Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (1377): A New Science of History

Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah, whose first draft was completed in 1377 in a remote fortress in present-day Algeria, is one of the most original works of medieval scholarship. Written as the introduction to a world history, it sets out a theory of how states rise and decline, how cities and economies grow, and how historians should test their sources. Modern readers often treat it as an early work of sociology, economics and the philosophy of history.

The life of Ibn Khaldun

Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis on 27 May 1332 into a family of Arab origin that had held high office in Seville before moving to North Africa in the 13th century. He received a thorough education in the Quran, law, Arabic grammar and philosophy. In 1348–1349 the Black Death reached Tunis and killed both his parents and many of his teachers, an experience he later described as a turning point.

Like many educated men of his time, he made his career at the courts of rival Maghribi dynasties. He served the Marinid sultan Abu Inan Faris at Fez, where he was imprisoned for nearly two years on suspicion of plotting. He later moved to Nasrid Granada, where Sultan Muhammad V sent him on a diplomatic mission to Pedro I of Castile at Seville in 1364. He went on to serve as chamberlain at Bejaia and as an envoy among the Arab and Berber tribes of the interior.

Writing the Muqaddimah

Tired of court intrigue, Ibn Khaldun withdrew in 1375 with his family to Qal’at Ibn Salama, a castle near modern Frenda in western Algeria, under the protection of the Awlad Arif tribe. There, he later recalled, he wrote the first draft of the Muqaddimah in about five months, completing it in 1377. He then began the history itself, the Kitab al-Ibar, or “Book of Lessons”.

The need for books took him back to Tunis in 1378. In 1382 he sailed for Egypt, where he lived for the rest of his life. He taught at Cairo’s colleges, including al-Azhar, and was appointed chief judge of the Maliki school of law several times under the Mamluk sultan Barquq and his successors. In 1384 his wife and children drowned in a shipwreck while travelling to join him. He kept revising the Muqaddimah into his final years.

A new science of human society

Ibn Khaldun began from a practical problem. Historians, he argued, repeated impossible stories because they did not understand how societies actually work. He gave the example of reports that the ancient Israelites fielded an army of 600,000 men, a figure he considered impossible to supply and command in the conditions of the time.

To test such reports he proposed a new discipline, ilm al-umran, the “science of human social organisation”. It would study the natural conditions of society: climate, the difference between rural and urban life, the nature of political power, crafts, trade and learning. Knowing what was possible, historians could separate truth from legend.

He also contrasted badawa, the life of desert and rural peoples, with hadara, the settled life of cities. In his view the hardship of rural life produced courage and solidarity, while city life produced wealth, refinement and eventually softness.

Asabiyya and the cycle of dynasties

The best-known idea of the Muqaddimah is asabiyya, often translated as group feeling or social solidarity. A group bound by kinship, shared hardship and often by religion could conquer settled states. Religion, he believed, could multiply the strength of asabiyya, as it had for the early Muslim Arabs.

Once in power, however, rulers came to rely on paid troops and clients rather than their own kinsmen. Luxury, rising expenses and heavier taxes followed. Ibn Khaldun suggested that a dynasty usually lasted about three generations, or roughly 120 years, before it was replaced by a new group with stronger solidarity. His model drew directly on the history of the Almoravids, Almohads, Marinids and other North African dynasties he knew well.

The Muqaddimah is long and wide-ranging. In its six chapters Ibn Khaldun also discusses geography and climate, prophecy and dreams, the caliphate and kingship, the sciences, education and the Arabic language. He treated each subject as part of a single picture of human civilisation.

Economics and labour

The Muqaddimah contains striking economic observations. Ibn Khaldun argued that human labour is the source of profit and value, and that the wealth of cities came from the division of labour and the large demand of a big population. He described how prices, crafts and luxury trades rise with urban prosperity.

His comments on taxation are frequently cited today. He observed that at the start of a dynasty low tax rates produced large revenues, while later rulers raised rates and so discouraged enterprise, causing total revenue to fall. Modern economists, including Arthur Laffer, have pointed to this passage as an early statement of the idea now known as the Laffer curve.

Encounter with Timur

In the winter of 1400–1401 Ibn Khaldun accompanied a Mamluk army to Syria against Timur. When the sultan returned to Cairo, he remained in besieged Damascus. In January 1401 he was let down from the walls by a rope and spent several weeks in Timur’s camp, discussing history and the geography of North Africa with the conqueror.

He later wrote an account of these conversations in his autobiography. It is one of the few first-hand descriptions of Timur by a major scholar, and it shows Ibn Khaldun using his own theories to interpret the rise of a new world conqueror. Timur’s campaigns went on to the Battle of Ankara in 1402.

Legacy

The Muqaddimah had few direct successors in the Arab world in the centuries after Ibn Khaldun’s death, though some Mamluk historians, such as his student al-Maqrizi, admired him. Ottoman scholars took a strong interest in the 17th and 18th centuries, and part of the work was translated into Ottoman Turkish in the 18th century.

European scholars discovered it in the 19th century. A full French translation by William McGuckin de Slane appeared between 1862 and 1868, and Franz Rosenthal’s English translation was published in 1958. The British historian Arnold Toynbee praised it as one of the greatest works of its kind ever written, and it is now read widely in history, sociology and political science.

Timeline

• 1332, 27 May: Ibn Khaldun is born in Tunis.
• 1348–1349: The Black Death kills his parents.
• 1364: He is sent from Granada as an envoy to Pedro I of Castile at Seville.
• 1375: He retires to Qal’at Ibn Salama in western Algeria.
• 1377: He completes the first draft of the Muqaddimah.
• 1382: He leaves Tunis for Cairo.
• 1384: He is first appointed chief Maliki judge in Cairo; his family is lost at sea.
• 1401, January: He meets Timur outside Damascus.
• 1406, 17 March: Ibn Khaldun dies in Cairo.

Why it matters

The Muqaddimah was a bold attempt to explain history through general causes rather than chance or divine intervention alone. Its ideas about solidarity, the life cycle of states and the economics of taxation still prompt debate. It shows that ambitious social theory flourished in the medieval Islamic world, and it remains a standard reference for anyone studying the history of North Africa and the Middle East.