Ibn Jama‘a
Ibn Jami‘ (Jumay‘) (d. 1198). Jewish physician who entered the service of Saladin. He wrote a compendium of medicine, and a commentary on Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
Jumay' see Ibn Jami‘
Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya (Abu ‘Ali Yahya ibn Jazla) (Abu ali Yahya ibn Isa Ibn Jazla Al Baghdadi) (Ibn Jazlah) (d. 1100). Arab physician of Baghdad. Of Christian origin, he embraced Islam and wrote several works, one of which was translated into Latin in 1280 by the Sicilian Jewish physician Faraj ibn Salim (Magister Farachi) under the title Tacuini aegritiudinum.
Abu ali Yahya ibn Isa Ibn Jazla Al Baghdadi, or Ibn Jazlah, Latinized as Buhahylyha Bingezla, was an 11th-century physician of Baghdad and author of an influential treatise on regimen that was translated into Latin in 1280 by the Sicilian Jewish physician Faraj ben Salem.
Ibn Jazla was born of Christian Nestorian parents at Baghdad. He converted to Islam in 1074. He died in 1100 while under the tutelage of Abu `Ali ibn Al-Walid Al-Maghribi.
His Taqwim al-Abdan fi Dadbir al-Insan (dispositio corporum de constittutione hominis, Tacuin agritudinum), as the name implies contains tables in which diseases are arranged like the stars in astronomical tables.
Ibn Jazla also wrote another work, Al-Minhaj fi Al-Adwiah Al-Murakkabah, (Methodology of Compound Drugs), which was translated by Jambolinus and was known in Latin translation as the Cibis et medicines simplicibus.
Late in life he wrote a treatise in praise of Islam and criticizing Christianity and Judaism.
Abu 'Ali Yahya ibn Jazla see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Abu ali Yahya ibn Isa Ibn Jazla Al Baghdadi see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Ibn Jazlah see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Buhahylyha Bingezla see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Bingezla, Buhahylyha see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Ibn Jinni (c. 913-1002). Arab grammarian. He founded the science of Arab etymology -- the study of the origin and history of words.
Ibn Jubayr (Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr al-Kinānī) (b. September 1, 1145, Valencia, Emirate of Balansiya [Valencia] — d. November 29, 1217, Alexandria, Egypt). Andalusian traveller and writer. His journey to Mecca, executed between 1183 and 1185, brought him to Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, Alexandria, Cairo, Jidda, Mecca, Medina, Kufa, Baghdad, Mosul, Aleppo and Damascus. A second journey lasted from 1189 to 1191, but of this he left no account. The Travel-book of the first journey is the first and one of the best of its kind. It served as a model to many other pilgrims, and many later authors have borrowed from it. The work has been translated into English, French and Italian.
Ibn Jubayr, in full Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr al-Kinānī, was the son of a civil servant. Ibn Jubayr became secretary to the Almohad governor of Granada, but he left that post for his pilgrimage, which was begun in 1183 and ended with his return to Granada in 1185. He wrote a lively account of this journey, Riḥlah.
Rihlah is a valuable source for the history of the time, containing memorable descriptions of his voyages across the Mediterranean in Genoese ships, his unhappy encounters with both Christian and Muslim customs collectors, the Cairo of Saladin, his trip up the Nile to Upper Egypt, and across the Red Sea to Jidda, Mecca, and Medina, and of his return by way of Iraq, Syria, and Sicily. Ibn Jubayr journeyed east twice more without recording his travels. The second trip lasted from 1189 to 1191. The third, begun in 1217, was ended by his death in Egypt.
Ibn Jubayr (b. September 1, 1145 CC, Valencia, Taifa of Valencia (now Province of Valencia, Spain – d. November 29, 1217 CC, Alexandria, Ayyubid dynasty, Egypt), also written Ibn Jubair, Ibn Jobair, and Ibn Djubayr, was an Arab geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus. His travel chronicle describes the pilgrimage he made to Mecca from 1183 to 1185, in the years preceding the Third Crusade. His chronicle describes Saladin's domains in Egypt and the Levant which he passed through on his way to Mecca. Further, on his return journey, he passed through Christian Sicily, which had been recaptured from the Muslims only a century before, and he made several observations on the hybrid polyglot culture that flourished there.
