Ibn khaldun biography pdf

Historical work

Science of culture

WORKS BY IBN KHALDUūN

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ibn Khaldūn (1332-1406), an Arab historian, statesman, and judge, was born in Tunis. His family traced its origin to a south Arabian tribe that entered Spain in the early years of the Muslim conquest. Toward the end of the ninth century, the family became known for leadership of revolutionary activities in Seville; some of its members were prominent in the administration of the city, and one of them distinguished himself in the first half of the eleventh century as a mathematician and astronomer. About the middle of the thirteenth century, when Seville was threatened by the Christians, the family left for north Africa and eventually settled in Tunis, the capital of the Hafsid kingdom. The family was granted land holdings, its members held administrative posts, and one of them wrote a handbook on administration for government officials. Perhaps because misfortune beset the Hafsids, Ibn Khaldūn’s grandfather and father retired to lead quiet lives as scholars and members of a local mystic order.

Economically well-to-do and still patronized by the rulers of Tunis, the household in which Ibn Khaldūn grew up was frequented by the political and intellectual leaders of Muslim Spain and the Maghreb. His early education included the religious disciplines (the Koran, the collection of traditions approved by the Malikite school of law which prevailed in Western Islam, dialectical theology, jurisprudence, and mysticism), the philosophic disciplines (logic, mathematics, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and politics, including ethics and rhetoric), and practical training for government service, such as the art of writing official court correspondence and handling administrative affairs. The teacher he admired most during this period was the mathematician and philosopher Muhammad Ibn Ibraūhiūm al-Aūbiliū (1282/3-1356), whom he considered the most proficient of his contemporaries in the philosophic disciplines. His studies with Aūbiliū extended over five years, from 1347 to 1352. They began with mathematics and logic and then branched out to include various other philosophic disciplines. Aūbiliū introduced him to the major works of Avicenna and Averroës and acquainted him with the more recent philosophic and theological writings of the heterodox Shrūites in Eastern Islam. Ibn Khaldūn’s early work (1351) provides direct evidence for his philosophic interest and ideas during this period. His other early philosophic works, including treatises on logic and mathematics and a number of paraphrases of Averroës’ works, have not been recovered as yet.

His involvement in the political affairs of the Maghreb and Muslim Spain began in Fez (the center of political power and cultural life in a region that, on the whole, lacked political stability) at the court of the Mariūnid ruler Abuū ’Inaūn. He was suspected of plotting against the ruler and was imprisoned in 1357. Shortly afterward he helped to overthrow Abuū ‘Inaūn’s son and supported the latter’s uncle Abuū Salim; but he failed to consolidate his position under the new ruler. In 1362 he moved to Granada, the capital of a more cultured and peaceful kingdom which suffered, however, from the military pressure of the Christians to the north and the political pressure of the Mariūnids to the south. He was welcomed by the young ruler and his vizier, the celebrated writer Lisaūn al-Diūn Ibn al-Khatiūb, to whom we owe the revealing characterization of Ibn Khaldūn as a man who commanded respect and was able, unruly, strong-willed, and ambitious to climb to the highest position of leadership. In 1364 he was sent on an embassy to Pedro el Cruel, king of Castile and Léon, to conclude a peace treaty between him and the ruler of Muslim Spain. He took advantage of his position at the court and attempted to instruct the young ruler, with the help of his early philosophic and religious works, to which he probably added his views on practical politics. Ibn al-Khatiūb resented this and forced Ibn Khaldūn to leave Granada.

He proceeded to Bougie, where his friend, the Hafsid prince Abuū ‘Abd Allaūh, had gained control. This was Ibn Khaldūn’s third and last venture in practical politics. He was in charge of the city’s affairs for a little over a year, from 1365 to 1366, and attempted desperately to consolidate his friend’s rule. But Abuū ‘Abd Allaūh’s severity, insolence, and political impotence, the dissensions among the city’s inhabitants, and the ambitions of the rulers of the neighboring cities of Constantine and Tlem-cen combined to thwart Ibn Khaldūn. Abuū ‘Abd Allaūh was defeated by his cousin, losing his life in the battle.

