From the SelectedWorks of farid alatas. Ibn Khaldun. Syed Farid Alatas. Available at:

Transcription

1 From the SelectedWorks of farid alatas 2013 Ibn Khaldun Syed Farid Alatas Available at:

2 Ibn I<haldun Syed Farid Alatas ZS [he to rlamic ie for 'IJZC draw. Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

3 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in India by Oxford University Press YMCA Library Building, 1 Jai Singh Road, New Delhi , India Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies 2012 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First edition published in 2013 Second impression 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer ISBN-13: ISBN-10: Cover: Moroccan fountain with mosaic tiles. Carmen de Bruijn Printed in India by Avantika Printers Pvt Ltd, New Delhi

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5 Contents Preface Acknowledgements lx X11 1 Ibn Khaldun's Autobiograpflj and his character 1 2 Ibn Khaldun's science of society 25 3 Ibn Khaldun on education and knowledge 78 4 The reception of Ibn K.haldun The significance of Ibn Khaldun for the modern social sciences Further reading and Works cited 135 Index 157

6 Preface Ibn Khaldun was one of the most remarkable Muslim scholars of the pre-modern period. He founded an entirely new science that he called the science of human society (ciim ai-ijtimac ai-insan~ or human social organization (ciim alcumran ai-bashan). It had little impact on the development of Muslim thought for several centuries but greatly impressed European thinkers from the nineteenth century on, some of whom regarded Ibn I<:haldun as a progenitor of sociology and other modern social sciences. Kitab ai-cibar, his history of the Arabs and Berbers and the introduction to it, the Muqaddima or Proiegomenon, constitute his main contributions to the social sciences. While Kitab al- CJ bar reports on the events of history, the Muqaddima discusses their underlying causes and what Ibn Khaldun calls the inner meaning of history. The underlying causes and inner meaning constitute the new science that Ibn Khaldun termed the science of human society. These and his other surviving works, notably his Autobiograpi?J, are more fully described at the end of the first chapter. This book is an introduction to Ibn Khaldun's 'new science', focusing on his theory of the rise and decline of states. It also provides an extensive discussion of his views on education and knowledge, and his views on society. Finally, after a historical account of how Ibn Khaldun's ideas were received in his time and in the modern period, it IX

7 IBNKHALDUN presents a brief discussion of how his ideas may be further developed in the context of contemporary social sciences and humanities. This book is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 provides a short account of his genealogy, his life, the social influences on his thinking and the intellectual context in which he thought and wrote. The fourteenth century in which he lived was vastly different from what he knew of earlier centuries. In earlier times, the Maghreb (literally 'the West', meaning western North Africa) had enjoyed a relatively well-developed market economy and the steady growth of merchant capitalism. That prosperity, particularly due to the gold trade, had led to the rise of wealthy cities and a thriving artistic and scientific culture. However, by the time of Ibn Khaldun's birth, the Maghreb was politically fragmented, economically depressed and under constant threat of nomadic invasions and pillaging. These circumstances surely must have influenced Ibn Khaldun's thinking on the rise and decline of states. Chapter 2 focuses on Ibn Khaldun's 'new science'. His approach was a positive rather than a normative one. He was concerned with the study of state and society as they are rather than as they should be. In this sense, he departed from the dominant pattern of writings on state and society. This presentation of his ideas covers some methodological aspects of the new science as well as its main features. Chapter 3 turns to a discussion of Ibn Khaldun's thoughts on education and knowledge. The classification of knowledge in classical Islamic learning functioned as a guide to those wishing to understand the range of sciences in existence and the relationship between them. There was, therefore, a pedagogical dimension to the classification of sciences. Ibn Khaldun's classification, and his distinction between the intellectual and transmitted sciences and the x

8 PREFACE ~ further sciences provides ifluences /hich he zhich he 1f earlier ie West', relatively.owth of ue to the. thriving.e of Ibn ~mented, hreat of.es surely e rise and nee'. His one. He 'fas they departed :3. society. dological '.es. ::haldun's sification med as a sciences here was, cation of istinction and the strength and weaknesses of his scheme, are explained, as also his views on learning capacity, memorization, curriculum, strict teachers, and the breadth and depth of education. He was a keen observer of the relationship between education and society and saw education as having multiple objectives. Chapter 4 surveys and analyses the reception and consumption of Ibn Khaldun's work in the pre-modern Muslim world, in Western academia and in the contemporary Muslim world. Chapter 5 makes the point that, while there is a systematic theory of society to be found in the works of Ibn Khaldun, there has been insufficient attention to it in introductory textbooks on the history of the various social sciences and on more specialized topics to which Ibn Khaldun's science is obviously relevant. I discuss the possibility of developing Khaldunian social science by combining his theoretical insights with those of the modern social sciences. Chapter 6 gives, along with a list of the works cited in this book, an account of the various editions and translations of Ibn Khaldun's works into European and non-european languages. It also presents a briefly annotated list of major works in Arabic, English and other European languages relevant to the topics covered in this book. In conformity with the general format of this series I have reduced footnotes and information in the references to the barest minimum. Sufficient bibliographical detail will be found in the list of works cited at the end of the book. I have been permitted, in the interests of preventing errors in identifying persons, book titles and technical terms, to depart from the series' conventions to the extent of formerly transliterating proper names as well as specialized uses of Arabic words. Dates are given according to the Islamic (Hijri) calendar followed by the Christian or Common Era equivalent. XI