Ibn Jubayr was born in 1145 CC in Valencia, Spain, to an Arab family of the Kinanah tribe. He was a descendant of 'Abd al-Salam ibn Jabayr, who, in 740 CC, had accompanied an army sent by the Caliph of Damascus to put down a Berber uprising in his Spanish provinces. Ibn Jubayr studied in the town of Xativa, where his father worked as a civil servant. He later became secretary to the Almohad governor of Granada.
Ibn Jubayr does not explain the reason for his travels. It has been suggested that as secretary for the ruler of Granada in 1182, he was threatened into drinking seven cups of wine. Seized by remorse, the ruler then filled seven cups of gold Dinara, which he gave him. To expiate his godless act, although it had been forced upon him, Ibn Jubayr decided to perform the duty of Hajj to Mecca. Robert Irwin has recently argued that dubious provenance aside, this seems an unlikely explanation, as Hajj was rarely penitential.
He left Granada on February 3, 1183, accompanied by a physician from the city.
Ibn Jubayr left Granada and crossed over the Strait of Gibraltar to Ceuta, then under Muslim rule. He boarded a Genoese ship on February 24, 1183, and set sail for Alexandria. His sea journey took him past the Balearic Islands and then across to the west coast of Sardinia. Offshore, he heard of the fate of 80 Muslim men, women and children who had been abducted from North Africa and were being sold into slavery. Between Sardinia and Sicily, the ship ran into a severe storm. He said of the Italians and Muslims on board who had experience of the sea that "all agreed that they had never in their lives seen such a tempest". After the storm, the ship went on past Sicily and Crete and turned south and crossed over to the North African coast. He arrived in Alexandria on March 26, 1183.
Everywhere that Ibn Jubayr traveled in Egypt, he was full of praise for the new Sunni ruler, Saladin. For example, he said, "There is no congregational or ordinary mosque, no mausoleum built over a grave, nor hospital, nor theological college, where the bounty of the Sultan does not extend to all who seek shelter or live in them". He pointed out that when the Nile did not flood enough, Saladin remitted the land tax from the farmers. He also said that "such is his (Saladin's) justice, and the safety he has brought to his high-roads that men in his lands can go about their affairs by night and from its darkness apprehend no awe that should deter them". Ibn Jubayr, on the other hand, was very disparaging of the previous Shi'a dynasty of the Fatimids.
Of Cairo, Ibn Jubayr noted, the colleges and hostels that were erected for students and pious men of other lands by Saladin. In those colleges, students found lodging and tutors to teach them the sciences that they desired as well as also allowances to cover their needs. The care of the sultan also granted them baths, hospitals, and the appointment of doctors, who could even come to visit them at their place of stay who would be answerable for their cure. One of Saladin's other generous acts was that every day, 2000 loaves of bread were distributed to the poor. Also impressing Ibn Jubayr in the city was the number of mosques, estimated at between 8,000 and 12,000, with four or five of them often in the same street.
Upon arrival at Alexandria, Ibn Jubayr was angered by the customs officials who insisted on taking zakat from the pilgrims, regardless of whether or not they were obliged to pay. In the city, he visited the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was then still standing, and he was amazed by its size and splendor.
Ibn Jubayr was also impressed by the free colleges, hostels for foreign students, baths and hospitals in the city. They were paid for by awqaf and taxes on the city's Jews and Christians. He noted that there were between 8,000 and 12,000 mosques in Alexandria. After a stay of eight days, he set off to Cairo.
Ibn Jubayr reached Cairo three days later. In the city, he visited the cemetery at al-Qarafah, which contained the graves of many important figures in the history of Islam. He noted that under Saladin, the walls of the citadel were being extended by the Mamluks with the object of reinforcing the entire city from any future Siege by Crusaders. Another work that he saw being built was a bridge over the Nile, which would be high enough not to be submerged in the annual flooding of the river. He saw a spacious free hospital, which was divided into three sections: for men, women and the insane. Ibn Jubayr saw the pyramids and the Sphinx, but he was unaware for whom they had been built. He also saw a device that was used to measure the height of the Nile flood.
