Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Ideology (International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology) 9004075674, 9789004075672

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Ideology
Ibn Khaldun in his Time
Ibn Khaldun and Language: From Linguistic Habit to Philological Craft
An Islamic Theory of Jewish History: The Case of Ibn Khaldun
Royal Authority, Dynastic Cyclism and “Ibn Khaldunism” in Sixteenth Century Ottoman Letters
Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Reform
Naqshbandi Sufism and Reformist Islam
Conjuring with Ibn Khaldun: From an Anthropological Point of View
Ibn Khaldun & Frederick Jackson Turner: Islam and the Frontier Experience
Contributors
Index
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Citation preview

IBN KHALDUN AND ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY

IBN KHALDUN AND ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY

INTERN A TI ON AL STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY General Editor

K. ISHWARAN VOLUME XL BRUCE B. LAWRENCE (rn.)

IBN KHALDUN AND ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY

LEIDEN -

E.

J. BRILL - 1984

IBN KHALDUN AND ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY EDITED BY

BRUCE B. LAWRENCE

LEIDEN -

E.

J. BRILL - 1984

ISBN Copyr(ght 1984 by E.

90 04 07567 4

J.

Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, micro/1d11: or ar!Y other mear1.1 without written permission jlom the fmbli.1her PRINTED IN THE 'IETHERLANDS BY E.

J.

BRILL

CONTENTS BRUCE B. LAWRENCE, Preface .................................................... . BRUCE B. LAWRENCE, Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2

FRANZ RosENTHAL, Ibn Khaldun in his Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14

MIRIAM CooKE, Ibn Khaldun and Language: From Linguistic Habit to Philological Craft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2·7

KALMAN BLAND, An Islamic Theory of Jewish History: The Case of Ibn Khaldun ...........................................................................

37

CORNELL FLEISCHER, Royal Authority, Dynastic Cyclism and "Ibn Khaldunism'' in Sixteenth Century Ottoman Letters.....................

46

BRUCE B. LAWRENCE, Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Reform . . . .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . .

69

WARREN FusFELD, N aqshbandi Sufism and Reformist Islam . .. .. . . .. .. .. ..

89

joN W. ANDERSON, Conjuring with Ibn Khaldun: From an Anthropological Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

111

GoRDON D. NEWBY, Ibn Khaldun & Frederick Jackson Turner: Islam and the Frontier Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

122

Contributors..........................................................................

134

Index . ... . ... . . ... . . ... . . ... . . . ... . . . ... . . . . ... . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . ... . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. .

135

Preface MAY 27, 1982 MARKED the 650th anniversary of the birth of Ibn Khaldun. The inspiration to honor the moment by convening a symposium at Duke University during the following academic year came from Professor Miriam Cooke. She also obtained funds from the Islamic and Arabian Development Studies Program to bring Professor Franz Rosenthal to Duke University to address the symposium as its keynote speaker. Later, she invited other local scholars to participate in the gathering: Gordon Newby (History), North Carolina State University; George Roberts (Philosophy), Duke University; Herbert Bodman (History), University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Kalman Bland (Religion), Duke University; Bruce Lawrence (Religion), Duke University and Jon Anderson (Anthropology), then teaching at the University of Cologne, W. Germany. She also introduced the symposium speakers to the general public, and served as moderator for its afternoon session. Subsequently, she submitted her own paper for inclusion in the present volume. Without her resourcefulness and continuing support, there would have been neither a symposium nor this publication resulting from it. Not all the papers presented at Duke University on 24 March 1983 were able to be published. Each one that has been included has been substantially revised. The lone exception is Professor Rosenthal's. Since it served as a topical magnet, drawing others back to the study of Ibn Khaldun through the uncommon rigor of his own seasoned reflections on both the man and his era, it seemed appropriate to share it with a wider audience in its original form. Two other papers were sought from scholars not in attendance at the original symposium: Cornell Fleischer (History), Washington University, on the Ottoman tradition and Ibn Khaldun; and Warren Fusfeld (History and now Law), University of Pennsylvania, on Ibn Khaldun's theses as applied, and modified, with reference to 19th century South Asian Sufism. The editor is grateful to both for their willingness to join other scholars in the continuing quest to understand Ibn Khaldun. Three other groups deserve special mention for their efforts in arranging the symposium and assisting in its followup: (1) the Duke University Divinity School which, through the intercession of Dean Dennis Campbell, granted permission to use its Alumni Commons Room as a gracious setting for the Ibn Khaldun celebration; (2) the Program for Canadian Studies at Duke University which provided the funds necessary for essential publication services; and (3) the secretarial staff of the Department of Religion, Duke University. Shelia Walker, Gwen Palmer, June Glass and Wanda Camp-all cheerfully and efficiently helped type and duplicate many portions of the manuscript. While they are not responsible for any remaining errors, of either form or content, they eased the editorial chore of transforming this volume from dream to reality. Bruce B. Lawrence, December 1983

Introduction: Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Ideology BRUCE B. LAWRENCE

Duke University, Durham, U.S.A.

T

0 SPEAK OF IBN KHALDUN and Islamic ideology is to voice the imperative task of situating ourselves in several temporal and disciplinary modes. It is to acknowledge the profile of our world, the circumstance of Orientalism in that world, the emergence of Ibn Khaldun within Orientalism, and, finally, the significance of the papers included in this volume as a means of understanding Ibn Khaldun and Orientalism as well as our contemporary world. In 1983 there is an Arab world. It extends from Morocco to northern Iraq, from northern Syria to South Yemen, if one identifies Arab by linguistic markings alone. There is a Muslim world. It is more extensive than the Arab world, engulfing sub-Saharan as well as Maghribian Africa, continuing eastward to major parts of South and South-East Asia. And yet Arabic is the major canonical language in a Muslim world where Turks, Persians, Indians and Indonesians, to mention but the most general ethnic groupings, vastly outnumber their Arab co-religionists. And this Muslim world straddles both the Arab world and the Third World. Larger than the former, smaller than the latter, it partakes of major elements from each. It brings together the linguistic, ethnic and cultural heritage of Arabs with the social complexity, economic "backwardness" and historical "retardation" of the Third World. The above is a deliberate paraphrase of the dominant or Western ethnocentric world-view. It reflects what Karl Jaspers has called an axial shift in the power spheres of the Oikumene. It has been a rapid shift. The year 1700 may be taken as a limbo year, when glacial rather than precipitate change seemed to pertain. Less than 300 years separate us from 1700, yet at the outset of the eighteenth century, there were not three overlapping worlds, ArabMuslim-Third; there was only one world, the Muslim world. The Arab world was not a reality sufficiently discrete to be distinguished from the Muslim world. The latter consisted of three major contiguous and competitive ruling entities ("empires"), vast bureaucratic, military patronage states which had no fixed boundaries but wide frontiers defining their expanse and purveying the authority of their rulers to subjects and outsiders alike. The history of the Ottomans, Safavis and Mughals or Indo-Timuris has been well described elsewhere. 1 What is important to note here is the position of the Arabs. They

[3]

INTRODUCTION

existed as regional polities principally within one medieval empire, the Ottoman. Only in the extreme western Maghrib and in the distant reaches of the Arabian Peninsula did independent polities resist Ottoman encroachment. None, however, competed with the intra-regional or trans-regional glory of the Ottomans. If there was no Arab world, there was, of course, no Third world. Electoral democracy, as an idea, much less a prominent force, had not yet emerged, within either pre-Napoleonic France or colonial America. Communism was still further removed from the historical horizon: Marx was not born until the following century; Lenin was to make his mark in the early decades of this century. Russia was adjacent to the Muslim world and also to Europe, but it did not become a portentous force for the Ottomans till the inconclusive Ottoman-Russian war of 1768, resulting in the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarja (1774). In 1700 there appeared no significant ideological challenge to Islam; the major military threats came from rival Muslim powers. Economically, the effects of new world silver had devastated traditional modes of production and the old commercial networks. But the long-range impact of this inflationary cycle had not yet become evident. There were problems, but the magnitude of the problems, perceived in retrospect, seems minor, almost manageable with small adjustments to the existing structure. What was not anticipated was what came to pass. Now, less than 300 years later, the world order has changed drastically. The rise of the West, spearheaded by technicalism, egalitarianism and colonialism, has produced a state of affairs in which the major actors on the global plane are not Muslims but others. That has become so obvious to so many that it almost seems otiose to remember that the shift, from a MUSLIM perspective, was catastrophic. Muslim rulers-their territories, economies and subjects-were victimized by a world-wide process, one which neo-Marxist analysts prefer to describe as "periphery empire formation" (1550-1850), succeeded by "periphery capitalism" (1850-present). 2 Yet the reaction of Muslims to emergent European-based capitalism has to do with elements peculiar to their own historical background and cultural formation. The Muslim world, in the sense of independent empires controlled by political-military elites claiming internal hegemony and seeking external parity, no longer exists. Increasingly since the advent of the 20th century, the Muslim world has been redefined as a series of nation-states. It consists in the main of formerly colonial territories which have gained political independence but not autonomy. Now they are ruled by groups from within rather than beyond their borders, yet that territorial independence connotes neither economic nor psychic independence. The norms of conduct by which Muslim elites remain in power are determined by those outside their borders. The Muslim world has receded from the forefront to the back row of major actors in the current geo-political economy: individuals and even collective polities can respond to major changes; they cannot initiate them.

BRUCE B. LAWRENCE

[4]

Arguably, from a Western perspective, there is both a Muslim world and an Arab world, and the latter has surpassed the former in importance. Gauged only by the economic and strategic value of the member nation-states comprising each, the Arab world looms larger than the Muslim world in preserving what western strategists, such as Henry Kissinger, call the perilous world economy of the future. This is an economy in which not only the industrial democracies but also the "others", i.e., the developing countries, "are faced with situations of triple jeopardy during the decades ahead''. 3 Despite the fact that the Arab world, due to the energy needs of the nonMuslim industrial world, is the most significant component of the Muslim world for geo-political strategists, it is, for that very reason, subordinate to the first world-the USA and Canada, Britain and Europe, Japan and now Singapore-as well as the second world-the USSR, Communist bloc nations and mainland China. As a perceptive Saudi once said, "wealth is not equivalent to power, especially when the wealth is derivative and the power is elusive.'' None of the above analysis would have been conceivable to Ibn Khaldun or his medieval successors. In 1700 Ibn Khaldun had been dead for nearly 300 years. Neither the fact of his death nor the accomplishments of his life had seemed notable to most Muslims. Except for the Ottoman historians discussed by C. Fleischer in his article, Ibn Khaldun was hardly renowned among his coreligionists. He was little studied, with no major successor or latter-day following. After his brief popularity among Ottoman elites, he again receded into near oblivion. One writer has even gone so far as to declare: In his native Barbary, neither his Muqaddimah nor his personal teaching left any permanent mark. And indeed the systematic lack of comprehension and the resolute hostility which this nonconformist thinker of genius encountered among his own people forms one of the most moving dramas, one of the saddest and most significant pages in the history of Muslim culture.'