Ibn Khaldūn spent the following decade occupied for the most part with research and teaching in Baskara and Fez; we have a work on mysticism which he wrote during this period (c. 1373-1375). He was frequently asked by various local rulers to perform special assignments for them, especially in connection with their dealings with the nomadic and seminomadic tribes of the region, while he on his part preferred to dedicate himself to study and avoid political activity. While on one of these assignments he decided to withdraw to the castle of Ibn Salama (in the province of Oran), where he spent about four years (1374-1377) oblivious of the outside world. The previous twenty years had been spent in active participation in the political affairs of the Maghreb and Muslim Spain. He had personally experienced many of the important events of this region and had had access to the official documents relating to them. His official duties had brought him in contact with many important persons—ambassadors, officials, rulers, tribal chiefs, and scholars—from whom he had acquired information about events in which they had taken part and about others they had known by virtue of their official or social positions. He intended to record this experience and information in the form of a contemporary regional history of Western Islam.

After leaving his retreat in the castle of Ibn Salama, Ibn Khaldūn spent four years in Tunis but found it difficult to avoid entanglement in political affairs and to devote himself to study and writing. In 1382 he left for Egypt, where he spent the last 25 years of his life. Here he could observe a mature and settled society, sophisticated social manners, and the effects of deep-rooted traditions and of economic prosperity—all of which presented sharp contrasts to the semibarbarous and confused conditions in the Maghreb. He taught at the al-Azhar and other schools in Cairo, was received by the ruler and remained active as a courtier, and was appointed six times as grand judge of the Malikite legal school. But for the most part he devoted himself to research and writing. He consulted new books and archival materials not available to him in north Africa, traveled and observed the topography of Egypt, western Arabia, and Syria (where he met Tamerlane in 1401), met learned men from many parts of Eastern Islam, and kept revising and completing his chief work, especially Book 2, which deals with the east. He also continued to add to his long “Autobiography,” one of the most extensive in Arabic literature, which is complete up to a few months before his death (1377-1406).

Historical work

He began to write a short “Introduction” (Muqad-dimah) to such a regional history, in which he spoke of the practical lessons of history and of its “external” and “internal” aspects. He related the projected work to earlier universal histories and to regional histories dealing with Eastern Islam. While he was writing this “Introduction,” he became aware of a basic problem that made the plan of a regional history unfeasible: to understand the nature and causes of historical events, it is necessary to have correct information; but to be able to distinguish correct information from false it is necessary to know the nature and causes of these events. Ibn Khaldūn conducted a critical investigation of the works of previous Muslim historians and found that they had not possessed such knowledge or else they had not formulated it. He surveyed disciplines other than historiography, especially rhetoric, political science, and jurisprudence, and found that they too did not present a coherent account of the nature and causes of historical events. He himself had to create a new “science” to deal specifically with the “internal” aspect of history and to define its principles, method, subject matter, and purpose. Therefore he abandoned the early draft of the “Introduction,” a portion of which can still be recognized in the final version that we have today ([1377a] 1858, vol. 1, pp. 51-52).

The new science was to be based on a comprehensive study of the data furnished by the history of the world from its intelligible beginnings to his own time. In its final form, the “History” (Kitaūbal-‘lbar 1377-1382a) is divided into a Preface, an Introduction, and Books 1, 2, and 3. The Introduction deals with the problem of history in general; it was written in 1377, with a few revisions and additions made later when Ibn Khaldūn was in Egypt. Book 1 contains the new science; it was written in 1377 but underwent numerous revisions and changes throughout the rest of Ibn Khaldūn’s life. The Preface, the Introduction, and Book 1 came to be known as the “Introduction” (Muqad-dimah). Book 2 contains a universal history down to Ibn Khaldūn’s own time; a skeleton of this book was written in Tunis between 1377 and 1382 and then extensively expanded and rewritten in Egypt (1377-1382a). Book 3, the originally planned history of Western Islam, was written in Tunis between 1377 and 1382, with some additions made in Egypt (1377-1382b).