In Sicily, at the very late stages of his travels (December 1184 to January 1185), Ibn Jubayr recounted other experiences. He commented on the activity of the volcanoes:
Also impressing Ibn Jubayr was the city of Palermo, which he described as follows:
Ibn Jubayr also travelled to Medina, Mecca, Damascus, Mosul, Acre and Baghdad. At Basra, Ibn Jubayr saw how Indian timber was carefully used to make Lateen sail ships. He returned in 1185 by way of Sicily. His path was not without troubles, including a shipwreck. On both occasions, he travelled on Genoese ships.
Frequently quoted is Ibn Jubayr's famous description of Muslims prospering under the Christian Crusaders' Kingdom of Jerusalem:
We moved from Tibnin - may God destroy it - at daybreak on Monday. Our way lay through continuous farms and ordered settlements, whose inhabitants were all Muslims, living comfortably within the Franks.... They surrender half their crops to the Franks at harvest time, and pay as well a poll-tax of one dinar and five qirat for each person. Other than that they are not interfered with, save for a light tax on the fruit of their trees. The houses and all their effects are left to their full possession. All the coastal cities occupied by the Franks are managed in this fashion, their rural districts, the villages and farms, belong to the Muslims. But their hearts have been seduced, for they observe how unlike them in ease and comfort are their brethren in the Muslim regions under their (Muslim) governors. This is one of the misfortunes afflicting the Muslims. The Muslim community bewails the injustice of the landlord of its own faith, and applauds the conduct of its opponent and enemy, the Frankish landlord, and is accustomed to justice from him.
Ibn Jubayr provides a highly-detailed and graphic description of the places he visited during his travels. The book differs from other contemporary accounts in not being a mere collection of toponyms and descriptions of monuments but containing observation of geographical details as well as cultural, religious and political matters. Particularly interesting are his notes about the declining faith of his fellow Muslims in Palermo after the recent Norman conquest and about what he perceived as the Muslim-influenced customs of King William II of Sicily under the Norman-Arab-Byzantine culture.
His writing is a foundation of the genre of work called Rihla, or the creative travelogue. It is a mix of personal narrative, description of the areas traveled and personal anecdotes.
Ibn Jubayr's travel chronicle served as a model for later authors, some of whom copied from it without attribution. Ibn Juzayy, who wrote the account of Ibn Battuta's travels in around 1355 CC, copied passages that had been written 170 years earlier by Ibn Jubayr that described Damascus, Mecca, Medina and other places in the Middle East. Passages copied from Ibn Jubayr are also found in the writings of al-Sharishi, al-Abdari and al-Maqrizi.
A surviving copy of Ibn Jubayr's manuscript is preserved in the collection of the Leiden Universtiy Library. The 210-page manuscript was produced in Mecca in 875 AH (1470 CC) and appears to have been written at high speed: diacritic marks are often missing, words are omitted and there is confusion between certain pairs of letters. The complete Arabic text was first published in 1852 by the orientalist William Wright. An updated edition was published in 1907 by Michael Jan de Goeje. A translation into Italian by Celestino Schiaparelli was published in 1906, a translation into English by Ronald Broadhurst was published in 1952, and a translation into French by Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes appeared in three volumes between 1949 and 1956.
Kinani, Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr al- see Ibn Jubayr
Ibn Juljul. Arab physician from Cordoba. Among other works, he wrote a history of physicians, probably one of the oldest collections of biographies on this subject in Arabic, and the earliest example of the use of Arabic translations from Latin.
Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din (‘Imad al-Din ibn Kathir) (Ismail ibn Kathir) ('Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir al-Qurashi al-Busrawi) (c. 1300/1301-1373). Syrian historian and traditionist. His history of Islam in fourteen volumes is one of the principal historical works of the Mameluke period. He also wrote a monumental compilation of hadith, and was interested in jurisprudence.
Ismail ibn Kathir was an Islamic scholar and renowned commentator on the Qur'an.
