Ibn Khaldun: An Essay in Reinterpretation 9639241504, 9789639241503

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Preface to the Paperback Impression
Symbols and Abbreviations
Anatomy of the Muqaddima
Biographical Note
One The Primacy of the Historical
Two The Problematization of History
Three The Historicity of Kitab al-‘Ibar
Bibliographical Orientations
Index

Citation preview

IBN KHALDUN

ARABIC THOUGHT AND CULTURE A series edited by Professor A m Al-Azmeh, Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. This new series is designed to provide straightforward introductions for the western reader to some of the major figures and movements erf Arabic thought. Philosophers, historians, geographers are all seminal figures in the history of thought, and some names, such as Averroes and Avicenna, are already part of the western tradition. Mathematicians, linguistic theorists, and astronomers have as significant a part to play as groups of thinkers such as the illuminationists. With the growing importance of the Arab world on the international scene, these succinct and authoritative works will be welcomed not only by teachers and students of Arab history and of philosophy, but by journalists, travellers, teachers of EFL, and businessmen - in fact any who have to come to an understanding of this non-western culture in the course of their daily work. The brief of each author is to take stock of the state of each of the fields covered, to expound the main controversies, and to include an annoted bibliographic guide for further study.

Also available in this series:

The Arabic Linguistic Tradition G. Bohas, J.-P. Guillaume, and D. E. Kouloughli

Moses Maimonides Oliver Leaman

IBN KHALDUN

Aziz Al-Azmeh

R O U T LE D G E London & New York

First published in paperback 1990 by ROUTLEDGE 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 29 West 35th Street, New Y ork, NY 10001 First published 1962 in Great Britain FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED Gainsborough H ouse, 11 Gainsborough Road, London, E ll 1RS, England and in die United States o f America by FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED d o Biblio Distribution Centre 81 Adams Drive, P.O . Box 327, Totowa, N .J. 07511 © 1982 Aziz Al-Azmch Typeset by Computacomp (UK) Ltd, Fort William, Scotland Printed and Bound in G reat Britain by T. J. Press (Padstow) Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall A ll rights reserved. No part o f this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, menchanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from die publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Al-Azmeh, Aziz Ibn Khaldûn. 1. Khaldûn, Ibn - History and criticism 2. Historiography i. Title 907\2’024 D13.2 ISBN 0415 03 5988

CONTENTS

P reface

vii

P reface to the Paperback Im pression

xi

Sym bols and A bbreviations

xiii

F igure: A natom y of th e Muqaddima

xiv

B iographical N ote C hapter O ne

T he Prim acy o f th e H istorical T he C riterion o f H istorical Significance T he Structure o f the H istorical State

C hapter T w o

T he Problem atization of H istory A natom y o f the Muqaddima The Muqaddima : Epitom e w ith Glosses The A nalogical Regim e

1 9 11 27 48 51 62 121

C hapter T hree T he H istoricity o f Kitàb al- ‘Ibar

145

Bibliographical O rientations

166

Index

171

PREFACE

T hat th e absolute difference introduced by the passage o f tim e betw een us and past authors is a fact o f param ount im portance in our evaluation o f past discourse is one o f the forem ost scholarly com m onplaces o f o u r epoch. The tw o great strands o f historical conception that prevail in our epoch - history as a continuous evolutive process, and history as the succession in tim e o f seedless structures - disagree on everything but that history labours to produce difference. Yet despite explicit general assent, the past is often detem poralized in actual historical practice. This w as noted by A rnaldo M om igliano in a m em orable lecture on Polybius between the English and the Turks (J. L. M yers M em orial Lecture, O xford [1974], p. 1 3 ):4W e m ust be free to ask our ow n questions, to build our ow n m odels o f the past and m ake our ow n evaluation o f it. This m eans th at w e can no longer accept H erodotus, Thucydides, X enophon, Polybius, T acitus and A m m ianus as guides to their respective periods. W e m ust m easure the exact size o f even the greatest o f our predecessors; w e m ust understand from w hat point o f view and w ith w hat lim itations he w rote; and w e m ust ultim ately subordinate him to’

u s ...’ Ibn K haldun has proved to be w hat is perhaps the great predecessor m ost resistant to this act o f subordination. N ot only is he considered the true historical source o f his tim e; he is also taken as the unchallenged sociological and cultural interpreter o f m edieval N orth A frica and m uch o f m edieval and m odern ArabIslam ic culture as well. The validity o f his discourse is considered to be so universal as to confer upon his ideas the status o f progenitor - or, at the very least, anticipator - o f a great variety o f m odern ideas. So unassailable has this position occupied by Ibn K haldun's thought been that the general accepted description o f his th ought has gone unchallenged even by scholars w ho took to

