IBN KHALDUN

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was one of the most remarkable Muslim scholars of the pre-modern period. He founded what he called the science of human society or social organization, as well as a new methodology for writing history and a new purpose for it, namely to understand the causes of events. While his ideas had little impact on the development of Muslim thought for several centuries, they hugely impressed European thinkers from the nineteenth century on - some of them proclaimed Ibn Khaldun a progenitor of sociology and modern historiography.

 

Alatass essay introduces Ibn Khalduns core ideas, focusing on his theory of the rise and decline of states. It connects the ups and downs of his political life and his character with the development of his ideas. The concept of asabiyya (group solidarity) and the factors that lead to its dilution are presented in detail, as also the method of testing (historical) reports for their plausibility. Alatas also devotes a chapter to Ibn Khalduns ideas about education and knowledge and society. Thereafter, he recounts the reception of Ibn Khaldun in his own and modern times, in the Islamic world and in the West: the responses range from those who thought that he merely reworked ideas found in the works of al-Farabi and the Ikhwan al- Safa to those who compare him to the giants of Western political and sociological thought, from Machiavelli to Marx. Finally, a dense few pages review the best editions and translations of Ibn Khaldunsand pick out key works in the vast corpus of scholarship on Ibn Khaldun in Arabic, English and other Western languages.