His full name is 'Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir al-Qurashi al-Busrawi. He was born in 1301 in Busra, Syria (hence al-Busrawi). He was taught by Ibn Taymiyya in Damascus, Syria and Abu al-Hajjaj al-Mizzi, (d. 1373), Fiqh with Ibn al-Firkah, Hadith with ‘Isa bin al-Mutim, Ahmed bin Abi-Talib (Ibn ash-Shahnah), Ibn al-Hajjar, the Hadith narrator of ash-Sham (modern day Syria and surrounding areas), Baha ad-Din al-Qasim bin Muzaffar bin ‘Asakir, Ibn ash-Shirazi, Ishaq bin Yahya Al-Ammuddi, aka; Afif ad-Din, the Zahriyyah Shaykh, and Muhammad bin Zarrad.
Upon completion of his studies he obtained his first official appointment in 1341, when he joined an inquisitorial commission formed to determine certain questions of heresy. Thereafter he received various semi-official appointments, culminating in June/July 1366 with a professorial position at the Great Mosque of Damascus.
Ibn Kathir wrote a famous commentary on the Qur'an named Tafsir al-Qur'an al-'Adhim which linked certain Hadith, or sayings of Muhammad, and sayings of the sahaba to verses of the Qur'an. Tafsir Ibn Kathir is famous all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the Western world, is one of the most widely used explanations of the Qu'ran today.
Ibn Kathir was renowned for his great memory regarding the sayings of Muhammad and the entire Qur'an. Ibn Kathir was also known as a qadi, a master scholar of history, and a mufassir (Qur'an commentator). Ibn Kathir saw himself as a Shafi'i scholar. This is indicated by two of his books, one of which was Tabaqaat ah-Shafai'ah, or The Categories of the Followers of Imam Shafi.
In later life, he became blind. He attributes his blindness to working late at night on the Musnad of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal in an attempt to rearrange it topically rather than by narrator.
Ibn Kathir died in February 1373 in Damascus.
The works of Ibn Kathir include:
* Tafsir ibn Kathir
* The Beginning and the End (Arabic: Al Bidayah wa-Nihayah or Tarikh ibn Kathir)
* Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya (Ibn Kathir)
* al-Baa'ith al-Hatheeth: an abridgement of the Muqaddimah by Ibn al-Salah in Hadith terminology
* Tabaqaat ah-Shafi'iah
* Talkhis al-Istighatha
* Signs Before the Day of Judgement
* Sins and their Punishments
* Stories of The Prophets (Qasas ul Anbiya)
'Imad al-Din ibn Kathir see Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din
Ismail ibn Kathir see Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din
'Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir al-Qurashi al-Busrawi see Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din
Ibn Kaysan (d. 911). Arab grammarian of Baghdad. He was a representative of the so-called eclectic school of Baghdad, refusing to take sides between the conflicting grammatical doctrines of Basra and Kufa.
Ibn Khafaja (1058-1139). Andalusian poet. He is best known as a poet of nature.
Ibn Khafaja(h) or Abu Ishaq Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abu Al-Fath Ibn Khafajah (1058-1138/9) of Alzira was one of the most famous poets of Al-Andalus during the reign of the Almoravids. He was born in 1058 in Alzira near Valencia where he spent most of his life.
He developed nature poetry to a great level of sophistication. His poetry includes a few panegyrics, e.g. to Yusuf ibn Tashfin whom he praised out of thankfulness that he had saved Al-Andalus from chaos by retaking the region of Valencia from the Spaniards in 1109. During the occupation of the surroundings of Valencia by the Spaniards (ca. 1100) Ibn Khafaja had fled the city to North Africa. He remained umarried but had many friends. At the age of 64 he collected his poems and wrote introductions to them. He lived to be over eighty.
According to Khadra Jayyusi, Khafaja demonstrates, in some of his poems a revolutionary attitude to language, using a vocabulary of great originality, which she describes as "warm and sensuous, obsessed with human intimacy, turbulent and conscious of the violence of life around him in a war-ridden country, awed by nature and eternally mystified both by its beauty and by its permanence vis-avis human mutability."
Ibn Khalawayh (d. 980). Arab grammarian and man of letters. Like Ibn Kaysan, he was, in grammatical doctrines, an eclectic between the Basrans and the Kufans. .
Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abd al-Rahman (‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Khaldun) (Abu Zayd Abd-ar-Rahman ibn Khaldun) (‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun) (Ibn Khaldoun) (Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥman bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn al-Hadrami) (May 27, 1332 - March 17, 1406). Historian, sociologist and philosopher of Tunis. He is one of the greatest intellects in the history of mankind..