Although in its final form Ibn Khaldūn’s “History” was expanded to include the new science of culture (Book 1) and a universal history (Book 2), the chief interest of the work as a whole continues to center on the history of the contemporary Maghreb, in which the “History” culminates and which is Ibn Khaldūn’s main contribution to historical scholarship. Ibn Khaldūn conceived of his own time and region as having a crucial place in world history. He divided world history into four major epochs or ages, each dominated by a group of nations and having its own characteristic conditions: political organizations, arts, languages, habits, conventions, and so forth ([1377a] 1858, vol. 1, pp. 44-45, 51-53). The third epoch started in the seventh century with the rise of Islam and of the Arabs; in the eleventh century the rule of the Arabs was challenged by the Turks in the east, the Berbers in the Maghreb, and the Christian Franks in the north, and by the fourteenth century this third epoch had come to a close and a new and fourth epoch had begun. Eastern Islam was deep-rooted in cultural traditions and resisted the changes leading to the end of the third epoch. In the Maghreb, where cultural traditions were more superficial, the end of the third epoch came sooner; by the middle of the fourteenth century the conditions characteristic of the third epoch had disappeared completely and a new epoch had already begun, which would eventually have radically new cultural characteristics. But because the new epoch was then still in its infancy, Ibn Khaldūn could not easily describe it in a manner that would take all its potentialities into account. This difficulty, which seems to have directed his attention to the necessity of undertaking a comprehensive study of the beginnings of earlier epochs and their subsequent developments, in turn led him to the discovery of the new science of culture or the comparative and descriptive account of the rise and decline of cultures in general. However, his chief purpose remained that of describing and making intelligible the beginnings of the new epoch. This led him to place special emphasis on historical beginnings in general and to pay particular attention to the physical conditions that surround and influence the emergence of culture.

Science of culture

Ibn Khaldūn’s major contribution to the history of social thought is his new science of culture (‘umraūn). The genesis of this science can be traced in the Preface, the Introduction, and. Book 1 ([1377a] 1858, vol. 1, pp. 1-8, 8-55, and 56-68, respectively), which present a systematic critique of Islamic historiography and of the Islamic legal-religious disciplines that provided traditional religious Islamic historiography with its principles and method. The aim of this critique is to show that to write history properly one must have knowledge of the nature and causes of historical events, their permanence and change, and their homogeneity and heterogeneity; this knowledge should provide the basis for the examination of reported information. While errors are inherent in historical accounts for a number of reasons (i.e., partisanship, overconfidence in the sources, failure to understand the intention of the reports, unfounded cred-ulousness, failure to understand the events in their proper context, and interest in gaining favor with the powerful and the influential), the most significant cause of error is “ignorance of the nature and modes of culture” ([1377a] 1858, vol. 1, p. 57). In a carefully structured dialectical argument and through the examination of carefully chosen historical examples, Ibn Khaldūn showed the need for a systematically organized body of rational knowledge about the nature and causes of historical events in general and about human culture—the sum of all conventionalized social habits, institutions, and arts. He found two rational disciplines that dealt with problems similar to those of the new science: rhetoric and political science. But while the final end of rhetoric is to sway the multitude and that of political science is to order the city, the new science would be concerned primarily with understanding the nature and causes of actual historical events, and it would serve as a tool for rectifying reports about such events. Since history is a practical art useful to the statesman, the final end of the science of culture is to help produce the kind of history needed for excellence in the art of ruling; thus, the science of culture would contribute to the final end of political science.

Ibn Khaldūn proceeded next to expound the principles upon which he intended to construct the new science. In section 1 of Book 1 ([1377a] 1858, vol. 1, pp. All the principles of Ibn Khaldūn’s science of culture are derived from traditional natural philosophy. His claim that the conclusions of the new science were natural, demonstrative, and necessary was to a large measure based on the fact that he considered all the principles of the new science to have these characteristics. He consciously avoided principles that were mere guesses, opinions, or generally accepted notions.

While Ibn Khaldūn admitted that the final end of the new science—that is, the rectification of historical reports—was not particularly noble, he asserted that “the problems it treats are noble in themselves and within their proper sphere” ([1377a] 1858, vol. 1, p. 63). He divided the subject matter of the new science into five major problems, which are discussed in sections 2-6 of Book 1, starting from what is prior or necessary and natural: (1) primitive culture and its transition to civilized culture; (2) the state; (3) the city; (4) practical arts and crafts; and (5) the sciences. These problems are treated genetically, analytically, and teleologically: the “efficient cause” of culture is social solidarity (‘asabiyya); the organizing principle or “form” of culture is the state; and the “ends” of the state are the good of the ruler in this world, the good of the ruled in this world, and the good of the ruled in the world to come. He placed emphasis on the typical movement from primitive to civilized culture, which in turn declines and reverts to primitive culture—a cycle of birth, growth, and old age analogous to the life of individual human beings. He saw this “natural” cycle most clearly in those regions of north Africa and the Near East which are situated between the desert and settled culture, and he was aware that it does not obtain universally or at all times. In isolated regions in the intemperate zones, primitive cultures may persist over long periods without developing into civilized cultures. In the temperate zone, on the other hand, the establishment of cities, the development of the arts, and the formation of a social solidarity conducive to peaceful cooperation enable a society to develop and maintain civilized culture over thousands of years without serious interruptions.