Yet now in 1983 AD (1404 AH), Ibn Khaldun is arguably the best-known of Arab Muslim historians. He dwarfs historians who preceded him, such as al-Baladhuri, at-Tabari, Miskawayh, al-Juwayni and al-Masudi as well as contemporary and later historians. Though few of these are "pure" historians, i.e., scholars devoted only to the pursuit of history for their professional livelihood, 5 they rank as the intellectual luminaries of medieval Muslim historiography. Comparison with any or all of them illustrates the distinctive contribution of Ibn Khaldun. In retrospect, he has eclipsed all of them. It might almost be said that the rapid ascent of Ibn Khaldun to contemporary fame has been as spectacular as the apparent decline of the world with which he was associated. Only in a Western retrospect, however, does that reversal of status become meaningful. The current preeminence of Ibn Khaldun is due primarily to the meteoric rise of interest in him among European scholars of the late 19th and 20th centuries. The Muslim scholar, M. Taibi, states without qualification: "it was in Europe that Ibn Khaldun was discovered and the importance of his

[5]

INTRODUCTION

Muqaddimah realized. " 6 The list of European and, more recently, BritishAmerican scholars who have worked on Ibn Khaldun is impressive. Their writings have been both cited and analyzed in bibliographies now known as lbn Khalduniana; the most substantial among them are Peres, Fischel and most recently al-Azmi. 7 The fact that a President of the United States of America could cite a 14th century Maghribi scholar as the author of "supply-side" economics, 8 whether the attribution is correct or not, merely indicates the pervasive attention to lbn Khaldun among a wide segment of educated Westerners. Even Muslim scholars who have lately come to write of lbn Khaldun and to laud his achievements are discovering a jewel from their past to whom western scholars, primarily Orientalists, have drawn their attention. The contemporary Muslim interest in lbn Khaldun, with the possible exception of Tunisia, is derivative, not self-initiated; it develops upon, even when it criticizes, Western academic interest in him. In short, lbn Khaldun is a product of Orientalism, and the extent to which he can now be assessed apart from the Orientalist interest evoked by him is highly questionable. Yet Orientalism took its implicit, if not explicit, beginnings from the promptings of power, when colonizing European nations ruling over Muslim peoples needed to know more about their subjects so as to better predict their behavior, and thus perhaps control them. lbn Khaldun provided a unique resource. He was not a famous Muslim scholar before he achieved fame among non-Muslims of expansionist Europe. Why? The points of attraction for the modern West mirror the points of detraction persisting from the Muslim past. Here was a Muslim scholar who did not hesitate to criticize Islamic intellectual pursuits and political structures. Here was a believer in God who saw forces other than religion, defined as devotional acts and professed ideals, 8 determining the course of human history. Here was an intensely private individual who was a public figure, at once a religious judge and officer of the state, convinced that the corporate dimension of society was ultimately decisive. Here was a visionary, perhaps even a mystic, concerned with language and adept at writing simple, unadorned Arabic prose (and perhaps also poetry; see the article below by M. Cooke). There is a sense in which too much has already been written about lbn Khaldun, 9 and it would be presumptuous to add to the swelling lists of Khalduniana unless we outlined and justified a new course of study. It is our intent to review and reconsider lbn Khaldun with reference to the cardinal points of his life and writings that are too readily either lauded or denigrated, with little attention to the underlying, enduring issues they evoke, for Muslims as well as non-Muslims concerned with the significance oflslam. These concerns are: (1) Arabs, (2) religion, (3) history, and ( 4) ideology. To speak of any of the above in 1983 is to be overcome with humility at the vast chronological chasm that separates Ibn Khaldun from us, his era from ours. The lines of demarcation between lbn Khaldun's world and ours have been etched by looking briefly at 1700 as a discrete moment for scanning

BRUCE B. LAWRENCE

[6]

backward to the 14th cen rury Maghrib and also forward to the present phase of post-colonial Arab political life. The difficulty in understanding Ibn Khaldun begins with determining the meaning or cluster of meanings associated with certain crucial terms. None of these, in our view, is more decisive than the term ARAB(S). A set of questions arises about lbn Khaldun's usage: (1) Did he understand ARAB with reference to his own situation at the Western periphery of the Muslim world, where ARAB was presumed to refer to an ethnic grouping from the Peninsula and its environs? Or did he reject this extraneous association and opt for a broader comprehension of ARAB that accented the cultural achievements of those who used Arabic but were not themselves of Peninsula or Levantine Arab descent? (2) Did Ibn Khaldun's definition of ARAB shift during his lifetime? \Vas it the same while he was composing the Muqaddimah and formulating a universal theory of history as it was later when he was writing Kitab al-ibar and describing the rivalries and outcomes of particular Arab tribal dynasties, especially the Hilalis? How did he use ARAB still later in composing his autobiography (at-TarifJ? (3) Did Ibn Khaldun avoid concerning himself with definitional consistency, presuming that it was the reader's responsibility to gauge the context of particular passages and arrive at the correct, intended sense? None of these and related questions about Ibn Khladun's usage of ARAB have yet been fully addressed and satisfactorily answered. One of the reasons for this failure is the sudden reemergence of his name and his writings in the • 19th century. The earliest sustained Orientalist interest in Ibn Khaldun was French-inspired, and it was directed to the Muqaddimah as a source of Maghribi history rather than to Ibn Khaldun as a pioneer historiographer; the subtlety or variation of meaning in key technical terms was less important than the scope of his data gathering and the detail of his reportage. While there was an absence of interest in Ibn Khaldun's usage of ARAB among Orientalists, there was excessive attention to his view of ARAB(S) among Arab proto-nationalists and "reformers" who where certain that they understood his depiction of the historic failure of ARAB(S), as being as well the basis for their recovery in the present era. The article by B. Lawrence explores the restricted understanding of the Muqaddimah among Egyptian-Syrian Salafiyah. They, like their Orientalist contemporaries (albeit for different reasons), were disinterested in a close reading of the corpus of Ibn Khaldun' s writings to determine the precise meaning of technical terms like ARAB. Compounding the problem was the discovery and citation ofibn Khaldun by an influential group of European and American sociologists primarily interested in theories of conflict and committed to the mosaic view of Middle Eastern/Maghribi socicty. 10 They saw in Ibn Khaldun only the author of the Muqaddimah and saw in the lvfuqaddimah only the expression, in lurid detail, of the fissiparous, centrifugal, anarchic and (ultimately) anti-rational properties of ARAB tribalism. They admired Ibn Khaldun for his honesty; they did not esteem him for being part of that society about which he was honest.

[7]

INTRODUCTION

To plumb the depth of misunderstanding and confusion about ARAB in lbn Khaldun's writings one must move in two directions simultaneously: toward a closer reading of his life as preserved in at- Tarif, and toward a clearer reading of crucial passages in the Muqaddimah. M. Taibi has provided a lean rendering of the autobiographical profile, 11 which F. Rosenthal has amplified in the introductory essay of the present volume (see below). The problem of defining ARAB in the Muqaddimah is closely related to the fluid dichotomy between sedentary/ civilized and nomadic/barbarian. As M. Mahdi indicated, 12 lbn Khaldun never absolutizes the distinction or evolves the competitive polarity attributed to him by many European and Middle Eastern commentators. F. Rosenthal probes his subject's intention still further: Ibn Khaldun dit not consciously make a distinction between nomadism and sedentary life as sociological phenomena. He simply grouped together nomads and (sedentary) "backwards" people, on the one hand, and contrasted them with sedentary urban people as inhabitants of large population centers on the other. Ibn Khaldun' s "Bedouins" were not, as a rule, nomads living in the desert, but dwelt chiefly in villages, and practiced agriculture and animal husbandry for a livelihood. It must not be forgotten that, in Ibn Khaldun's experience, the term "urban population" did not have the same meaning as it has today. Cities in his day permitted, and required, a good deal of agricultural activity. In Ibn Khaldun's thinking, the sociological distinction amounts to no more than a quantitative distinction as to the size and density of human settlements. 13

Among contemporary sociologists it is E. Gellner who has been most perplexed at lbn Khaldun's fluidity of terminological choice and conceptual analysis. Two articles in the present volume look critically at Gellner's ponderous interpretation of the Muqaddimah: W. Fusfeld, briefly, in his historical essay on 19th century tariqah Sufism in N. India, and J. Anderson, extensively, in his survey of anthropological approaches to Ibn Khaldun. It is ironic that al-Azmeh, a student of Gellner who attempts a grandiose revisionist interpretation of both lbn Khaldun and the Muqaddimah, never notes the ambiguity in his teacher's use of "nomadism", confining himself, instead, to praise for Brunschvig's nuanced exposition of badawah. 14 The major desideratum for considering lbn Khaldun's use of ARAB and related crucial terms/concepts is the one advanced by F. Rosenthal: to understand lbn Khaldun and his work ON THEIR OWN TERMS and in their MUSLIM environment. 15 That is the first stage in a true, hermeneutical endeavor, going beyond the polemically conceived "hermeneutics of intention" which al-Azmeh imputes to Orientalists and proceeds to pursue himself. It is attention to lbn Khaldun's Muslim environment which then allows the reader to understand his uniquely ambivalent attitude toward religion. Truth is inseparable from Islam as ultimate Truth, yet empirical observation and deductive reasoning compelled lbn Khaldun to use familiar terms in new ways and also to advocate speculative theses. To impute to him unorthodox or, worse, non-religious views is a misreading of the complexity which informs his approach to Islam. For him, Islam is as multivalent as the intersec-

BRUCE B. LAWRENCE

[8]

ting circles which A. Laroui, also a Maghribi speculative thinker, proposes in his collection of seminal essays, The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual. There are four circles of Islam-history, behavior, culture and faith. They overlap without being reducible to any one as primary and hence determinative for the others. Neither the Orientalist scholar nor the Muslim traditionalist, according to Laroui, takes note of these four intersecting aspects of a Muslim world view. Rather, they encode each sphere as inseparably derived from, and related to, faith, while for Laroui, as for lbn Khaldun, it is history which informs behavior and culture, just as it also informs faith. 16 Since faith is seen to be continously and necessarily dependent on other parts of the Islamic world view, it seems to a theological positivist, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, that lbn Khaldun has become an agnostic relativist, construing Islam as but one of several historical modalities in a cyclical pattern of recurrent change. That judgment, or some other about lbn Khaldun's religious stance, cannot be made in 1983 without reference to the extensive Orientalist scholarship of the last 50 years. It is one of the ironies of Orientalism that its British archproponent, H. A. R. Gibb, defended lbn Khaldun's credentials as an orthodox Muslim, while a Muslim scholar, M. K. Ayad, portrayed him as a precursor of Marxist materialism. Gibb seems to be closer to the Ibn Khaldun of the 14th century Maghrib than Ayad.17 Contra al-Azmeh, one cannot suspend lbn Khaldun from the mental universe which he inherited and developed from his immediate Muslim past. 18 For lbn Khaldun, religion was Islam, and Islam was religion. The extent to which other traditions, especially Judaism, are framed within Ibn Khaldun's Muslim worldview is clarified in K. Eland's article. Ibn Khaldun was attempting neither value-free history nor a protophenomenology of religion. Yet his Islam was broader than the creedal affirmations, the mythic reconstructions, the ritual requirements or even the juridical markings of his day permitted. Islam, to him, was the historical articulation of a divine plan that was rational and, therefore, could be interpreted by those who had eyes to see and patience to examine all that had been "revealed". In terms of Islamic intellectual history, it is possible to define lbn Khaldun as a neo-Mutazilite or a crypto-Aristotelian, but that is to miss the point. He was convinced that there was a divine intent in history, and that Islam, the Arabs and Arabic had been the superior vehicles for its implementation. By the same line of reasoning, however, pursuit of the divine intention was a hum:rn responsibility. The shortcomings of Muslim dynasts, such as the late Umayyads and the late Abbasids, reflected their failure to apply Islamic guidelines rather than a failure of those guidelines. While Islam offered the perfect framework for human society, Allah remained transcendent. He could not be handicapped by the failure of Muslims to accept His Will. That Will could be and was pursued through other nonMuslim as well as non-Arab instruments. Surprisingly, lbn Khaldun almost seems to ignore the entrance of the Mongols into Dar al-Islam and their impact on the Abbasid Caliphate, since the Muqaddimah contains but one allusion to Hulagu's sack of Baghdad. The conversion of the Mongols to Islam, already

[9]

