Who was ibn Khaldun?

The rich-in-experience life of a Muslim polymath who served 8 rulers from 5 dynasties.

Bust of Ibn Khaldun in the entrance of the Kasbah of Bejaia, Algeria. (Wikimedia commons)

The fourth essay in my Worshipping the Future series is up on Helen Dale’s Substack. It is about the paradox of polities: we rely on the state to protect us from social predators but the state itself is the most dangerous of social predators.

I quote the medieval Muslim polymath ibn Khaldun as articulating an early version of this paradox.

Mutual aggression of people in cities and towns is thus averted by the authorities and by the government, which hold back the masses under their control from attacks and aggression against each other. They are thus prevented by the influence of force and governmental authority from mutual injustice, save such injustice as comes from the ruler himself.

The Muqaddimah, I.2.7.

So, who was ibn Khaldun?

Abū Zayd ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī, known as ibn Khaldun, was born in Tunis on May 27, 1332.

His family had been prominent in al-Andalus, leaving Seville a few years before the Christian (re)conquest in 1248. His immediate ancestors were scholars and courtiers attached to Hafsid rulers in Bône (Annaba) and Tunis.

Growing up, he was tutored in the Quran, hadith (acts and words of Muhammad), fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), Arabic poetry and grammar. He later studied Sufi thought and Islamic Aristotelianism.

In 1354, he entered service of the Marinid Sultan Abu 'Inan at Fez. He also undertook further studies.

From February 1357 to November 1358, he was imprisoned when court politics went awry. Upon Abu 'Inan's death, he was released and served Abu Salim, Abu 'Inan's successor.

In December 1362, ibn Khaldun moved to Granada. In 1364, he was Ambassador for Nasrid ruler Muhammed V to Pedro the Cruel, King of Castile. During his embassy, he visited Seville.

King Pedro offered ibn Khaldun restoration of family estates if he would work for Pedro. This was a persistent feature of ibn Khaldun’s life—rulers offering him jobs.

Something folk miss about patronage systems is that rulers and nobles were perennially looking for talent. Indeed, folk would recommend good people upwards. First, you wanted the person above you to appreciate you. Second, if you recommended a good person, then someone working directly with the person above you would owe you a great big favour. There was a lot more merit in patronage systems than folk generally realise.

In March 1365, ibn Khaldun became vizier to Abu Abdallah, Hafsid ruler of Bougie (Béjaïa), where philosopher and theologian Ramon Lull (born c.1232) had been stoned to death around 1315. Upon Abu Abdallah's fall, ibn Khaldun raised a desert Arab force and entered service of Abu Hammu II, Zayyanid Sultan of Tlemcen.

Ibn Khaldun spent a night in prison when 'Abd-al-'Aziz, Marinid ruler of Fez, took Tlemcen (1370). He then entered a religious establishment for scholarly work.

He spent two years pacifying Berber tribes for 'Abd-al-'Aziz.  After 'Abd-al-'Aziz's death in 1372, he moved to Fez.

Ibn Khaldun then moved to the fortress village Qal'at Ibn Salamah, under protection of powerful tribe of Awlad 'Arif. He spent 4 years there writing the Muqaddimah and Kitab al-'Ibar.

Around 1383, he travelled to Cairo en route to pilgrimage to Mecca. Mamluk Sultan al-Malik az-Zahir Barquq insisted that he stay in Cairo. In 1384, Sultan al-Malik az-Zahir Barquq appointed him professor of Malikite school fiqh (jurisprudence) at Qambiyah College. Then Chief Malikite qadi (judge).

In 1384, the great tragedy of his life struck. His wife and children drowned in a shipwreck just outside Alexandria on their way to live with him in Cairo. He never remarried.

In 1387, he makes the haj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. Upon his return to Cairo, he was appointed to various academic posts.

In 1399, he returned as Chief Malikite qadi. Was removed and appointed to the position 5 times. On one hand, he had a reputation for being incorruptible (and very clever), so he would be appointed. On the other hand, he tended to be harsh in his sentencing, so would be sacked.

In 1401, was part of Sultan Faraj's expedition to Damascus, when it was threatened by Timur. Ibn Khaldun was envoy to Emir Timur (Tamerlaine). Ibn Khaldun's autobiography contains a vivid account of his meeting with Timur.

In accordance with the normal pattern of a ruler meeting ibn Khaldun, Timur offered him a job. Ibn Khaldun declined the kind offer. How do you say no to the Scourge of Asia? Very carefully. Ibn Khaldun presented Timur with a magnificent Quran manuscript as a “thanks, but no thanks” gift.

Ibn Khadlun died on March 17, 1406, aged 73, and was buried in the Sufi cemetery in Cairo.

Rulers Served

Secretary, Marinid Sultan Abu 'Inan at Fez

Official, Marinid Sultan Abu Salim at Fez

Ambassador for Nasrid Emir Muhammad V at Granada.

Vizier to Abu Abullah, Hafsid ruler of Bougie.

Raised a desert Arab force, entered service of Zayyanid Sultan of Tlemcen.

Pacified Berber tribes for 'Abd-al-'Aziz, Marinid ruler of Fez.

Qadi for Mamluk Sultan al-Malik az-Zahir Barquq.

Qadi and emissary for Mamluk Sultan Nasir-ad-Din Faraj.

Mutually informed scholarship and practicality

Ibn Khaldun is a magnificent example of the intersection between scholarship and practical experience. Growing up and working in and around the Maghreb gave him intimate experience of the interaction between pastoralist tribes and the settled strips of cities and farms.

This included why Muslims lost ground in Spain to the Christians; al Andalus was all cities and farms without pastoralist vigour. The latter could be periodically “imported” from the Maghreb, but that was not enough.

Ibn Khaldun was deeply, and profoundly, interested in how things work. He used not only his reading of history (common enough among Islamic scholars) but also his own practical experience of political service. An arena where there were significant potential error costs to getting things wrong.

So, a combination of deep scholarly seriousness and serious practical politics, with each informing the other. Islam is one of the great History civilisations, along with Greece, Rome and China. (In stark contrast, India, and the civilisations that took their cultural cues from India, are basically black holes where writing and recording history is concerned.)

Islamic scholarship was very serious about history, and typically had a fine historical sense, because their theology and jurisprudence was based on history: on what Muhammad, his Companions, the early Caliphs, said and did. Hadiths start with the sequence of telling: the line of transmission (who told whom) of the hadith back to the witness of the original event.

Ibn Khaldun did not really have any intellectual heirs. His systematic analysis of social dynamics largely went into abeyance after his death. This makes him very different from, say, Adam Smith (1723-1790), whose thought has so many overlaps with ibn Khaldun, one wonders if Smith had come across him in translation.

Over the last century, there have been waves of rediscovery of ibn Khaldun: from Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) to Peter Turchin. Economist Arthur Laffer credits ibn Khaldun with the discovery of the Laffer Curve. As ibn Khaldun wrote:

It should be known that at the beginning of the dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.

As I point out in the post on Helen Dale’s Substack, the Soviet Union managed to follow his analysis of the rise and fall of dynasties (or, in this case, regime).

Ibn Khaldun’s analysis still has power to inform and enlighten us and will continue to do so after so much of the pseudo-knowledge and pseudo-scholarship rife through contemporary academe is (mercifully) discarded.

For more of how ibn Khaldun continues to enlighten and inform us, read the original post.