as
well as the concept of a "generation," and the inevitable loss of power
that occurs when desert warriors conquer a city. Following a
contemporary Arab scholar, Sati' al-Husri, the Muqaddimah may be read
as a sociological work: six books of general sociology. Topics dealt
with in this work include politics, urban life, economics, and
knowledge. The work is based around Ibn Khaldun's central concept of 'asabiyyah, which has been translated as "social cohesion", "group solidarity", or "tribalism".
This social cohesion arises spontaneously in tribes and other small
kinship groups; it can be intensified and enlarged by a religious
ideology. Ibn 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. Ibn Khaldun has been cited
as a racist, but his theories on the rise and fall of empires had no
racial component, and this reading of his work has been claimed to be
the result of mistranslations. Perhaps
the most frequently cited observation drawn from Ibn Khaldūn's work is
the notion that when a society becomes a great civilization (and,
presumably, the dominant culture in its region), its high point is
followed by a period of decay. This means that the next cohesive group
that conquers the diminished civilization is, by comparison, a group of barbarians.
Once the barbarians solidify their control over the conquered society,
however, they become attracted to its more refined aspects, such as
literacy and arts, and either assimilate into or appropriate such
cultural practices. Then, eventually, the former barbarians will be
conquered by a new set of barbarians, who will repeat the process. Some
contemporary readers of Khaldun have read this as an early business cycle theory, though set in the historical circumstances of the mature Islamic empire. Ibn
Khaldun's outlines an early (possibly even the earliest) example of
political economy. He describes the economy as being composed of
value adding processes; that is, labour and skill is added to
techniques and crafts and the product is sold at a higher value. He
also made the distinction between "profit" and "sustenance", in modern
political economy terms, surplus and that required for the reproduction
of classes respectively. He also calls for the creation of a science to
explain society and goes on to outline these ideas in his major work
the Muqaddimah. Ibn Khaldun was first brought to the attention of the Western world in 1697, when a biography of him appeared in Barthélemy d'Herbelot de Molainville's Bibliothèque Orientale. Ibn Khaldun began gaining more attention from 1806, when Silvestre de Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe included his biography together with a translation of parts of the Muqaddimah as the Prolegomena. In 1816, de Sacy again published a biography with a more detailed description on the Prolegomena. More details on and partial translations of the Prolegomena emerged
over the years until the complete Arabic edition was published in 1858,
followed by a complete French translation a few years later by de Sacy. Since then, the work of Ibn Khaldun has been extensively studied in the Western world with special interest.