INTRODUCTION

begun during Ibn Khaldun's day, is not mentioned as an exemplification of his thesis. It is perhaps for that reason that the late 15th century Egyptian historican, as-Sakhawi, complains of Ibn Khaldun's "imprecise knowledge of historical events, in particular, those concerned with the east. " 19 That critique must be attenuated, however, if one looks beyond the Muqaddimah and considers the other six volumes of Kitab al-ibar. As Fischel has noted, it is in the fifth volume of Kitab al-ibar that Ibn Khaldun "has included a rather detailed description of the Mongols and Tatars, the rise of J enghis Khan, his conquests in the East and the West and the history of his descendants up to Hulagu and Timur.' ' 20 Similarly, with respect to J enghiz Khan's most redoubtable successor, Timurlang, the Chaghatai Turkish chieftain who so effectively emulated Mongol patterns of conquest and rule that he became known as the World-Conqueror, lbn Khaldun provides an extensive account of his ascent to power and career in Kitab al-ibar. This is surpassed only by the detailed genealogy of Timur and depiction of their personal encounter in Damascus in 1401 set forth in the Autobiography (at-Tarif). It may be, as M. Talbi conjectures, that Ibn Khaldun "thought that he saw in Timurlang the man of the century who possessed enough "asabiyah to re-unite the Muslim world and to give a new direction to history". 21 At the least, it seems likely that Ibn Khaldun was compelled by his faith, not by his absence of faith, to postulate that Allah might act beyond the realm of Arab Muslim power to reaffirm the truth of Muslim revelation through non-Arab, putatively Muslim nomadic warnors. No approach to Ibn Khaldun can succeed without placing him squarely in the scholarly discipline towards which his life and writings orient him, that is history in the broadest sense, or as Marc Bloch has formulated it, "the science of men in time'', which therefore subsumes all other branches of scientific enquiry. 22 Many recent studies, struggling to locate something new and different about Ibn Khaldun, overlook the most basic of all points, that he was predisposed to history as the major organizing principle of his intensely selfconscious literary output. To debate about whether he was a genuine philosopher of history or a mere revisionist expositor of dynastic chronologies is as artificial as it is futile. Apart from the Autobiography, which has as its chief merit that it is HIS autobiography, Ibn Khaldun is renowned for only two books, the volume Kitab al-ibar and its introduction, the Muqaddimah. As F. Rosenthal and others have pointed out, the Muqaddimah was initially very brief. It was only expanded when lbn Khaldun himself added to it the first volume of Kitab al-ibar, intending thereby to illustrate the principles he was proposing in the Muqaddimah as a universal theory of history. 22 It would be false to pursue the task of defining what kind of historian lbn Khaldun was, or wanted to be, without first acknowledging that history was not, for him or his predecessors, an independent discipline. Rather, history formed one branch of the primary mode of Muslim cultural self-expression, adab. M. Cooke's article investigates Ibn Khaldun's perception of himself as an adib, applying and expanding A. Miguel's theoretical analysis of this seminal

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[10)

category in Muslim scholarship. Her essay, together with F. Rosenthal's biographical overview and K. Eland's examination of Ibn Khaldun and Judaism, make it possible to understand the seeming rational empiricist as a Muslim scholar who recasts the study of history in ways that remain firmly, inalterably reflective of his Islamic world view. The tradition which absorbed the Muqaddimah did not emulate and develop its author's insights. The basic openness of Ibn Khaldun to new patterns of historical development attracted the attention of few later Muslim dynasts. The Ottomans proved the exception, beginning with Katib Celebi and Naima, the 17th-18th century historians who were the first Ottoman interpreters of the Muqaddimah. C. Fleischer's article details the extent to which theirs, and all later Ottoman interpretations, developed assumptions already mapped out in the writings of Mustafa Ali, a 16th century clone of Ibn Khaldun who was not, however, his conscious legatee. It is the question of ideology which has assumed a prominent place and taken on an expanded role in other social scientific assessments of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah. J. Anderson demonstrates in his essay that no sociologist has been more intent than E. Gellner to use Ibn Khaldun for model building, hoping to extrapolate from his writings a universally valid social typology for the Muslim world. The hermeneutical problems endemic to this approach were discussed above with reference to the sedentary/nomadic construct recurrent in the Muqaddimah. The caveat of F. Rosenthal is inescapable; one must situate Ibn Khaldun in HIS Muslim context. As set forth in the Autobiography, both explicitly and implicitly, that context is limited to the Western periphery of the Muslim world, despite Ibn Khaldun's later service in Cairo and his meeting with Timurlang in Damascus. The sociological assimilation of Ibn Khaldun boldly attempted by Gellner cannot avoid reducing Maghribi society and, by extension, all African and Asian Islam to exemplifications of the Great Tradition/little traditions polarity. To the extent that anthropological study of Islam since World War II has presupposed this structural dichotomization, with its attendant theological judgments, it has not permitted the conceptual legacy of Ibn Khaldun to be properly applied to the evaluation of Islamic ideologies. Far from being value-free or objectively descriptive, many anthropological monographs on Islam, by the testimony of the foremost Muslim anthropologist, Abdul Hamid el-Zein, "in fact, reinforce the ulama's claim to a superior religious position by treating the elite version as 'religion', and reducing other interpretations to implicit ideology." It is difficult to escape the conclusion that "scholars' own cultural ideas and values have molded the analysis of Islam''. 23 There remains an enormous opportunity to apply the lessons of the Muqaddimah (interpeted in conjunction with the rest of Kztab al-ibar and also the Autobiography) to the field of Islamic ideology. One direction is suggested by contemporary Shii scholars intent on isolating the distinctive character of Islamic loyalty apart from its historical use or, more often (in their Yiew), abuse. Hence Ali Shariati, the popularizer of a school of what might be termed

[ 11]

INTRODUCTION

Quranically derived sociology, emphasizes ideology as voluntary rather than received, new rather than customary. It is "chosen, relative to the existing inconsistencies, for the purpose of translating an individual's, a class', or a group's ideals into reality" .24 Though fragmentary, Shariati's writings continue to influence present-day lranians, 25 and they echo P. Berger's depiction of ideology as ''sets of ideas linked to instruments of power''. Yet Berger also stresses the agnostic flavor of ideology by adding that its instrumental function is "bereft of a transcendent referent". 26 To the extent that the major elements of an Islamic ideology are implicit in Ibn Khaldun's writings, they go beyond what Shariati hints at and offer a needed corrective to Berger's assertions. Islamic ideology, for lbn Khaldun, differs from theology in eschewing alike blind supernaturalism and polemical obfuscations (see K. Eland's article), but it is always ideology rooted in the awareness of a transcendent referent. As F. Rosenthal suggests in his essay, it is only in a western post-Enlightenment context that it has been possible to talk of reason divorced from faith, or man autonomous from God. In the 14th century Maghrib, and more particularly in the mind of lbn Khaldun, no such disjuncture was deemed plausible: one could speculate beyond the confines of theological reflection but not beyond the context of a divinely ordered universe. It is also among the benefits of lbn Khaldun that his thoughts can be applied to an understanding of ideology in cross-cultural retrospects of the sort that G. Newby explores in his article. The concept of the frontier is implicit in lbn Khaldun's diagnosis of Maghribi society; however difficult it may be to generalize that datum to other parts of Dar al-Islam, it helps to illumine the force of F. J. Turner's attention to frontier in a later period and in a region remote from North Africa. Newby rightly eschews the designation of lbn Khaldun as a precursor, or worse, founder of some new academic discipline, opting instead to apply his concepts to a comparative study of violence and its relationship to sedentary and frontier civilizations. The present volume of essays could not touch on all facets of the insightful and evocative legacy of the 14th century Maghribi genius. It does, however, suggest limits and shor"tcomings to much of the narrowly modernist scholarship that swells the lists oflbn Khalduniana. Mindful of F. Rosenthal's exhortation to locate lbn Khaldun firmly in his age and in his world, it also provides exemplifications of possible directions for the next period of scholarship on both the man and his writings. It is time to begin the metastudy of lbn Khaldun, to acknowledge that Orientalist labors-in part negative, in larger part positive-have not only revived interest in the Muqaddimah but also shaped the perception which Muslims as well as non-Muslims, Africans and Arabs as well as Americans and Europeans, have of lbn Khaldun. A genius out of season can be reclaimed by all mankind, as long as both the contexts which define him, the medieval and the modern, are kept in tandem, and neither is permitted to preclude attention to the other.

BRUCE B. LAWRENCE

[ 12]

NOTES

2 3 4 5

6 7 8

9

10

11 12 13 14 15

16

17

18 19 20 21

See, e.g., M. G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago; University of Chicago, 1974), vol. 3, pp. 1-133. P. Gran, "Political Economy as a Paradigm for the Study oflslamic History", International journal of Middle East Studies 11 (1980), 522. H. A. Kissinger, "Saving the World Economy", Newsweek January 24, 1983, 46-49. R. Brunschvig, La Berberie orientate sous Les Hafsides (Paris, 1947), vol. 2, p. 391. Also cited in M. Taibi, "Ibn Khaldun", Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edition), vol. 3, 831. See F. Rosenthal, The History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1952), pp. 28-48 for a depiction of the gradual and comparatively late emergence of history as a discipline independent of theology. Even in Mamluk Egypt sustained speculation about the theoretical aspects of historiography did not begin till the latter half of the 15th century (pp. 37-38). M. Talbi, op. cit., 829. A. al-Azmeh, lbn Khaldun in Modem Scholarship (London: Third World Centre, 1981). In a speech delivered in Spring 1981 Ronald Reagan extolled Ibn Khaldun as a premodern exponent of "supply-side" economics. It was an uncommon but not unwarranted reference. The implied coincidence of economic strategies may be substantiated, with qualifications, by consulting the detailed, comprehensive article ofj. Spengler, "Economic Thought in Islam: lbn Khaldun'', Comparative Studies of Society and History 6 (1963-64), 268-306. Most recently, numerous symposia were held on the occasion of celebrating 600 years since the completion of the Muqaddimah (see al-Azmeh, op. cit., pp. 264-65). Especially notable would be the conference proceedings from Muhammad V University, Rabat since both A. Laroui (al-Arwi) and M. Taibi were among the conferees. B. S. Turner ("Sociological Founders and Precursors: The Theories of Religion of Emile Durkheim, Fustel de Coulanges, and Ibn Khaldun", Religion 1 (1970)) cites, among others, L. Glumpowicz, A. W. Small, Lester Ward, H. E. Barnes and P. Sorokin as sociologists drawing, directly or indirectly, on Ibn Khaldun's legacy (45-48). See M. Talbi, op. cit., 825-28, adapted from his monograph, lbn Khaldun et l'histoire (Tunis; Maison Tunisienne de d'Edition, 1973), pp. 6-16. M. Mahdi, lbn Khaldun's Philosophy of History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957), pp. 193 ff. but especially the last sentence of fn. 7, p. 194. F. Rosenthal, trans., lbn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah (New York: Pantheon, 1958), p. lxxvii. Al-Azmeh, op. cit., pp. 209 ff. tosses off a mild rebuke of his mentor, E. Gellner, but directs most of his criticism at 19th century French ethnography. F. Rosenthal makes this remark in a double review of two recent books on Ibn Khaldun, one by al-Azmeh (op. cit.), and the other by F. Baali and A. Wardi, lbn Khaldun and Islamic Thought-Styles: A Social Perspective (Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1981), appearing in The Middle Eastjoumal 36/2 (Spring 1982), 253. A. Laroui, The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism or Historicism? trans., D. Cammel (Berkeley; University of California, 1967), pp. 73-80, where he attempts not only a critique of the cultural anthropology of G. E. von Grunebaum but also the restatement of an alternative to von Grunebaum's approach. Ayad's book (Die Geschichte- und Gellsellschaftslehre lbn fjalduns) was published in StuttgartBerlin in 1930, while Gibb's essay, "The Islamic Background of Ibn Khaldun's Political Theory", first appeared in 1933 and was later reprinted in his Studies on the Civilization of Islam (Boston: Beacon, 1967), pp. 166-75. Both are discussed in H. Simon, lbn Khaldun's Science of Human Culture, trans. F. Baali (Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1978), pp. 154-65. Al-Azmeh, op. cit., p. 5. F. Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1952), p. 420. W. J. Fischel, "lbn Khaldun's Sources for the History ofjenghiz Khan and the Tatars", journal of the American Oriental Society 76 ( 1956), 91-92. M. Taibi, op. cit., 827-28.

( 13] 22 23 24 25

26

INTRODUCTION

M. Bloch, The Historian's Craft, trans. P. Putnam (New York: Vintage, 1953), p. 27. Abdul Hamid el-Zein, "Beyond Ideology and Theology: The Search for the Anthropology of Islam", Annual Review of Anthropology 6 (1977), 245-46. Ali Shariati, Man and Islam, trans., F. Marjani (Houston: Free Islamic Literature, 1981 ), p. 89. A recent instance is M. T. Misbah, "The Human Sciences and Islamic Ideology and Culture", Al-Tawhid Ill (Muharram 1404), 97-110, While the article and its author could be dismissed as propaganda and propagandist, respectively, for the Islamic Republic of Iran, the discussion of ideology and world view, their overlap and distinction, owes much to Ali Shariati's continuing influence in contemporary Iran. See P. L. Berger, Facing Up to Modernity: Excursions in Society, Politics, and Religion (New York: Basic Books, 1977), especially, pp. 70-80, and also the balanced, probing review ofM. A. Neal in Religious Studies Review 511(January1979), 10-15 and, for the specific citation given here, 13.

lbn Khaldun in his Time*

(May 2 7, 1332 - March 17, 1406) FRANZ ROSENTHAL

Yale university, New Haven, U.S.A.