Born on May 27, 1332, in Tunis (now in Tunisia), of a Spanish-Arab family, Ibn Khaldun held court positions in what are today Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and in Granada, Spain, and was twice imprisoned. Carefully educated, and having escaped the Black Death, he went to Fez in 1350, then the most brilliant capital of the Muslim West. He was put in prison for two years for having changed his loyalty in the turbulent political situation of the day (around 1360). His friendship with the vizier Ibn al-Khatib ensured him an honorable reception in Granada in 1362, from where he also came in contact with the Christian world.
Abu ‘Abd Allah, the amir of Bougie (in Arabic, Bijaya), meanwhile had regained his amirate and appointed Ibn Khaldun as his chamberlain. After the death on the battlefield of the amir, Ibn Khaldun handed over the town to the conqueror, Abu ‘Abd Allah’s cousin Abu‘l-‘Abbas, amir of Constantine, and entered his service. But, in time, he resigned and went to Biskra where he attempted to lead the life of a man of letters. However, not able to resist intrigue, he was continuously on the move, trying to back the winner although there was no winner in the Muslim West of the fourteenth century. Over time, he came to be regarded with mixed feelings never entirely free from suspicion. He left for Tlemcen, where the sultan once again wanted his services. Pretending to accept, he fled to live in the castle of Ibn Salama (1375-1379), near the present-day Frenda in Algeria.
In 1375, he went into seclusion near modern Frenda, Algeria, taking four years to compose his monumental Muqaddimah, the introductory volume to his Kitab al-Ibar (Universal History). Ibn Khaldun’s fame rests primarily on his Muqaddimah -- his Introduction. It was the author’s intention to write an introduction to the historian’s craft and present it as an encyclopedic synthesis of the methodological and cultural knowledge necessary to produce a truly scientific work. The central point is the study of the symptoms of, and the nature of, the ills from which civilizations die. His Moralistic Examples (from History) is important for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, especially for the Muslim West and particularly for the Berbers.
The Kitab al-Ibar is a valuable guide to the history of Muslim North Africa and the Berbers. Its six history volumes, however, are overshadowed by the immense significance of the Muqaddimah. In it, Ibn Khaldun outlined a philosophy of history and theory of society that are unprecedented in ancient and medieval writing and that are closely reflected in modern sociology. Societies, Ibn Khaldun believed, are held together by the power of social cohesiveness, which can be augmented by the unifying force of religion. Social change and the rise and fall of societies follow laws that can be empirically discovered and that reflect climate and economic activity as well as other realities.
In 1379, Ibn Khaldun returned to Tunis where he lived as a teacher and scholar. However, enmity from Ibn ‘Arafa, the representative of the Maliki school in Hafsid Tunisia, made Ibn Khaldun decide to leave the Muslim West. The sultan granted him permission for the pilgrimage, and in 1382, he left for Cairo.
In 1382, on pilgrimage to Mecca, Ibn Khaldun was offered a chair at the famous Islamic university of al-Azhar by the sultan of Cairo, who also appointed him judge (qadi) of the Maliki rite of Islam. In Cairo, Ibn Khaldun taught at al-Azhar and was appointed Maliki chief judge, but intrigues forced him to resign. After his pilgrimage, he was placed at the head of the khanqah of Baybars, the most important Sufi convent in Egypt.
Appointed judge again, and dismissed after a year, in 1400, he was obliged to accompany the Burji Mameluke al-Nasir Faraj on his expedition to relieve Damascus, which was threatened by Timur. Left in the besieged town, he played a role in its surrender to the feared conqueror. Having witnessed the horrors of the burning and sacking of Damascus, he returned to Cairo where he was well received. He died during his sixth office as judge. He died on March 17, 1406.
Ibn Khaldun is universally recognized as the founder and father of sociology and sciences of history. He is best known for his famous Muqaddimah (Prolegomena). Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad, generally known as Ibn Khaldun after a remote ancestor, was born in Tunis in 1332 to an upper class family that had migrated from Seville in Muslim Spain. His ancestors were Yemenite Arabs who settled in Spain at the very beginning of Muslim rule in the eighth century.