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criticizing the undue m odernization o f his w ritings. Even th ese scholars have accepted w hat is in fact an ahistorical description o f Ibn K haldun's historical and 'sociological' m ethods a n d conceptions. I have studied this Ibn K haldun vulgate in detail in an o th er book. A nd it w as in m y Ibn Khaldun in Modern Scholarship th a t I addressed topics w hich have so far been considered paradigm atic in Ibn K haldun scholarship. I show ed th at such topics, dictated b y the m anifest content o f Ibn K haldun’s text and by the orientalist, evolutionist, and positivist m yths o f o u r tim e, are not tru ly germ ane to the study o f Ibn K haldun o r o f his culture. W hat has hitherto been considered axial to the study o f Ibn K haldun - his supposed sociology, the 'incom patibility' betw een reason an d belief as the anim ating centre o f the Muqaddima , the scientificity o f his historiography, and cognate topics o f the im agination - are only touched upon in this book in so far as such topical proxim ity is justified by o u r attem pt to subordinate Ibn K haldun to history: to historical study as the study o f difference rather than o f sim ilarity. One specification in the realm o f difference is, how ever, called for. T he difference o f Ibn K haldun is the real determ inate difference o f his culture, not the difference o f a spurious orient from an occidental touchstone. T he subordination o f Ibn K haldun is a subordination to the real requirem ents o f history as articulated by and specified in the param eters o f his culture. The historical approach w hich w e m ight broadly call anthropological and w hich is adopted in the present essay makes no claim s to novelty in m ethod. W hat is thoroughly novel is the consistent application o f the com m on patrim ony o f m odern historical sciences to oriental m aterial w ithout the intrusion o f the m ythological patrim ony o f orientalist categories. A s such, this book claim s m em bership o f an em ergent class o f w ritings w hich seek to reconstitute all aspects o f the A rab-lslam ic past in a m anner unfettered by the dead w eight o f received orientalist (or fundam entalist) scholarship. It is precisely given the situation o f this book th at it is not conceived in m onographic term s. It is considered im perative for the m ore general enterprise w ithin w hich this book is embedded that principles for the direction o f m onographic w ork should be form ulated in order to avoid their im plicit direction by implicit

PREFACE

ix

ideologies and m ythologies. T his applies not only to the w ork o f Ibn K haldun. T he tabula rasa presented by the reconsideration o f the 1state o f the field' o f Ibn K haldüniana extends to - and is inform ed by - the 'state o f the field' o f A rab-Islam ic cultural history, w ith its perspectives lim ited in scope as w ell as in orientation by considerations o f the type ju st m entioned. T hus interpretations had to be m ade o f exegetical logic, o f the com m on conceptual patrim ony o f astrology, alchem y, m edicine, and other natural sciences, as w ell as o f notions o f historical significance, o f tem porality, o f historical criticism , and o f m uch else, w ithout the benefit o f m onographic illum ination from previous w ork except to th e m ost lim ited degree. A nd such interpretations w ere vital for the reconstitution o f Ibn K haldun’s discourse and o f the historicity o f this discourse. T hus the present w ork is an essay. But its status as essay does n o t im ply th at it is tentative; though it m ight not be quite definitive, it is yet very definite in its interpretive orientations. It starts w ith a biographical note w hich does not aspire to m ore than contribute to the didactic aspect o f this book's task by providing th e reader w ith som e spatial and tem poral orientations, w ithout pretending to dabble into the uselessnesses o f psychohistory o r o f th e biographical interpretation o f ideas. T he book then opens w ith a chapter w hich analyzes the structure o f Ibn K haldun's historical discourse in term s o f its im plicit notions o f historical significance, o f historical units, and o f historical succession, and then dem onstrates th at it is the conception o f the state in its historiographic (and not sociological) physiognom y th at dictates th e locus around w hich the Muqaddima revolves. The book then goes on to study the structure o f the Muqaddima in term s o f the principles o f order th at govern the succession o f its topics, and analyzes the logic according to w hich, in real term s, the project o f th e N ew Science validates its status as an historical Organon. T hroughout, an attem pt is m ade to relate ideas that em erge through the analysis to the sem antic fields and the paradigm atic contexts w ithin w hich their cultural incidence is em bedded. A nd it should be stressed a t the outset th at the term ‘science’ is used in the general sense o f Wissenschaft and denotes every selfconsistent system o f statem ents and com plem entary concepts w hich cohere under a rubric (‘astrology*, for instance) w hich acts as the repository fw scientific legitim acy: a science is also a