FIFTY YEARS AGO was the 600th anmversary of the birth of Ibn Khaldun. Some notice was taken of the event in the Muslim world but it does not seem to have amounted to very much: at least, nothing approaching the number of publications that nowadays would be routinely expected, as the result of an important anniversary, came out ofit. In England, H. A. R. Gibb published a brief article on the Islamic background of Ibn Khaldun's political theory. 1 It was the first of Gibb's seminal publications on political thought and practice in Islam, which continue to be much appreciated. His argument was that the background of Ibn Khaldun's theory was to be found in the discussion of contemporary Muslim jurists as to the relationship of' 'the ideal demands of the Sharia with the facts of history.'' Ibn Khaldun was seen here as thoroughly traditional and in complete harmony with this times and his intellectual environment. In his article, Gibb expressed astonishment at the fact that the number of substantial publications then in existence and devoted to Ibn Khaldun was small. It seemed to him to indicate a new departure that within the preceding two years, 1930-1932, no less than four fullsize books had been published, three of them monographs dealing with special aspects of Ibn Khaldun's thought. Gibb wondered why there had not been much more scholarly activity of that sort in the past century, considering that Ibn Khaldun' s work had been quite well known and appreciated all those years. However, things changed during the following half a century, and what a change it has been! If there is anything to be astonished about, it is the flood of publications that has descended upon us and threatens to engulf us. Many are the scholars and writers, quite frequently scholars at the beginning of their careers writing their doctoral dissertations, who examine and dissect, try to make us understand, and also attempt to popularize the man and his work, naturally with varying success. 2 As would be expected, some of the literature is of a more general nature, but much of it deals with special aspects of Ibn Khaldun's work. A lecture presented at a symposium held at Duke University to celebrate the 650th anniversary of Ibn Khaldun.

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IBN KllALDUN IN HIS TIME

The forerunner syndrome-the tendency, which has been around for a long time, to find in Ibn Khaldun a forerunner of later intellectual developments-has, it seems, not yet run out of steam and is still going strong. This is hardly surprising and should not be dismissed as improper. It is, after all, one of the most satisfying experiences for an historical scholar to be able to discover unexpected and significant parallels to ideas commonly believed to have had their origins in a much later time. And, in particular, if those ideas happen to be viewed as "modern" and are believed to contain some important new truth cherished by large numbers of contemporaries, evidence for their earlier attestation and existence could indeed be illuminating and deserving of wide attention. In the recent lbn Khaldun literature. we can also observe a marked tendency to look at his work from the vantage point of some scholarly theory fashionable at the moment and to measure him, as it were, with the yardstick of modernity to see how he holds up. I must admit to occasional doubts about the value, even the legitimacy, of an enterprise of this sort. It mav constitute a stimulating exercise, but it injects an arbitrary and fleeting element into the discussion and is at times likely to mislead and result in historical distortion. Gibb rightly insisted that Ibn Khaldun, by training and experience, was a Malikite Jaqih with all that involved, and was faithful to Muslim tradition in life as well as thought. He was thus first of all a man of his times. He might have digressed from and advanced beyond the usual norms of his environment. Yet, to begin to understand him is to place him as securely as possible within that environment. This is a commonplace approach applicable to all historical study. In fact, one frequently reads claims that it is practiced in Ibn Khaldun studies. Thne, however, it is something to which often no more than lip service is paid. An Ibn Khaldun scholar may pretend to be aware of the deepseated changes in the intellectual climate that divided the world of today from that of fourteenth-century Islam, but by no means can it be taken for granted that the same scholar is prepared to recognize and transcend the limitations imposed by his uwn accustomed habits of thought, or even that he is willing to make a serious attempt to do so. It may indeed be doubted that understanding the past purely in terms of the past is a desirable goal. Desirable or not, it remains an unattainable ideal. Nobody can entirely escape from the larger perimeters of his own cultural milieu and the ways in which he has been conditioned to look at the world. And this is as it should be. The scholar dealing with past periods and different peoples must possess full awareness of his own cultural assumptions and limitations. in order to achieve an effective understanding of other times and conditions. The more clearly he understands this, the better the results of his scholarly research are likely to be. An attitude of simultaneous involvement and detachment-involvement in one's own intellectual environment and detachment from it-is necessary for studying phenornona distant in time and geographical location. The possession of such an attitude has always been, and remains, central to the labors of Oriental is ts and accounts for the remarkable success of their work. Needless to say, it is a difficult intellectual balancing act.

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The difficulty is compounded by the rapid and profound material and technological changes we are experiencing. Inevitably they affect our vision of the past. The attempt to see a historical figure of the dimensions of an Ibn Khaldun as he appeared in his own time and place is clearly an undertaking beset with uncertainties. This, however, does not mean that the attempt should not be made. Far from it! We still have much to learn about Ibn Khaldun's times and about how he fitted into them. Any serious attempt in this direction serves a basic need and can be expected to yield useful knowledge. And beyond that, it holds out the hope, albeit a tenuous one, that we may be able to find an acceptable explanation of why lbn Khaldun, as a man of his time, was able to attain that unusual stature which others of his day and age did not even remotely achieve. Here of course, we come face to face with the great problem of pinpointing what we have come to label, somewhat arbitrarily, "genius" . 3 The solution appears nowhere near. Romantic notions about nature and nurture must be considered with suspicion. Whatever role may belong to innate qualities, it would seem clear that nobody, no "genius", is independent of his times and environment; he must be understood in connection with them. For the premodern past, our sources are usually too poor in necessary detailed information to allow us to search for an explanation. In the case of Ibn Khaldun, we just may have enough information to achieve some insight into the interaction between the man and his times. We possibly may be able to catch a glimpse of how this interaction succeeded in producing an individual who was fully integrated into his times and yet stood out within them, thereby becoming a symbol of man's freedom to surpass himself and his environment. We are fortunate to have a contemporary statement about Ibn Khaldun which provides us with a small but not insignificant clue. The person who made it appears to have been somewhat younger than lbn Khaldun. He reportedly said that Ibn Khaldun acted as he did "because of his love of being contrary in everything" (li mahabbatihi l-mukhalafatafi kulli shay'in). 4 The occasion for the remark was something rather trivial. Ibn Khaldun, we are told, continued wearing Maghribi dress in Egypt, instead of the robes of Egyptian judges. Maghribi clothing was probably not very comfortable in the Egyptian climate, but this was obviously not the point the author of the remark wanted to make. In the context in which it appears, Ibn Khaldun is depicted as having assumed different attitudes toward the people around him, depending on whether he was in office as a judge or whether he was out of office. His insistence upon wearing foreign dress was probably meant to indicate that stubbornness and pride were part of his charater. He may indeed have possessed these qualities, and within the proper boundaries, they were estimable qualities. They were, however, apt to be viewed with great misgivings, and as a whole, the entire characterization given here was rather negative. It evoked the long history of the meaning of "disagreement" in Islam. Together with that of its even more dubious relative, cognitive "doubt", that history was not entirely unilinear and consistent. Different attitudes made their appearance at

[17]

IBN KHALDUN IN HIS TIME

some time or other. The general trend, however, was toward condemnation of both-an almost absolute condemnation in the case of doubt, and a reluctantly qualified one in the case of disagreement and contrariness. It was possible sometimes to contend that differences of opinion might be a divine blessing for the Muslim nation. 5 If they were a blessing, however, this could only have been because they could be conceived of as leading towards the opinions, or beliefs, or modes of behavior that commanded general acceptance and were not to be acted against. "Difference of opinion" was a much debated topic. For instance, a chapter in al-Bukhari's Sahih expressed disapproval of differences of opinion in connection with the understanding of the Qur'an. Commenting upon it, Ibn Hajar explained that ikhtilaf or khilaf, words of the same root and meaning, have their proper home in the realm of jurisprudence. Interestingly, he adds that they should be understood as being of ''a more general application than that. " 6 Ibn Hajar was Ibn Khaldun 's junior by forty years, but he was well acquainted with him. His views on matters Islamic are as authoritative as any we possess, and he was clearly opposed to difference of opinion, let alone doubt. Individual divergence from social norms always existed during the long history of Islam. We have some source material for it, including amusing descriptions of eccentrics. In general, however, it was not officially approved nor, we may assume, was it looked upon with favor by the overwhelming majority of Muslims. Doubting the established ways of thinking, believing, and behaving or holding views at variance with them is suspect in every society for reasons that are easily understandable. In the course of history, Islam, at least in theory, became more and more averse to expressions of divergence from the accepted norm, and differences all but vanished and ceased to be an openly acknowledged and tolerated influence upon intellectual and social development. By contrast, in the West, doubt and social controversy gained increasing currency and prestige. Already an early medieval theologian, the famous Abelard, for instance, would quote an incidental statement made by Aristotle in his discussion of the category of relation to the effect that certain problems connected with relation require much investigation and that doubt in connection with them is not entirely useless. 7 At the same time, Abelard would naturally be reminded of Matthew 7: 7: "Seek, and ye shall find." The train of thought thus created enabled him to generalize and link Aristotle and the New Testament in the apodictic statement that "through doubting we come to inquiry, and through inquiry we perceive the truth." When certainty about the attainability of "the truth" eventually started to recede, doubt and social controversy became even more powerful forces and helped, for better or worse, to shape the world in which we live. In the reference to "eccentrics", we had in mind harmless, inconsequential characters slightly offbeat and often self-centered. One might also include in this category certain heretics and mystics. They, of course, cannot be dismissed as insignificant: quite a number of that kind of "eccentric" exercised a great and often lasting influence upon the complexion of Muslim society. In general,

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however, the steady impact that determines societal development does not derive from any form of eccentricity, but from the ability "to work within the establishment" (to use a phrase now passing out of fashion). When we look at Ibn Khaldun as an individual "being contrary with respect to everything," it must be with the constant realization that his family origins, upbringing, career, position in society, and, in all likelihood, his view of himself as a Muslim in religious belief, legal attitude, and intellectual conditioning were as central to his time and environment as they could be. Any explicit statement that it might have been otherwise does not exist to our knowledge. A famous older jurist and scholar in Tunis may indeed have said, as reported, that it did not speak well for the office of judge and the intelligence of the Egyptians that they had made someone like Ibn Khaldun ajudge. 8 Conceivably, he thought of Ibn Khaldun as an erratic personality, but his remark was probably prompted by nothing more than mindless professional rivalry. It might also have expressed, however, a feeling of dissatisfaction that Ibn Khaldun had been promoted to a judgeship without having gone through the judicial ranks and without any previous experience in the judiciary. Things like that did happen, although they seem to have been a comparatively infrequent occurrence, and we might have here one of the things that placed Ibn Khaldun in a somewhat unusual light in the eyes of his contemporaries. Let us now try to identify some of the possible areas in which Ibn Khaldun may have appeared to be, slightly yet significantly, at odds with the prevailing norms of his cultural environment. In the first place, there is a view which seems to have gained a steadily wider acceptance since it was first proposed and which bears repetition. Focusing on the Andalusian origin of his family, this view suggests that his Spanish connection gave Ibn Khaldun a perspective different from that of the Muslim majority in Northwest Africa and the East. In a sense, he was in the position of a member of a minority group. No matter how well he was integrated into the majority environment, he may not have completely identified with it. His family had left Spain almost a hundred years before his birth. The lapse of a century must have blunted any strong feeling of separateness, but the tenacity with which ethnic and cultural differences may be preserved within a given society is well attested both in the Near East and elsewhere. lbn Khaldun's position could thus be described as that of a ''marginal'' member of society. (Misuse of the word' 'marginal,'' implying by it a possible differentness of the ways in which outsiders and insiders view the society in which both live together, has now become fashionable in scholarly jargon; one may hope that it will soon disappear again, leaving Ibn Khaldun but lightly scarred by its application to him.) Yet, the existence of significant differences in viewing a given society, according to whether those who are viewing belong to the majority or are "marginal" members of society, seems to be confirmed by the case of Ibn Khaldun, provided the delineation is understood not sociologically but culturally. Regrettably, as so often in dealing with the past, we have no really hard facts and will probably always remain unable to describe in detail how the process worked, except that its effec-