During his formative years, Ibn Khaldun experienced his family’s active participation in the intellectual life of the city, and to a lesser degree, its political life. He was accustomed to frequent visits to his family by the political and intellectual leaders of western Islamic states (i.e., North Africa and Spain), many of whom took refuge there. Ibn Khaldun was educated at Tunis and Fez, and studied the Qur‘an, the Prophet Muhammad’s hadith and other branches of Islamic studies such as Dialectical theology and the shari‘a (Islamic Law of Jurisprudence, according to the Maliki School). He also studied Arabic literature, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy. While still in his teens, Ibn Khaldun entered the service of the Egyptian ruler Sultan Barquq.
Ibn Khaldun led a very active political life before he finally settled down to write his well-known masterpiece of history. He worked for rulers in Tunis and Fez (in Morocco), Granada (in Muslim Spain) and Biaja (in North Africa). In 1375, Ibn Khaldun crossed over to Muslim Spain (Granada) as a tired and embittered man solely for the reasons of escaping the turmoil in North Africa. Unfortunately, because of his political past, the ruler of Granada expelled him. He then went back to Algeria to spend four years in seclusion in Qalat ibn Salama, a small village. It was in Qalat that he wrote the Muqaddimah, the first volume of his world history that won him an immortal place among historians, sociologists and philosophers. The uncertainty of his career continued because of unrest in North Africa. Finally, he settled in Egypt where he spent his last twenty-four years. Theere he lived a life of fame and respect, marked by his appointment as the Chief Malakite Judge. He also lectured at the Al-Azhar University.
Ibn Khaldun had to move from one court to another, sometimes at his own will, but often forced to do so by plotting rivals or despotic rulers. He learned much from his encounters with rulers, ambassadors, politicians and scholars from North Africa, Muslim Spain, Egypt and other parts of the Muslim world.
Ibn Khaldun’s fame rests on the Muqaddimah which forms the first systematic treatise on the philosophy of history. The Muqaddimah (Introduction) is a masterpiece in literature on philosophy of history and sociology. In the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun sees man as social animal, conditioned by his surroundings and the climate he lives in. Man starts as a nomad of pure and simple manners, loyal to his tribe and eventually settles down to an urbanized, sedentary life. This is both an advance and a regression, for although the arts and sciences can flourish only in urban communities, the townsman loses the virtues of the nomad, and his tribal spirit turns into national patriotism. Nations become corrupted by luxury, and are eventually swept away by a ruder, more vigorous people. As more and more men are contained within city walls, its ruler has to devote more and more attention to keeping the peace and maintaining justice; as his realm grows greater, it needs more and more the unifying force of religion.
Events in North African history gave Ibn Khaldun the theory that a dynasty normally lasts four generations. Ibn Khaldun concludes his Muqaddimah with an account of the various Muslim systems of government, and a short survey of the arts and sciences, of education, magic and literature, which constitutes a summary of the extent of knowledge at that time.
The main theme of the The Book of Examples, and the Muqaddimah, seeks to identify psychological, economic, environmental and social facts that contribute to the advancement of human civilization and the currents of history. Ibn Khaldun analyzed the dynamics of group relationships and showed how group feelings, al-‘Asabiyya, produce the ascent of a new civilization and political power. He identified an almost rhythmic repetition of the rise and fall in human civilization, and analyzed factors contributing to it.
Ibn Khaldun’s revolutionary views have attracted the attention of Muslim scholars as well as many Western thinkers. In his study of history, Ibn Khaldun was a pioneer in subjecting historical reports to the two basic criteria of reason and social and physical laws. He pointed out the following four essential points in the study and analysis of historical reports: (1) relating events to each other through cause and effect, (2) drawing analogy between past and present, (3) taking into consideration the effect of the environment, and (4) taking into consideration the effect of inherited and economic conditions.
Ibn Khaldun pioneered the critical study of history. He provided an analytical study of human civilization, its beginning, factors contributing to its development and the causes of decline. Thus, he founded a new science: the science of social development or sociology, as we call it today. Ibn Khaldun writes, “I have written on history a book in which I discussed the causes and effects of the development of states and civilizations, and I followed in arranging the material of the book an unfamiliar method, and I followed in writing it a strange and innovative way.” By selecting his particular method of analysis, he created two new sciences: historiology and sociology simultaneously.
