The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History

In 1377 CE, the North African scholar Ibn Khaldun finished his Introduction (The Muqaddimah) to his universal History (Kitâb al-‘Ibar), arguably the greatest example of Muslim historiography (writing about history) before the modern era. Ibn Khaldun combined the practical experience of a statesman and jurist with years of research to create a work that broke new ground in considering historiography as a unique discipline with its own rules (particularly for evaluating evidence) and with the goal of understanding why society changes over time. In the process, he made new breakthroughs in what are now the disciplines of sociology and economics.

Over the next four years, he would finish his three-part Kitâb al-‘Ibar by adding books to The Muqaddimah that applied his theories to narrating and analyzing the entire history of Arab, “Berber” (contemporary Imazighen), and neighboring peoples. While his ideas overlap with many later developments in Western scholarship, his theories remain original and firmly rooted in the assumptions and insights of his own culture. In this way, Ibn Khaldun’s work offers insight into the dynamic Muslim intellectual world of the Maghrib (North Africa) and the “Near East” (a term that generally encompasses the geography and cultures of Southwest Asia and the East Mediterranean) while reflecting on the nature of historiography and human society.

The Kitâb al-‘Ibar is a three-volume history. This guide covers only the Introduction and Book 1, published together in abbreviated form as the Muqaddimah. This guide uses the 2005 Princeton University printing of N. J. Dawood’s 1967 abridgement of Franz Rosenthal’s 1958 translation.

Content Warning: Ibn Khaldun’s writing encodes the prejudices of an elite Muslim man of the 14^th century, including social and gender hierarchies. He explicitly endorses offensive racial prejudices toward Black Africans.

This guide refers to years using the widespread AD system, which world historians call the “Common Era” (abbreviated CE). The Islamic calendar that Ibn Khaldun uses has the Muslim Hijra as its Year 1 (equivalent to 622 AD or CE) and counts forward using a lunar year of 354 to 355 days.

Summary

Ibn Khaldun opens The Muqaddimah praying that God will grant him success in his bold endeavor: to create a new science of historiography. He acknowledges that many Muslims and non-Muslims have written history before him and some of them have managed to entertain people or to teach them how to live. However, they have failed to approach history with the logical rigor of a philosophical science. Some historians did faithfully report the succession of events for a particular region or dynasty, but they failed to probe why events unfolded in that way. Others failed to do even that and instead (naively or maliciously) passed on gossip and wild legends as fact. Ibn Khaldun’s science, by contrast, critically analyzes sources to sift fact from fiction and measures the result against a deep knowledge of society, economics, and geography. He believes that, once this is done, patterns emerge revealing why history unfolds in predictable ways. He also seeks to make an original contribution by writing a universal history of the world (at least the part occupied by Muslims) and writing it in a superior literary style.

Ibn Khaldun argues that civilization (meaning urban society with crafts, commerce, and intellectual culture) can only arise where geography favors it. This is largely the temperate band of latitude corresponding roughly to the Mediterranean coast, Mesopotamia, and Persia, with some exceptions to the north and south. In these regions, a division between the “sedentary civilization” of richer settled regions and the “Bedouin” type of people in poorer lands (such as deserts) creates the dynamic that drives historical change.

History, despite many small variations, primarily follows a basic cycle of conquest by the Bedouin, who then become corrupted by the luxuries of sedentary civilization. Since they have no luxuries, the Bedouin become tough and “savage” as they fight to secure or protect the resources they need to survive. This enforced simplicity creates virtue, including a willingness to sacrifice for their kin and, sometimes, the larger group. The successful Bedouin thus gain strength to work and fight together through the power of “group feeling” (‘asabîyah). This term, coined by Ibn Khaldun, is the sociological key to the creation of dynasties and, with them, civilization.

Due to the constant struggle of the desert, poor leaders quickly lose power and strong leaders who can harness group feeling arise. Since greed, pride, and ambition are part of human nature, strong leaders will attack neighbors and sometimes create permanent power over them. This creates a dynasty. As the ruler siphons wealth from those he conquered, he concentrates that wealth in his capital. This concentration of resources creates sedentary civilization with large cities, commerce, and specialized crafts that can only arise when there is a large population with excess wealth. However, the ruler’s greed and prideful reluctance to share power soften him and alienate the group whose sense of unity originally propelled his dynasty to power. This moral rot weakens the dynasty and leads to poor policies, such as overly-harsh taxation. This leads to rebellion and the overthrow of the dynasty by Bedouin leaders who are competent and still able to harness group feeling. Then, the cycle of corruption starts again.

For this reason, there are a succession of dynasties over time. New dynasties preserve many customs of the ones they overthrew, but also introduce new aspects of culture. That is why new Arab and “Berber” (Imazighen) civilization has eventually replaced older Greek and Mesopotamian culture.

Science (the rational study of knowledge) constitutes one of the highest fruits of civilization. God’s gift of reason sets humans apart from animals. Traditional science studies how to apply the religious traditions handed down from God’s revelation. The philosophical sciences begin with sense experience and use logic to try to identify and explain patterns in society, human nature, and the physical world. The art of teaching these traditional and philosophical sciences is a noble one, both in literature and in personal instruction, although contemporaries often do so poorly. With God’s help, Ibn Khaldun trusts he has done well for his new science and invites other scholars to contribute to any gaps he has inadvertently left in it.