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tiveness may be guessed from what we can observe in Ibn Khaldun's works, foremost among them, of course, the Muqaddimah. As far as the Muqaddimah is concerned, only one fact needs to be stressed here, namely, that by its very existence it diverges from traditional historiographical practice while standing squarely within it. And it is this divergence which made it what it is. The work started out as a general introduction to the subject of history and grew to the size of a substantial volume. General introductions of this kind, consisting of a few lines, or a few pages, were the ordinary custom and can be found in many histories. It took special insight to recognize that their systematic expansion would serve a purpose, and it took a special kind of intellectual courage to act upon that insight and thereby go against or beyond accepted tradition. Favorable historical circumstances make it possible for us to trace, within Arabic literature, the growth and development of many fields of scholarship, from small beginnings to fully developed forms represented by sophisticated and, usually, voluminous works. This is the case also with respect to the large field of historiography. However, as far as the theory of history is concerned, the development was delayed, probably because the writing of history was considered an accumulation of facts and not subject, for any useful purpose, to abstract speculation. By the time of Ibn Khaldun, the discussion of historiographical theory had taken on more substantial dimensions. For some time, it had been something in the air, so to speak, and this is shown in particular by a very different work on the subject written in the eastern region of the Muslim world at about the same time Ibn Khaldun wrote his Muqaddimah. 9 But it remains a fact that a lengthy, independent elaboration of historical theory, such as the one that produced the Muqaddimah, was still contrary to traditional historiographical custom, although the time for it had come. Ibn Khaldun realized that. He accepted the Muqaddimah as a work in its own right, and proudly proclaimed himself the originator of a new science. His contemporaries may have had rather mixed feelings about such a departure from tradition. It is a fact, though, and indicative of the vibrant intellectual life. of the times, that the legitimateness and the worth of this new departure were widely accepted almost immediately, and the Muqaddimah was accommodated within the traditional framework of historiography. Ibn Khaldun's Autobiography is also clearly identifiable as an enterprise both within and beyond the ordinary. It stands in the long tradition of autobiographical writing in Islam. That tradition produced an interesting variety of forms of expression. Yet, it is not unfair to say that autobiography was not highly developed as a special literary form in its own right. Sizable works that would qualify in our eyes as full-fledged autobiographies in the way lbn Khaldun's work does are not really known from earlier times. 10 The title of rihlah "travel report" used in connection with lbn Khaldun's Autobiography suggests that the particular literary genre of travel reports was his model for picturing his own life on a large geographical canvas and for allowing him to write on himself at length. Those travel books, as they are known to us, however, are not autobiographical strictly speaking. At any rate, neither size

FRANZ ROSENTHAL

[20]

nor autobiographical content is what makes the Autobiography unusual. What does, is Ibn Khaldun's unmistakable intent to see himself as part of a larger whole, to place himself openly and consistently within the historical context of his times. His own position in life did not make this necessary; it was never high enough for his personal story to be identical with the happenings around him, even if they strongly influenced his life. Nevertheless, he did describe himself in this light. 11 The historical information that can be derived from the Autobiography is very substantial; if the history of the times were not known to us from any other source, it would provide us with more solid information than we have for many other periods or regions of Islam. The Autobiography reveals to us an individual who insists upon viewing himself relentlessly as being an integral part of his times. It seems likely that Ibn Khaldun's contemporaries may have found it strange that a member of his social class would present his own life as something inseparable from the larger historical picture. Certain statements made by Ibn Khaldun in the work confirm that he was quite conscious of the unusual character of his approach. For instance, he includes lengthy quotations from the personal correspondence between himself and his friend, the great litterateur and statesman Ibn al-Khatib. Quoting documents of this kind is not an unusual procedure. Ibn Khaldun, however, notes expressely that much of what he quotes concerns the political situation, and he feels the need to justify the inclusion of this material. He is brief and to the point: "Even if," he says, "this correspondence has seemingly nothing to do with the purpose of the work, I have mentioned it at length, but only because it contains much information about myself." 12 His apology no doubt came from the realization that he was doing something unusual. There was no need for him to spell out what it was. The identification, implied here, of his own life with the political situation of the times was something not usually attempted in Muslim autobiographical writing. In another place in the Autobiography, Ibn Khaldun again defends the inclusion of one oflbn al-Khatib's letters. That letter is, he states, an unsurpassably excellent piece of letter writing; it cannot be overlooked, even though it has nothing to do with the purpose of the work. And there is an additional reason for its inclusion, Ibn Khaldun informs us, namely the detailed information it contains on contemporary political history. 13 In still another passage, we find him explaining why he quoted documents and information that did not really belong in an autobiography. He discussed them, he says, because they concerned events to which he had referred in his work (meaning his History, the !bar). Students who may feel the need for clarification of what they find in the History, can find the desired clarification in the Autobiography. 14 To repeat: Ibn Khaldun clearly saw his own life as a reflection of the history of his times and did not refrain from the novel step of depicting himself in this light. Members of the scholarly class to which he belonged did not customarily do this; it would have appeared to them as presumptuous and of no value for scholarship as they conceived it. Since most of the readership of his work came from this circle, the impression of contrariness in his makeup, of a

[21]

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compulsion to do things not done ordinarily, may have been confirmed for them. There are other things in the Autobiography that might have struck attentive readers. Ibn Khaldun would have hardly been able to pass over in silence an important event which had serious consequences for him, that is, the ultimately unsuccessful revolt against Barquq in 1389-90. He had good reason to treat the episode gingerly, and he chose to deal with it in general terms, rather than with reference to his personal role in it. He embellished it with an historical excursus which was based upon his own views on political history as set forth in the Muqaddimah 15 -hardly the common stuff of Muslim autobiographical writing. Again, autobiography and general history are by implication seen as one. This is no less remarkable for the fact that it served the purpose of obfuscating an embarrassing moment in his life. On a rather different level is his geographical/historical excursus on the Tatars, but it contains the same message. 16 The close connection that exists between history and geography was fully realized by earlier Muslim scholars whose works had been an inspiration to Ibn Khaldun when conceiving the Muqaddimah. It was, however, quite unusual to present an excursus of this kind in an autobiographical essay, combining, as it did, individual activities with world history. While it might seem natural to us, it probably helped to reinforce among Ibn Khaldun' s contemporaries the impression that he was intent upon conveying an exceptional and untraditional view of his own personality. Thus the overall approach of both the Muqaddimah and the Autobiography had its strikingly unconventional aspects. Those who noticed them at the time may not have been fully aware of the lasting significance which they imparted to those works, but many very likely felt the presence of something extraordinary. Certain details oflbn Khaldun's thought and behavior, too, must have struck them as somehow contrary to accepted conventions, although it should be stressed once more that no particular action of his was without precedent and no individual thought or opinion of his can be identified as being totally outside tradition; he was, after all, the complete product of Muslim civilization in its most traditional manifestations-as a jurist, a scholar and teacher, and a member of the religious community. We have already seen that as a judge, he entered upon his judicial career in a manner somewhat out of the ordinary, although he then continued very much in the usual pattern. He followed the common tradition of making ritualistic efforts to avoid the offered, and coveted, judgeship, but he also started out, we are told, as a reformer against mismanagement and corruption. This was much less common, in particular given his special circumstances. At the time, he was still a newcomer in Egypt, even if he had a substantial Malikite Northwest African community to fall back on. It was no wonder that his attempts at housecleaning, before he was established in his position, provoked attention and, presumably, dissent. Unfortunately, we have no details and, in general, too little is known about Ibn Khaldun's activities as a judge to allow us to cite any possible peculiarities in his judicial administration.

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Something, if not much, more can be said about seemingly unusual features in his career as a teacher and scholar, which, it may be noted, became fully professional only in Egypt when he was already fifty years old. Research and instruction are the most traditional aspects of any civilization, and the individual is bound by their basic rules. Ibn Khaldun did not challenge those rules, nor could he be expected to have succeeded, had he tried. 17 But he apparently did succeed in projecting his own personality and personal interest into his scholarly activities a little more than was usual in his time. The Muqaddimah as a whole could be adduced as the principal evidence. The Autobiography also furnishes some support. Earlier teachers would hardly have considered their inaugural lectures, together with the circumstances of their delivery, as worth preserving for posterity. Ibn Khaldun did. He reproduced their texts in the Autobiography, apparently in their original wording, just as they had been presented. 18 The unusual character of this procedure rests upon an argument e silentio, and thus remains uncertain; at least to our knowledge, we have, so far, no evidence that earlier scholars had done the same. Lack of comparative evidence also hampers the evaluation of another possible aspect of Ibn Khaldun's teaching activities, that is, his lectures on a non-traditional subject, in this case, the Muqaddimah_. A scholar named Muhammad b. Ammar (1367-1441), we are told, studied the principles of jurisprudence with him, and also heard him lecture on a portion of the Muqaddimah. 19 We are not told when and where this took place. It does not appear to be entirely beyond the realm of possibility that the lectures on the Muqaddimah were given by Ibn Khaldun in his capacity as a professor in the madrasah where he was employed. If this was indeed the case, and the lecturing was not done privately, he brought his particular historical concerns into an institution where the subject was not officially recognized, even though history, in the Muslim sense, was closely connected with the traditional school curriculum. Even if not unprecedented, it was something unusual, at least to some degree. Jurisprudence and scholarship were central in Islam. Religion was fundamental. Deviations from accepted religious usage, small or not so small, were common. Given human nature, this is what we would expect. Biographical literature, in particular, often mentions things of this sort, probably because they were the source of comment and gossip in daily life. In Ibn Khaldun's case, his attitude toward Islam as a religion became a subject of curiosity, if not among his contemporaries, then certainly among modern scholars. They have felt, occasionally, that his seemingly "secular" approach to history and society involved him in some sort of conflict with his religious environment. More than anything, this is an anachronistic way of looking at the past. It reflects a view of the relationship between religion and other aspects of life which, even in the West, is barely more than two centuries old. We do not have the slightest reason for suspecting that Ibn Khaldun, in word or deed, ever noticeably and significantly deviated from the norm in his attitude toward the religious imperatives. According to all we know, he was in every respect as convinced and, probably, as observant a Muslim as a man of his background and station in life was expected to be.