As a partisan of nature and reason, Ibn Khaldūn belonged to a small but potent group in the Islamic community. This group was encouraged and protected by some intelligent rulers, and it was able to perpetuate itself and make its impact felt even in the religious disciplines. Ibn Khaldūn was the only representative of this group who made a frontal and massive attack on history, one of the fortresses of traditional religious learning. He trained a small number of students in Egypt, including the great historian al-Maqriūziū (1364-1442). In later times his works influenced the study of politics and history by scholars in the Maghreb, Egypt, and Turkey; in the eighteenth century he was discovered by Western orientalists and, through them, by a wider public that saw in him the father, or one of the fathers, of modern cultural history and social science.

Muhsin Mahdi

[For the historical context of Ibn Khaldūn’s work, seeHistoriography, especially the articles onafrican historiographyandislamic historiography; Islam. See alsoAfrican society, article onnorth africa.]

WORKS BY IBN KHALDUūN

(1351) 1952 Lubaūb al-Muhassal fiū Usuūl al-Diūn (Gist of the Compendium on the Principles of Religion). Tetuán (Morocco): Editora Marroqui.

(c. 1373-1375) 1957-1958 Shifaū’ al-Saū’ il li-Tahdhiūb al-Masaū’ il (A. Guide For Those Who Try to Clarify Problems). Istanbul: Osman Yalcin Matbaasi.

(1377a) 1858 Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldūn (Prolégomènes d’Ibn-Khaldoun). 3 vols. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.

(1377b) 1934-1938 Les prolégomènes d‘Ibn Khaldoun. 3 vols. Paris: Geuthner. → The French translation of Ibn Khaldūn 1377a and of the earlier portions of Ibn Khaldūn 1377-1406.

(1377c) 1950 An Arab Philosophy of History: Selections From the Prolegomena of Ibn Khaldūn of Tunis. London: Murray. → Selections from Ibn Khaldūn 1377a in English translation.

(1377d) 1958 The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. 3 vols. New York: Pantheon. → An English translation of Ibn Khaldūn 1377a. Contains a bibliography.

(1377-1382a) 1867 Kitaūb al-‘lbar (History). 7 vols. Bulak (Egypt): al-Matba‘a al-Misriyya.

(1377-1382b) 1847-1851 Kitaūb al-Duwal al-lslaūmiyya bi-l-Maghrib (Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de I’Afrique septentrionale). 2 vols. Algiers (Algeria): Imprimerie du Gouvernement.

(1377-1382c) 1925-1956 Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de I‘Afrique septentrionale. 4 vols. Paris: Geuthner. → A French translation of Ibn Khaldūn 1377-1382b.

(1377-1406) 1951 al-Ta‘rif (Autobiography). Cairo: Laj-nat al-Ta‘lif.

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ayad, Mohammed K. 1930 Die Geschichts- und Gesell-schaftslehre Ibn Halduns. Stuttgart and Berlin: Cotta.

Fischel, Walter J. 1952 Ibn Khaldūn and Tamerlane. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. → Pages 29-48 contain a translation of the last portion of the “Autobiography.”

Fischel, Walter J. 1967 Ibn Khaldūn in Egypt; His Public Functions and His Historical Research (1382–1406): An Essay in Islamic Historiography. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Mahdi, Muhsin (1957) 1964 Ibn Khaldūn’s Philosophy of History. Univ. of Chicago Press.

Schmidt, Nathaniel 1930 Ibn Khaldūn: Historian, Sociologist and Philosopher. Columbia Univ. Press. → Mainly of bibliographical interest.

Simon, Henrich 1959 Ibn Khaldūns Wissenschaft von der menschlichen Kultur. Leipzig: Harrassowitz.