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paradigm to w hich scientific statem ents have to conform a n d w hich is m anned by a specialized body o f practitioners w h o conserve its paradigm atic integrity. It is this sense o f science th a t inform s the analysis o f Ibn K haldun's relation to his culture. T h e presence o f Ibn K haldun's culture in his w ork is not conceived in term s o f the m oribund notion o f 'influence* w hich tries to tra c k the presence o f the discrete ideas o f discrete individuals in those o f others, although one could probably cite such precedents for all Ibn K haldun’s statem ents. R ather, this presence is studied in term s o f the sem antic fields that ideas and term s acquire in th e paradigm atic form ations w here they occur and w here they a re elaborated. In this w ay, the historicity o f Ibn K haldun’s discourse is analyzed in the only real term s available for the inscription o f such historicity: the organized structure o f high culture w hich consists o f paradigm s, and the floating notions o f vernacular vision. In this context, the last chapter o f this book locates the eclecticism o f Ibn K haldun and the im possibility o f his entire enterprise as illustrated by the im m ediate im pact he m ade on his contem poraries and others w ho shared his culture. The consistent utilization o f a rational anthropological approach w hich discounts nothing in the K haldünic discourse - such as the rational status o f irrationality - and w hich does o u r great author the courtesy of taking seriously every one o f his statem ents w ithout taking the unfounded liberty o f differentiating 'science’ from ‘fiction’, is one w hich is best designed to historicize not only the discourse o f Ibn K haldun. It is hoped th at it w ill help indicate perspectives from w hich scholars could approach, at very long last, the real units th at com pose A rab-Islam ic sciences and A rab-Islam ic culture, and the points at w hich they cohere as an integrated historical unit.

A. Al-Azmeh M arch 1981

xi

PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK IMPRESSION

T h e 1982 te x t o f th e b o o k is h e re re p rin te d in ta c t, w ith th e ex cep tio n o f e m e n d a tio n s to th e B ibliographical O rie n ta tio n s. A co n sid erab le body o f I b n K h a ld û n ian a h as b een p ro d u ced since; som e o f th is o u tp u t has b e en o f h ig h q u a lity an d w ritten m ostly in A rab ic. B u t it has n o t b een co n sid ered n e c e s s a ry to revise th e b o o k , w hich has since a p p ea re d in A rab ic tra n s la tio n (B e iru t, 1983,1987), alth o u g h I w ould n a tu ra lly have w ritten a so m e w h a t d iffe re n t b o o k to d a y , a lb e it w ith th e sam e conclusions an d p re m isse s. A ziz A l-A zm eh

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Ibn Khaldun’s works BB Muqaddimat al-'alldma Ibn Khaldun (vocalized edition, Beirut, 1900) BD

Tärikh a b ‘alläma Ibn Khaldun , ed. Y. A. D äghir, 7 vols., Beirut, 1956 ff

L

Lubàb al-muha&al f i uqül ad-din, ed. L. R ubio, T etouan, 1952

Q

Les prolégomènes d ’Ebn Khaldoun, ed. E. Q uatrem ère, 3 vols., Paris, 1858

S

Shija’ as-sâ’il li-tahdhib al-m asâ’il, ed. M . b. T àw ït al-T&nji, Istanbul, 1958

T

A t-T a 'rif bi-Ibn Khaldun wa rihlatuhu gharban wa sharqan , ed. M . b. T àw ït al-Tanji, C airo, 1951

Reference works E l2 Encyclopedia o f Islam , new ed., Leiden-London, 1960 ff GL A.-M . G oichon, Lexique de langue philosophique d ’Ibn Sind , Paris, 1938 JL F. Jabre, Essai sur le lexique de Ghazali. Contribution à l ’étude de la terminologie de Ghazali dans ses principaux ouvrages à l ’exception du Tahâjut, Beirut, 1970 JT Ju ijân ï, Kitàb al-Ta'rifât (Liber Definitiones), ed. G. LA TK

Flügel, Leipzig, 1845 Ibn M an?ür, Lisait al-'Arab, 20 vols., Bülâq, A. H ., 1300 ff T ahânaw î, Kashshâf isfilâhât al-fiinûn, ed. M . W ajih, A. Sprenger, and W . N assau Lees, 2 vols., C alcutta, 1854 ff

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ANATOM Y O F TH E MUQADD1MA: SYSTEM S O F O R D E R , C O N C EPTU A LIZA TIO N , AND R ELA TIO N

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