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Yet, there are things that appear to contain some element of the unusual. His official attitude towards Christians and Jews, for instance, was no doubt strictly in keeping with the Muslim tradition, or traditions, that had developed over the centuries. As a scholar, however, Ibn Khaldun was broadminded and curious. When he felt the need to consult Jewish and Christian sources for historical information, he had no hesitation in doing so. He had, perhaps, an advantage in this respect since the non-Muslim historical sources at his disposal were better known in the Maghrib than they were in the East, or so at least it seems. If S. Pines is right, he also had knowledge of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed. The Guide had, in fact, also become known among Muslims as the standard work on Jewish religious thought and was studied at different times by Muslim religious scholars. 20 According to Pines, Ibn Khaldun may have encountered in the Guide the notion that cowardice results form oppression and servitude, and also that the harshness of desert life has a rejuvenating effect. Both notions were of considerable import for his own political theories. If there was a connection between Ibn Khaldun and the work of Maimonides, it is likely to be reflected only in a particular passage on Israelite history, and it must be considered a coincidence that the points raised assumed major significance for Ibn Khaldun's general thought. Be this as it may, however, it is probably not only later scholars who think of his particular choice of sources as remarkable; many of his contemporaries may also have wondered about it. Ibn Khaldun's religious views, each taken by itself, can be shown to have been held and expressed by others before him somewhere in the Muslim world. As they are known to us from the Muqaddimah, they are expectedly quite traditional and unexceptional. The existence of magic and sorcery is admitted but remarkably hedged about; astrology and alchemy are refuted in ways that to us at least appear eminently reasonable. Philosophy is accepted as basically indispensable but receives only passing marks, and that under the guise of rejection; it had long been agreed that philosophy does not measure up to religion as far as the ultimate goal of human happiness is concerned, and Ibn Khaldun had no difficulty with this notion. His fatwa on Sufism, together with the long and very thoughtful discussion of it, 21 leads to the conclusion that only moderate, traditional mysticism is to be tolerated according to Muslim law. His remarks on mysticism in the Muqaddimah agree in the end, but they seem in a way less judgmental and more appreciative of the powerful attraction exercised by unorthodox mystic thought, to which Ibn Khaldun gives almost exclusive attention. While apparently no individual item can be claimed to be strange and unexpected in Ibn Khaldun's attitude toward the religious core component of his civilization, the overall impression conveyed by his discussion may have seemed unusual in his time, despite the fact that there was nothing novel to it. In his view, religious beliefs, while outside the realm of the intellect, have to be approached rationally. Of course, prophecy and the realm of the supernatural exist for him in a very real manner, and there is no need for anyone to assume that insincere concession to environmental pressure had any role here. But all

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that is irrational is seen as separate, and, in the Muqaddimah, largely kept separate from all those aspects of religious beliefs and institutions that require and permit some degree of human control. The conviction that God's gift of the intellect to man gives him superiority over all other living beings was firmly established in Islam. It is, however, worth noting that it serves as the theme for the Muqaddimah's long sixth chapter on the sciences, which includes the religious sciences. In a way, it also dominates Ibn Khaldun's description of Islam as a religion. Religion for him is not restricted to Islam, although it took on peculiar forms in Islam. Its development toward sophistication and perfection is a rational process and subject to constant scrutiny. For a representative of the Islamic power structure such as Ibn Khaldun, and for anyone else in his time, it was apparently not within the ordinary and expected to rate religion in this way among the other aspects of life on an almost equal basis. His contemporaries could be forgiven if in fact, they might have sensed some contrariness to accepted ways of viewing the world. It was not obtrusive, however, and might easily have gone unnoticed. Indeed, one of the admirable features of lbn Khaldun's approach to everything he touched was subtleness, whether it was something as fundamental as religion or something decidedly minor. Some may have noticed the import of what he did; others may not. This seems to be symbolic for Ibn Khaldun' s noted ''contrariness in all matters'', large or small. Neither he himself nor his contemporaries may always have been consious of it. It does not matter. And possibly, we have here a paradigm of how to succeed, under the proper circumstances, in being a genius, in being outstandingly creative and innovative in intellectual endeavors. All the signs point to the likelihood that Ibn Khaldun studies will flourish in years to come. There will be many occasions such as the present one to celebrate his achievement. In some twenty years, there will be the 600th anniversary of his death to commemorate, if the coming generation of scholars does not want to wait fifty years for the 700th anniversary of his birth to roll around. But what can we say about the kind of research that will be done, or ought to be done, during those years? Ibn Khaldun spoke about methods to divine the future, and he gives the impression of wishing to believe in them, while continuing skeptical and trying his best to show their inadequacy. Skepticism about anyone's ability to answer the question just raised is certainly indicated. Unknown writings of Ibn Khaldun are unlikely to show up, and new biographical information which may come to light is unlikely to bring major revelations. This need not discourage us. A good deal of progress can be expected, not so much from constantly reordering our ways of looking at his known works (which will and must continue to be done), as from increasing our knowledge of his times. This will require the edition and study of the many preserved works of his contemporaries and an increased understanding of the political, economic, and social conditions of the century in which he lived. Recently, for instance, a work on the historians of the time of lbn Khaldun has been published, 22 and a doctoral dissertation, not yet published, has as its sub-

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ject the fiirstenspiegel of Ibn Ridwan, Ibn Khaldun' s colleague and friend from his early days at the court of the Merinids. 23 From my previous reading oflbn Ridwan's work, I seem to remember that it only confirms the expected, that there is an enormous distance between it and Ibn Khaldun. It may well be that an increase in our knowledge of Ibn Khaldun's contemporaries and the intellectual currents of his times will do no more than merely show the subtle ways in which he transcended his environment. If this turns out to be true, it will be enough of a reason for another gathering in 2032. NOTES

2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10

11

Originally published in Bulletin of the School of Oriental (and African) Studies, VII ( 1933), pp. 23-31, and reprinted in Gibb's Studies on the Civilization of Islam, pp. 166-17 5 (Boston 1962). The four books mentioned by Gibb are those by G. Bouthoul, N. Schmidt, E. Rosenthal, and Kil.mil Ayad. A recent bibliography of works on Ibn Khaldun by Aziz al-Azmeh is Ibn Khaldun in Modem Scholarship, pp. 229-318 (London 1981). For a recent brief survey of the genius problem, cf. R. A. Nisbet, ''Genius and Milieu,'' in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, CXXVI ( 1982), pp. 441-451. As-Sakhawi, a(f,-l)aw' al-lami' li-ahl al-qam at-tdsi', IV, 146, line 19 (Cairo 1353-55/1934-36). Cf. J. Schacht, in Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edition), vol. III, pp. 1061 f., s. v. ikhtilaj. Schacht explains that the statement had the original purpose of giving equal legitimacy to the four leading legal schools. Ibn I:Iajar, Fath al-Bari bi-Sharh al-Bukhari, XVII, 110 (Cairo 1378-83/1959-63). Modern translations avoid the word "doubt" in translating dieporekenai of Categories 8b-22-25. Abelard's passage, from the end of the Prologue of Sic et non, appears in Migne, Patrologia Latina, CLXXVIII, p. 1349a ( dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus; inquirendo veritatem percipimus). The passage is quoted inj. F. Benton's article on Abelard in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, I, p. 18b (New York 1982). Cf. F. Rosenthal's translation of the Muqaddimah, vol I, p. !vii (New York 1958, Princeton 196 7, 1980, Bollingen Series XLIII). Al-Iji, Tuhfat al-faqir ita flihib as-sarir, cf. F. Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography,' pp. 201-244 (Leiden 1968). It should be kept in mind that autobiographies, being personal documents, had only limited chances of preservation. In fact, some works whose onetime existence is known to us might be important for evaluating Ibn Khaldun's position. The famous Kitab al-I'tibar of the twelfth-century Usamah b. Munqidh is properly titled Memoirs in its English translation; it refers to historical events in which the author participated, and is concerned with instructive anecdotes, but was not intended to focus on the author himself. As is proper for memoirs, Usamah described his times as he saw them, whereas Ibn Khaldun described himself against the background of his times. Regrettably, the beginning of the K itab at-I< ti bar is lost; it can be assumed to have stressed the author's intention to share his experiences rather than record his own life. The difference between Usamah and Ibn Khaldun is also illustrated by Usamah's explanation of a statement he wished to make but felt had no place in his narrative. He mentioned the large number of copies of the Qur'an written by his father and found after his death, and concluded: "The book does not require that this be mentioned. I have mentioned it only so that the reader may pray for divine mercy for my father," cf. Kitab at-Iw York: The Free Press.

lbn Khaldun and Frederick Jackson Turner: Islam and the Frontier Experience*

GORDON D. NEWBY North Carolina State University, Raleigh, U.S.A.

THE

OCCASION FOR THIS PAPER was the conference on lbn Khaldun at Duke University, but the paper reflects a long term interest of mine in the Islamic frontier. It is my hope that putting lbn Khaldun, Islam's first theoretician of the frontier, in the context of a discussion of frontier studies will provoke a discussion that will lead to a thorough investigation of the interaction of peoples along Islam's bounderies, past and present. For this reason, I have chosen in this paper to stress the similarities between Ibn Khaldun' s conception of the frontier and that conception expressed in the everincreasing body of frontier literature. I do not mean to lead my readers to believe that I see no differences between the American and North African autochthons. It is, rather, that I see a similarity in the way in which the frontiers I mention are treated in the romanticized and retrospective views of the historians and poets. The romanticization of the frontier experience seems to be a common theme in frontier literature which is now so voluminous that much of it is, I regret to say, beyond the scope of this paper. Also beyond the scope of this paper, but interesting for speculation, is the underlying psychology of those who, from the vantage and safety of the urban study, pursue the vicarious frontier and idealize the frontiersman as the embodiment of strength, virtue, courage, and valor. Nearly a century ago in 1893, an American historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, read a paper before the American Historical Association in which he offered the then novel proposition that the frontier could explain the development of America. He was writing at the end of the era of the frontier, for just three years earlier the Superintendent of the Census had declared that there no Let me note at the outset my gratitude to Dr. M. Cooke and Dr. B. Lawrence for the opportunity to have a public forum for this essay. I am also grateful to Dr. Lawrence for his services as the careful and exacting editor of this paper. His many suggestions and insights have helped me to write a better paper, although there are, I am afraid, some lapses which he was unable to remedy and for which I must take full blame.

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longer existed a line of frontier between the settled and the unsettled lands. For Turner, the existence of unsettled areas and the interaction between the settled and the unsettled helped form the character of American culture and civilization. "The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advancement of American settlement westward, explain American development. " 1 For him, there was " ... a recurrence of the process of evolution in each western area reached in the process of expansion.'' Development was not " ... along a single line, but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new development for that area.'' Developme~t was a process of continual rebirth through contact with new opportunities which through '' ... its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. In this advance, the frontier is the outer edge of the wave-the meeting point between savagery and civilization.' ' 2 Shortly after Professor Turner presented his "Frontier Thesis", as it has come to be called, a storm of criticism, defense, revisionism, and support arose so that today there is a nearly inexhaustible supply of "frontier" studies. Nor are they all confined to the American frontier. Studies, have been written on the Roman frontier, the frontiers of Hispanic America, the frontiers of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China, and most recently Howard Lamar and Leonard Thompson have written a comparison of the North American and the South African frontiers. The notion of the frontier, the interaction of peoples in that plasma state between settled and wild, civilized and savage, urban and pastoral, has become a significant factor in our understanding of the formation of cultures and societies. To my knowledge, Frederick Jackson Turner did not read the writings of Ibn Khaldun, for if he had, he would have most likely recognized that he and Ibn Khaldun were kindred spirits in the craft of historical analysis. Ibn Khaldun, who was active half a millenium before Frederick Jackson Turner, had developed his own notions of the relationship between the settled and the savage in his famous Muqaddimah, and it is these notions that I would like to examine in this essay. 3 Somewhat against the historian's spirit, I would first like to lift Ibn Khaldun from his time and place him alongside Frederick Jackson Turner and the neo-Turnerites in order to examine his theories of the frontier together with the rest of the "modern" authors, for I feel that Ibn Khaldun can be understood as "modern" in many of his perspectives and methods of analysis. I would then like to explore aspects of the Islamic frontier experience, particularly the values that have become distilled from that process, so as to show how Ibn Khaldun's views are the product of first the Arab and then the Islamic historical experience. Ibn Khaldun, who lived from 1332 to 1406, wrote his Muqaddimah after the great periods of expansion in Islam. Indeed, from the perspective of the Western Mediterranean, Islam was contracting during his lifetime. The great tribal movements were in the past, and yet there were in North Africa, regions that were inhabited by pastoral nomads and rural agriculturalists, Bedouin,

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who interacted with the sedentary, urban populations. These Bedouin, only some of whom were exclusively nomadic, depended on animal husbandry for their existence and, in Ibn Khaldun's words, "cannot avoid the call of the desert, because it alone offers the wide fields, acres, pastures for animals, and other things that the settled areas do not offer.' ' 4 One of the characteristics of the Bedouin for Ibn Khaldun is their closeness to nature and to natural "good" compared to the sedentary populations whose preoccupation with luxuries and whose indulgences in worldly desires leave them "colored with all kinds of blameworthy and evil qualities. The more of them they possess, the more remote do the ways and means of goodness become to them. Eventually they lose all sense of restraint, because the bad custom of behaving openly in an improper manner in both words and deeds has taken hold of them. Bedouins may be as concerned with worldly affairs (as sedentary people are). However, such concern would touch only the necessities of life and not luxuries or anything causing, or calling for, desires and pleasures. The customs they follow in their mutual dealings are, therefore, appropriate. " 5 This leads to a condition in which the Bedouin have more courage than the sedentary populations. They are alone in the country, without the protection of walls or armies and are dependent on themselves for their defense. "Fortitude has become a character quality of theirs, and courage their nature. They use it whenever they are called upon or alarm stirs them. When sedentary people mix with them in the desert or associate with them on a journey, they depend on them. They cannot do anything for themselves without them. " 6 Good is then, for Ibn Khaldun, the virtue of courage, bravery, and fortitude, the ability to be one's own master and confront adversity without the necessities of armies, walls, or even laws. He contends that '' ... greater fortitude is found among the savage Bedouins than among people who are subject to laws. Furthermore, those who rely on laws are dominated by them from the very beginning of their education ... They can scarely defend themselves at all against hostile acts ... This situation and the fact that it destroys the power of resistance and fortitude must be understood. " 7 This is the traditional value of "manly virtue" [muruwwah] which, as we will see later, was a fundamental value of early Arab society and was taken over by Islamic peoples in emulation of the Arab model. Note: Ibn Khaldun would argue that this was a natural act on the part of the subject peoples since "the vanquished always want to imitate the victor in his distinctive mark(s), his dress, and all his other conditions and customs" .8 Ibn Khaldun does not argue here that all forms of law are detrimen ta! to man, for he excludes religious law, which he regards as "inherent", in some sense natural, but only in the form that it takes prior to religion becoming an academic discipline. Having been an academic, Ibn Khaldun seems to have fully realized the limited ability that the academic study even of good things has to bring about positive effects. 9 The disparity between the fortitude of the Bedouin and the corruption of the sedentary populations is the underlying cause of the historical process which Ibn Khaldun viewed as cyclical. "Sedentary culture," he contends, "is

