The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1377

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Invocation-Book 1

Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapter 6-Concluding Remark

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Causes of Historical Change

Content Warning: Ibn Khaldun describes people of Slavic and Sub-Saharan African descent in offensive stereotypes that he purports to be scientific.

Ibn Khaldun distinguishes between a “surface” meaning of history and its “inner” meaning. The former entertains “changing conditions” and the spread and fall of dynasties; the latter is a deep philosophical endeavor that seeks “the causes and origins of existing things, and deep knowledge of the how and why of events” (5, emphasis added). In other words, philosophical historiography seeks the causes of historical change.

Ibn Khaldun defines two types of civilization: the Bedouin living in poor regions such as the desert and sedentary urban civilization. Geography, sociology, and human nature—particularly the power of family ties—mean that only those Bedouin flourish who have “group feeling,” a solidarity in which they see themselves as a single clan and sacrifice for one another. Ibn Khaldun sees this as necessary, since “aggressive and defensive strength is obtained only through group feeling” (123). He sees the world as highly competitive and violent, so such strength is necessary. The leader of such a group needs to prove himself in the harsh environment in which they live. Typically, this group comes from a sense of blood kinship, but God can raise a prophet who similarly unites people with true religion. With his toughened and united group, he can conquer others and create a dynasty: Greed and desire for power lead him to do so.

The dynasty’s concentration of wealth allows cities to arise with all the wealth, crafts, and knowledge of civilization. However, the greed that led to conquest also leads the ruler’s descendants to abuse their power to amass wealth while avoiding hardships. They alienate themselves from their followers, eroding the old group feeling, and replace their own desert toughness with vice and luxury. This happens predictably, like a person growing old: “as a rule no dynasty lasts beyond the lifespan of three generations” (136). Thus weakened, the old “senile” dynasty inevitably falls to the leader of a people with vibrant group feeling. In this way, individual leaders are at the mercy of larger factors that actually drive historical change.

However, Ibn Khaldun also acknowledges that, often, the new dynasty comes from an established provincial group rather than the desert Bedouin. He also considers cases where a new dynasty can arise without group feeling, such as when another branch of the royal house rises up. Since both sides lack strong group feeling, other factors like wealth can tip the balance. The key point for Ibn Khaldun is that in each case a true historian can explain why dynastic change happened in this way by understanding the underlying forces—whether social, economic, or simply human nature—driving that change. This insistence that there are always deep causes for change that can be rationally investigated is his central contribution to historiography.

The Links Between Religion and Philosophical Sciences

“Knowledge comes only from God, the Mighty One, the Wise One” (459), writes Ibn Khaldun in the concluding sentence of The Muqaddimah. This final sentence repeats his frequent pious invocation of God’s help in his scholarly writing and his belief that his insights only come from God. Ibn Khaldun can achieve any knowledge because “God distinguished man from all the other animals by an ability to think which He made the beginning of human perfection” (333, emphasis added). Reason is a gift from God through which people can approach the purpose for which they were created. While modern historiography often follows the Enlightenment theory that religious scholarship ought to be separated from “secular” disciplines, classical Islamic thinkers considered all knowledge—including religion, social science, and physical science—to be interconnected and full of rational truths.

While Ibn Khaldun believes the world follows rationally recognizable patterns since it follows God’s plans, he distinguishes how we know about the world from how we know about God. The first is “natural” (343) in that people use their own senses and logic to build up knowledge from observation into statements about patterns and causes. These are the philosophical sciences, which include his new work on historiography. In contrast, the “traditional” sciences take tradition handed down as the basis of knowledge. While uncritical reliance on human tradition is anathema to Ibn Khaldun, tradition from an unimpeachably truthful source—that is, God—may be relied upon absolutely.

Therefore, for the traditional religious sciences, “there is no place for the intellect in them, save that the intellect may be used in connection with them to relate problems of detail with basic principles” (344). The believer can accept God’s word in the Qur’an on faith without having to intellectually justify those truths. There is still a rational process for applying those principles to concrete issues in jurisprudence, as well as a process for verifying that stories of the Prophet are genuine hadith passed down by reliable witnesses. For this reason, Ibn Khaldun rejects attempts to engage in speculative theology that seek to reinterpret religious doctrine or subject divine revelation to human judgment. A philosopher could still explain why religious dogma is rational.

For Ibn Khaldun, religious and philosophical sciences live in harmony as God’s gift. Surface history can usefully instruct people in morality and generally both “religious and worldly matters” (11). Deep historiography that uncovers the causes of events should accept God’s revelation about the divine plan for the world that gives our lives rational structure, but this philosophical science can and should take on more critical methods than used in religious reasoning, in order to accurately investigate historical sources and to discern the patterns of human society.

The Influence of Geography

For Ibn Khaldun, society flows naturally from human reliance on food, which requires technology and cooperation. Food supplies, however, depend on natural resources such as rich soil and favorable climate. People also have material bodies and brains that both food and environment affect. For this reason, Ibn Khaldun argues, understanding geography is essential for understanding the factors that shape society and, therefore, history. He focuses primarily on two key influences: resource abundance and climate.

Ibn Khaldun’s theory of dynastic change centers on the idea of the “desert.” This may not be a literal desert like the Sahara but is a region with poor resources. The heightened competition for resources is what encourages the emergence of good leaders and strong group feeling through a kind of natural selection for the best possible leaders. The lack of resources also trains desert Bedouin to be tough and spares them the infirmities that come with overindulging in luxurious foods.

Climate connects with natural resources, since high latitudes have too little consistent sunlight and equatorial latitudes have sunlight that is too harsh for many plants—though Ibn Khaldun acknowledges that people can eke out livings in both areas and even create minor civilizations.

Climate has a deeper influence on people, however. Heat and moisture affect people’s internal humors. People living in equatorial climates are hot-headed literally and figuratively: Just as “heat expands and rarifies air and vapours” (63), so too does it with a person’s spirit. With that comes also general excitability, a lack of seriousness, and supposed “stupidity.” This explains, in Ibn Khaldun’s racist view, why Black people in Sub-Saharan Africa “failed” to create great civilizations. The opposite characteristics of slowness and sadness due to excessive cold show the deficiency of northern Europeans. Both groups are, in his view, inherently “inferior.” Arab groups, however, despite living at the same latitude as many Black societies, are spared this climatic fate due to the moderating influence of the seas surrounding their peninsula—which Ibn Khaldun asserts leads to more moderate temperatures, betraying his lack of direct experience of the parallel African climates on the coast and inland.

Ibn Khaldun’s theory of climate obviously reflects his own bias, as can be seen in his special pleading for why Arabia (homeland of Islam) differs from other countries in the same latitude. He claims his family’s Mediterranean homeland has the perfect climate for civilization and creating balanced, capable individuals. Like many such theories of geographical determinism from the first civilizations to the present, his supposedly scientific viewpoint is actually rooted in his own cultural norms. Nonetheless, other aspects of his attempts to rationally link geography with history bear consideration, especially in his attention to the role of natural resources in shaping societies.