The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406)

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) was a historian, philosopher, sociologist, and official during a period that scholars sometimes refer to as the decline of the Muslim Arab regimes of North Africa and the Middle East. Born in Tunis to a family of Andalusian Muslim politicians and scholars, his youth was spent learning the traditional Islamic sciences of Qur’an, hadith, Arabic, and law (fiqh). During the first 20 years of his life, he remained in Tunisia, where he witnessed political upheavals and experienced the intellectual stagnation beginning to affect North Africa. A plague also swept through the region, and his parents were among the many lives it claimed. These events greatly influenced his thinking and understanding of the world, as his later writings would demonstrate.

Ibn Khaldun spent the next 30 years of his life moving from place to place, balancing his interest in politics with teaching and writing. He spent years roaming before settling in Fez, Morocco, where he remained for eight years, occupying various government positions. He then spent many years traveling back and forth across North Africa, including visits to Bougie and Biskra, and going to Muslim-controlled areas of Spain, particularly Granada. All the while, he strove to dedicate himself to scholarship, but in all instances he could not resist the lure of government work. The constant shifting in his allegiance that his lifestyle dictated is what many scholars believe was the cause of his dismissal from official positions, as well as the catalyst for his engagement in constant traveling. He did succeed in settling in Algeria for a number of years at the castle of Salama. It was there that he began to write his magnum opus, the Muqaddima (Prolegomena).

In the remaining 20 years of his life, Ibn Khaldun curtailed his political career and focused on scholarly activities. He took up residence in Cairo and was appointed to a number of positions, including those of teacher and judge (qadi) of Maliki fiqh, an Islamic legal school (madhhab) based on the legal interpretations of Imam Malik, at one point becoming the head judge of Maliki rite in Egypt. In 1401, he was appointed an envoy and sent on a special mission to Damascus, which placed him in contact with the Mongol leader Timur (Tamerlane). Ibn Khaldun took part in the negotiations with Timur, an incident about which he wrote in detail. He spent the remaining years of his life teaching and compiling his works.

Ibn Khaldun did not produce a large number of books, but the Muqaddima, the introduction he wrote to his universal history, Kitab al-‘Ibar (The book on important events), would have an impact on social scientists in an array of fields the world over. In this work, he defines history as the study of the entire human past, including its social, economic, and cultural facets. His primary emphasis is on social events. This concern led him to develop an innovative sociological concept he termed ‘aṣabiyya, which he defined as the bond that all humans share and that leads human beings to establish communities with one another. The Muqaddima, praised as a historical and sociological masterpiece, laid the foundation for other social sciences, such as economics and psychology.