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the goal of civilization," 10 and culture has a finite lifespan. "Whenever people settle in the fertile plains and amass luxuries and become accustomed to a life of abundance and luxury, their bravery decreases to the degree that their wildness and desert habits decrease. " 11 "When luxury and prosperity come to civilized people, it naturally causes them to follow the ways of sedentary culture and adopt its customs. As one knows, sedentary culture is the adoption of diversified luxuries, the cultivation of things that go with them, and addiction to crafts that give elegance to all the various kinds of luxury ... When a civilization grows, sedentary culture becomes more perfect. We have stated before that a city with a large civilization is characterized by high prices in business and high prices for its needs. The prices are then raised still higher through customs duties ... [and] the customs duties raise the sales prices, because small businessmen and merchants include all their expenses, even their personal requirements in the price of their stock and merchandise. The expenditures of sedentary people, therefore, grow and are no longer reasonable but extravagant. The people cannot escape this (development) because they are dominated by and subservient to their customs. All their profits go into (their) expenditures. One person after another becomes reduced in circumstances and indigent . Poverty takes hold of them ... All this is caused by excessive sedentary culture and luxury. They corrupt the city generally in respect to business and civilization ... Immorality, wrongdoing, insincerity, and trickery, for the purposes of making a living in a proper or an improper manner, increase among them ... Because of the many desires and pleasures resulting form luxury, they are found to know everything about the ways and means of immorality, they talk openly about it and its causes, and give up all restraint in discussing it, even among relatives and close female relations, where the Bedouin attitude requires modesty (and avoidance of) obscenities. " 12 For lbn Khaldun, it is clear that " ... the goal of civilization is sedentary culture and luxury. When a civilization reaches that goal, it turns toward corruption and starts being senile, as happens in the natural life of living beings ... He [the sedentary man] is also not able to repel harmful things, because he has no courage as a result of (his life in) luxury and his upbringing under the (tyrannical) impact of education and instruction. He thus becomes dependent upon a protective force to defend him ... It is in this sense that those government soldiers who are close to Bedouin life and (Bedouin) toughness are more useful than those who have grown up in a sedentary culture and have adopted the character qualities of(sedentary culture). This can be found (to be the case) in every dynasty. It has thus become clear that the stage of sedentary culture is the stopping point in the life of civilization and dynasties. " 13 New dynasties come into existence on the ashes of the old, either because elements of the old dynasties arouse enough group feeling (asabiyah) to prompt a part of the population to overthrow the old and sieze power, or because the old culture is supplanted by a new culture through invasion from outside forces. This is a life cycle, a kind of biological or material determinism, that has led some students of lbn Khaldun to classify him as a proto-Marxist, although

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a more apt comparison would be with the notions advanced by Arnold Toynbee since it is Toynbee who posits the relationship between the barbarian and the civilized as an interaction between the "Internal" and the "External proletariat" . 14 And throughout all this is an undercurrent of violence. Violence is part of the Bedouin virtue; violence is the means for defense of the state; and violence accompanies the end of the state, just as it is part of the fresh beginnmg. At this point we can see a nexus between lbn Khaldun and the concepts of the frontier advanced by Turner and some neo-Turnerites. With Turner, lbn Khaldun sees successive waves of contact with Barbarism, with the Primitive, with the Natural. Turner is writing at what he sees to be the end of the frontier experience for the United States, and so, for him, the cycle is finite. In contrast, Ibn Khaldun' s observations and reading of history led him to believe that this was a more general phenomenon, that every dynasty is subject to its final encounter with the Primitive just as it was in the first encounter and both compelled by a driving biological necessity. This would place Ibn Khaldun more squarely with the neo-Turnerites, for is they who find that a frontier perspective is applicable to nearly every culture and civilization that we might study. The traits of character that both Ibn Khaldun and Turner find in the frontiersman, the American pioneer and cowboy, and the Middle Eastern Bedouin are strikingly similar. "That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom-these are traits of the frontier ... '' And they are for Turner the marks of the frontiersman forged and honed in the harsh environment of the primitive. 15 The desert Bedouin are also coarse. Indeed, according to Ibn Khaldun, they are the most savage people that exist. 16 They are brave, self reliant, and possessed of group consciousness and feeling, asabiyah, a trait necessary for mutual defense, and a trait described by Turner as one of the characteristics of the frontiersman when confronting common dangers. "Particularism," he asserts, "was strongest in colonies with no Indian frontier." 17 Here it should be noted that Individualism and Group Feeling are not necessarily diametrical opposites as might be supposed. For both historians, Individualism means the ability to fend for oneself, to rely on oneself and have the strength and courage to do so. Group Feeling, Ibn Khaldun's asabiyah, is the banding together of a group of individuals each of whom possesses the manly virtues of individualism. As long as that group feeling prevails and can be transferred to the ruling dynasty, the vitality of the culture is maintained. Once it is lost, however, the sedentary culture declines into a senility from which it does not recover. Again Toynbee shares this view. He says that at the point when the frontier of a civilization ceases to expand, there is not stable equilibrium but a decline in favor of the Barbarian. 18 Nor should it be thought that Turner and Ibn Khaldun are talking about different

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notions of the frontier, for there is a considerable overlap in the frontier types observed bv both historians. The range is from nomadic pastorialists to rural agriculturalists in both theses, and in both there seems to be little distinction among the sub-categories that would affect the overall statements of the theses. Whether Indian Fighter or Camel Herder, the values of savage virtue and group feeling arc the elements that shape and revivify society. Silvio R. Duncan-Baretta and .John Markoff, in their "Civilization and Barbarism: Cattle Frontiers in Latin America, " 19 analyze an aspect of frontier society that is, for the most part, implicit in the writings of both Ibn Khaldun and F . .J. Turner, i.e., the character of violence and its relationship to the sedentary and frontier civilizations. They quite rightly point out that "social analysts tend to see violence as a traightforward and uncomplicated phenomenon: when openly used, it is a direct way of settling disputes; when it is not used hut available, it is a necessary and, at least in the short run, sufficient condition of domination. As a background condition, violence is readily forgotten.'· ' 0 They point out that violence is usual! y taken for granted in the New World frontiers but that it is a necessary component of the way in which the settled and the savage areas relate to one another. In particular, the settled and frontier areas have a mutually dependent and interactive relationship in which some of the frontier conditions are produced by the settled areas. In other words, it is to the advantage of the settled areas to utilize the frontier for defense purposes and as a kind of buffer to prevent the disruption of the activities of the settled society by outsiders. ''One cost of an economic activity is the cost of its protection from violent disruption." In varying degrees, a government, a settled society, must provide protection and must try to maintain a monopoly on that protection. "Competition makes protection much more expensive.'' Hence, frontiers are '' ... places where no one has an enduring monopoly of violence. At a given level of technological development, an optimum size exists for an area being protected. Below this size resources are inefficiently used and above it governmental control tends to vanish. There may or may not be a political unit on the other side. If so, the two political centers may raise each other's protection costs drastically ... Frontiers are, then, boundaries beyond the sphere of the routine action of centrally located violence-producing enterprises, although they may well be within the range of isolated attacks. " 21 This analysis can be compared to lbn Khaldun' s contention that civilized areas achieve their optimum size in relationship to the strength of Group Feeling, asabiyah, which radiates out from the center toward the edge of authority surrounding the civilized area like a belt. This frontier is the extreme limit of the force of the radiation of Group Feeling and dynastic power. 22 In Latin America, cattle herds and the herders were driven to marginal lands both so that they would not disrupt the settled populations and the richer agrarian areas, since cattle are inherently destructive to farm lands, and so that they would from a protective ring around the civilized areas. The advantages to the herders was that they could acquire control, if not actual ownership of

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large tracts of land through which they were free to travel. The disadvantage for them was that thcv were kept from the richer areas and furced into the pastoralist life-style. It is this relationship that tlw authors sec as a subset of Owen Lattimorc's trenchant observation that civilization was "the mother of barbarism.' ' 23 The culture that was produced was a culture of ,-iolence. In the Latin American cattle frontiers, "the constant state of armed conflict attracted people endowed with a keen sense of military honor and also produced individuals with these characteristics. A man's rank within frontier communities depended at least partly on his courage and on skills related to military endeavors, such as riding and fighting ... They enjoyed exhibiting their dexterity with knives and their fearlessness in facing death. Their goal was to be known as men of courage. " 21 Violence, then, was more than merelv a practical byproduct of the vicissitudes of frontier life. It was a way of life which became manifest in all aspects of frontier culture. We sec a similar recurrence among the Bedouin of Arabia. For instance, among the Rwala Bedouin. observed by A. Musil, these princiµles became abstracted ev('n in their views of the afterlife. "Paradise is somewhere below ground. There it rains regularly, there is always rabl', abundance, good pasture, kh~yr, and there also the moon shines all the time. In paradise all the Rwala live together, are young, and never grow older. They can marry there and have grown children at once. Every one has a big tent, big herds, and many children. They raid hostile tribes which have been condemned to hell, where all enemies of the Rwala are sent. " 25 Hell is above the earth, unµrotected, where it is not possible to live by cattle breeding and where one must resort to artificial irrigation, live in houses, serve in the army, and be subject to the laws of the government. Musil also observed that the "R wala are ever at war with one tribe or another. Without war a Rwcvli could not !in'. War gives him an opportunity of displaying his cunning, endurance, and courage. He neither loves the shedding of blood, nor craves booty, but is allured by danger and delights in the predatory art. The booty itself ht> will give away without thinking much about it-even to the wife of the very man he has just robbed. " 26 [Note that serving in the army is not regarded as sufficient to fulfill the quest for doing deeds of valor. lbn Khaldun would probably offer the explanation that such service would be without the necessary factor of "group feeling'', asabiyah, and hence would be interpreted as mere subservience to the external authority of the government.] Even in this climate of violence and conflict, the relationship between nomads and settled societies was never complt>tely severed. In the Latin American c d ttle frontiers, the relationships were not only sometimes symbiotic, but also amicable and consanguine. In southern Chile, there was a frequent transition from the nomadic to the settled life. "It seems that permanent nomadism and permanent geographic stability were two extremes, and that most of the population in the cattle frontier belonged to neither.' ' 27 The transition probably had to do with economic pressures, since it can be observed that