Ibn Khaldun argued that history is subject to universal laws and states the criterion for historical truth: The rule for distinguishing what is true from what is false in history is based on its possibility or impossibility: That is to say, we must examine human society and discriminate between the characteristics which are essential and inherent in its nature and those which are accidental and need not be taken into account, recognizing further those which cannot possibly belong to it. If we do this, we have a rule for separating historical truth from error by means of demonstrative methods that admits of no doubt. It is a genuine touchstone by which historians may verify whatever they relate.
Ibn Khaldun remarked that the role of religion is in unifying the Arabs and bringing progress and development to their society. He pointed out that injustice, despotism, and tyranny are clear signs of the downfall of the state. Ibn Khaldun points out that metaphysical philosophy has one advantage only, which is to sharpen one’s wits. He states that the knowledge of the metaphysical world particularly in matters of belief can only be derived from revelation.
Ibn Khaldun remarked that the role of religion is in unifying the Arabs and bringing progress and development to their society. He pointed out that injustice, despotism, and tyranny are clear signs of the downfall of the state. Ibn Khaldun points out that metaphysical philosophy has one advantage only, which is to sharpen one’s wits. He states that the knowledge of the metaphysical world particularly in matters of belief can only be derived from revelation.
Ibn Khaldun was a pioneer in education. He remarked that suppression and use of force are enemies to learning, and that they lead to laziness, lying and hypocrisy. He also pointed out to the necessity of good models and practice for the command of good linguistic habits. Ibn Khaldun lived in the beginning period of the decline of Muslim civilization. This experience prompted him to spend most of his efforts on collecting, summarizing and memorization of the body of knowledge left by the ancestors. He vehemently attacked those unhealthy practices that created stagnation and stifling of creativity by Muslim scholars.
Ibn Khaldun emphasized the necessity of subjecting both social and historical phenomena to scientific and objective analysis. He noted that those phenomena were not the outcome of chance, but were controlled by laws of their own, laws that had to be discovered and applied in the study of society, civilization and history. He remarked that historians have committed errors in their study of historical events, due to three major factors: (1) Their ignorance of the natures of civilization and people; (2) their bias and prejudice; and (3) their blind acceptance of reports given by others.
Ibn Khaldun pointed out that true progress and development comes through correct understanding of history, and correct understanding can only be achieved by observing the following three main points. First, a historian should not be in any way prejudiced for or against any one or any idea. Second, he needs to conform and scrutinize the reported information. One should learn all one could about the historians whose reports one hears or reads, and one should check their morals and trustworthiness before accepting their reports. Finally, one should not limit history to the study of political and military news or to news about rulers and states. For history should include the study of all social, religious, and economic conditions.
The Muqaddimah was already recognized as an important work during the lifetime of Ibn Khaldun. His other volumes on world history Kitab al-I‘bar deal with the history of Arabs, contemporary Muslim rulers, contemporary European rulers, ancient history of Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Islamic History, Egyptian history and North African history, especially that of Berbers and tribes living in the adjoining areas. The last volume deals largely with the events of his own life and is known as Al-Tasrif. As with his other books, it was also written from an analytical perspective and initiated a new tradition in the art of writing autobiography. He also wrote a book on mathematics which is not extant.
Ibn Khaldun’s influence on the subject of history, philosophy of history, sociology, political science and education has remained paramount down to our times. He is also recognized as the leader in the art of autobiography, a renovator in the fields of education and educational psychology and in Arabic writing stylistics. His books have been translated into many languages, both in the East and the West, and have inspired subsequent development of these sciences. Indeed, some commentators consider Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah as superior in scholarship to Machiavelli’s The Prince, a Renaissance classic written a century later.
'Abd al-Rahman ibn Khaldun see Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abd al-Rahman
Abu Zayd Abd-ar-Rahman ibn Khaldun see Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abd al-Rahman
'Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun see Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abd al-Rahman
Ibn Khaldoun see Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abd al-Rahman
Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥman bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn Al-Hadrami see Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abd al-Rahman
Haldrami, Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥman bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn al- see Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abd al-Rahman
Abu Zakariyya' ibn Khaldun see Ibn Khaldun, Abu Zakariyya‘
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