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many of the persons classified as vagrants in the judicial records are described as former small property owners. 28 Ibn Khaldun makes a similar observation about the Bedouin. "Evidence for the fact that Bedouin are the basis of, and prior to, sedentary people is furnished by investigating the inhabitants of any given city. We shall find that most of its inhabitants orginated among the Bedouin dwelling in the country and villages of the vincinity. " 29 And they have a relationship of mutual dependence, because the Bedouin have no money, but rather their wealth is in the goods they produce, the grain, the animals and animal products, all of which the city dwellers need and for which they pay money. The cities, in turn, have the manufactured necessities for which the Bedouin pay money. 30 This relationship leads, of course, to a kind of natural domination by the urban centers over the Bedouin, for they have'' ... no hope of survival except by being obedient to the city. " 31 This linkage between the sedentary and nomadic populations naturally produces ambivalent attitudes on both sides. It should not surprise us to find negative regard for the Bedouin alongside statements imputing to them the highest of natural good. We note that the Bedouin is "closer to being good than sedentary people,'' 32 but, on the other hand, places that come under the domination of the Arab are said to be quickly ruined precisely because the Arabs " ... are a savage nation, fully accustomed to savagery and the things that cause it. Savagery has become their character and nature. They enjoy it, because it means freedom from authority and no subservience to leadership. Such a natural disposition is the· negation and antithesis of civilization. " 33 "Brutality and recalcitrance are the characteristics of those bawlers (faddadin), the tent dwellers from the tribes of Rabi's and Mudar who drive their camels and cattle.' ' 34 However necessary, however good, the presence of the Bedouin was regarded with some horror by the civilized dweller in the city. As I remarked above, Ibn Khaldun proposed his thesis of a continuing dialectic between the Bedouin and the Sedentary at the geographic extreme and chronological end of the Islamic frontier experience. By his time, the values of the frontier had become set in literature and religion as topoi which conditioned the perspectives of the members of the Islamic society. This had, of course, been a process that had started early, even before the rise of Islam. If we can believe W. Caskell,'Arabia and the Hijaz in particular had undergone a process of Bedouinization before the advent of Muhammad. 35 Urban centers, like Mecca, capitalized on the military prowess and superior mobility of the Bedouin camel cavalry, and the Quraysh. through a series of alliances, treaties and partnerships, came to dominates the region and its trade. By the time of the birth of Muhammad, there was already a strong literary tradition among all the speakers of Northwest Arabia, fostered by the Meccans for their commercial and religious ends. This literary tradition raised the values of the nomadic pastoral culture to the level of romance and near epic. Honor, courage, hospitality, ferocity, all were traits admired by this society. Such traits are clearly exemplified in the famous Qasidah by as-Samaw'al: 36

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1. When a man's honour is not defiled by baseness, then every cloak he cloaks himself in is comely; 2. And if he has never constrained himself to endure despite, then there is no way (for him) to (attain) goodly praise. 3. She (was) reproaching us, that we were few in numbers; so I said to her, ''Indeed, noble men are few.'' 4. Not few are they whose remnants are like to us-youths who have climbed to the heights, and old men (too). 5. It harms us not that we are few, seeing that our kinsman is mighty, whereas the kinsman of the most part of men is abased. 6. We have a mountain where those we protect come to dwell, impregnable, turning back the eye and it a-weary; 7. Its trunk anchored beneath the soil, and a branch (of it) soars with it to the stars, unattainable, tall. 8. We are indeed a folk who deem not being killed a disgrace, though 'Amir and Salul may (so) consider it. 9. The love of death brings our term (of life) near to us, but their term hates death, and is therefore prolonged. 10. Not one sayyid of ours ever died a natural death, nor was any slain of ours ever left where he lay unavenged. 11. Our souls flow out along the edge of the swordblades, and do not flow out along other than the swordblades. 12. We have remained pure and unsullied, and females and stallions who bore us in goodly fame kept intact out stock. 13. We climbed on to the best of back, and a descending brought us down in due time to the best of bellies. 14. So we are as the water of the rain-shower-in our metal is no bluntness, neither is any miser numbered against us. 15. We disapprove if we will of what other men say, but they disavow never words spoken by us. 16. Whenever a sayyid of ours disappears, (another) sayyid arises, one eloquent to speak as noble men speak, and strong to act moreover. 17. No fire of ours was ever doused against a night-visitor, neither has any casual guest alighthing found fault with us. 18. Our 'days' are famous amongst our foes; they have well marked blazes and white pasterns; 19. And our swords-in all west and east they have been blunted from smiting against armoured warrioirs; 20. Their blades are accustomed not to be drawn and then sheathed until the blood of a host is spilled. 21. If you are ignorant, ask the people concerning us and them-and he who knows and he who is ignorant are (assuredly) not equal." As is well known, this is the same as-Samaw' al of the proverb, awfa mina-ssamaw 'al, [More faithful than as-Samaw'al] who derived this honor when he

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allowed his son to be killed rather than relinquish five oats of mail belonging to a dead friend because he had given his word that he would keep them until his friend returned. Several values are evident in this peom. The first is the linking of honor, danger and death: "No sayyid of ours ever died a natural death," and "the love of death brings our term (of life) near to us." This is, of course, 'dying with one's boots on', as our American frontier heritage would have it. Another value is that of hospitality, a characteristic that is also found on the American frontier: ''No fire of ours was ever doused against a night-visitor.'' In the American West, "There was an unwritten law, recognized by the good women of the towns as well as of the country, that whenever a party of cowhunters rode up and asked to have bread baked, it mattered not the time of day, the request was to be cheerfully complied with. Not from fear of insult in the case of refusal, for each and every cowboy was the champion and defender of womanhood and would have scorned to have uttered a disrespectful word in her presence-but from an accommodating spirit and kindness which was universally characteristic in those frontier days ... " 37 Even if the individual were not home, it was expected that hospitality would be extended. As Mody Boatwright observes, a person could enter a house in the absence of the owner, take the food that he required, use the kitchen and depart without being guilty of the laws of trespass, so long as he took only what he needed and left the kitchen clean. 38 The values of the pre-Islamic period, with suitable modifications, were incorporated into the structure of early Islamic society, particularly that of the U mayyids. la dina illa bi-muruwwati became the formal codification of the Bedouin ethic within Islam, and it is not without justification that the 'Abbasids accused their predecessors of promoting the values of Arabism over those of Islam, but, by the time the reaction against Arabism was successful,-continued and reinforced, I might add, by the descendants of the mawali-it was too late. Philologists, collectors of oddments of poetry, lexicographers, and other mildly subversive academics had already gathered, classified and preserv~d as much of the store of the pre-Islamic period as they could, ostensibly to further the understanding of the text of the Qur'an. But, from the comforts of their urban studies, they wrote poetry in imitation of the jahiliyyah pagan style, extoling the life they witnessed only briefly, if at all, on the obligatory research trip. The romance of the Bedouin became a permanent genre in Islamic sedentary culture. We see this in the qasidah-itself a singularly enduring poetic form and the bearer of the pre-Islamic value scheme-surviving into our own times as is shown in the example written by Mahmud Sarni al-Barudi during his exile in Ceylon [now Sri-Lanka] from 1882-1900: 39 8. Whoever desires to attain glory, let him show fortitude in confronting the fates and rushing blindly into difficult straights. 9. For if the days have muddied my drinking-place and blunted my edge by means of sudden calamities, 10. Yet no tribulation has changed me from my character, no trick (of destiny) has diverted me from my ways;

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17. If a man docs not strive after what contains glory for him, he dies ignobly in the tents of the young girls. 18. And what life is it for a man if, when circumstances change for the worse for him, he does not tie the thongs of his belt? Or, again, from the plea for Arab unity by Ma'ruf ar-Rusafi 40 27. Do you not remember how your ancestors were scornful when they were treated with misprision? 28. The day when they rode out, glory accompanying their ranks, with ridged Indian sword, 29. And their banners fluttered on high, in armies to which East and West submitted. A final aspect of the Islamic view of the frontier should be mentioned, one that became embedded in some of the earliest traditions. I mean, of course, the classical distinction between Muslim lands, Dar al-Islam, and the non-Muslim lands, Dar al-Harb. This is an idea that developed from notions of the jihad or Holy War and, while not explicitly Qur'anic, is traced by the muhaddithun to the practices of Muhammad in his treatment of the J cws of the Hijaz and his invitations to Caesar and Chosroes. In the classical formulation, all the lands surrounding the 'Abode of Islam' are to be invited, coerced and missionized until the whole of the world is transformed into the Dar al-Islam. For Ibn Khaldun, this is a sacred duty which both authorizes and obligates Muslims to fight non-Muslims in Holy War: "In the Muslim community, the Holy War is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim) mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.' ' 41 This is the moral war, 42 and needs to be fought in the proper manner, as a compact line, 43 with victory dependent on group feeling. 44 And the best soldier is the Bedouin, the man of the frontier culture. 45 For Ibn Khaldun, frontier values are interconnected with the holy obligation to expand the boundaries of Islam just as in American culture, our participation in the world beyond our borders has often justified by reference to comparable expansionist notions derived from our frontier heritage of "Manifest Destiny."

NOTES

2

3 4

5 6 7

F. J. Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, Harold P. Simonson, ed. (New York: Ungar, 1963). Ibid. Throughout this essay I will be using the translation of Ibn Khaldun by Franz Rosenthal. Without Ruscnthal's work and his interpretations of lbr1 Khaldun. this essay would not have been pnssible. Ibn Khaldun . .'vfuqaddlmah. Franz Rosenthal, trans. (New York: P:rnthcm1. 1958), vol. 1, p. 249. Ibid., p. 254. Ibid., p. 258. Ibid., p. 259-68.

[133] 8 CJ 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 '.Z2 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 '.)5 36

37 38 39 40 H 12 43 44 45

Ibid., p. 299. Ibid., p. 260.

IBN KHALDUN AND FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER

lbzd., vol. 2, p. 291. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 282. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 292-3. Ibid., V. 2., pp. 296-7. M. Taibi, "Ibn Khaldun," Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edition), vol. iii, p. 830; Arnold]. Toynbee, A Study of Hisl01y (Oxford; Oxford L'., 1939), vol. v. pp. 58 ff., 194 ff., et passim. Turner, op. cit. p. 57. lbn Khaldun, op. cit., p. 252. Turner, op. cit., p. 38. Silvio R. Duncan-Baretta & John Markoff, "Civilization and Barbarism: Cattle Frontiers in Latin America," Comparative Studies in Societ,y and History, Vol XX, no. 4 (Oct. 1978), pp. 587-620. Toynbee, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 151-2. Ibid., p. 587. Ibid., p. 589-90. lbn Khaldun, op. cit., vol. i, p. 328 f. Duncan-Baretta, op. cit., p. 592. Ibid., p. 612 ff. Musil apud Michael E. Meeker, Literature and Violence in North Arabia (Cambridge; Cambridge U., 1CJ79), p. 105. Ibid., p. 190. Duncan-Baretta, op. cit., p. 603. Ibid. Ibn Khaldun, op. cit., v. 1, p. 253. Ibid., v. 1, p. 308-9. Ibid., V. 1., p. 310. Ibid., v. 1, p. 255. Ibid., v. 1, p. 320 ff. I. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, S. M. Stern, ed. (Chicago; Aldine Atherton, 1968), v. 1, p. 15. W. Gaskell, "Zur Beduinisierung Arabiens. Z D.M. G., ciii ( 1953), pp. 28-36. as-Samaw'al b. 'Adiva', apud A. J. Arberry. Arabic Poetry: A Pnmerfor Students (Cambridge; Cambridge U., 1965), pp. 30-32. Mody C. Boatwright, "The Myth of Frontier Individualism," apud R. Hofstadter and S. M. Lipset, Turner and the Sociology of the Frontier (New York; Basic Books, 1968), p. 49. Ibid. A. J Arberry, Arabic Poetry, op. cit., p. 150. !Ind., p. 166. Ibn Khaldun, op. cit .. vol. i, p. 473. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 74. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 75. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 87. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 297.

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE Jon W. Anderson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1979, and subsequently spent a year in Heidelberg, Germany on an Alexander von Homboldt Fellowship. Widely renowned for his ethnographic work on Afghani tribes, he has authored a forthcoming book, Doing Pakhtu, on Ghilza.i social organisation. Kalman Bland, a specialist on medieval Jewish intellectual history, has been Chairman of the Department of Religion, Duke University, Durham, N.C. since 1980. He earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1972 and taught at Indiana University before joining the Judaic Studies faculty at Duke University in 1973. In addition to numerous articles, he has published a monograph entitled, The Epistle on the Possibility of Conjunction with the Active Intellect by Ibn Rushd, with the Commentary of Moses Narboni. Miriam Cooke has been Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature in the Department of International Studies, Duke University since 1980, the same year when she was awarded her D. Phil. from St. Anthony's College, Oxford. She has published articles on contemporary Arabic literature as well as translations of major authors. Her book, Yalrya Haqqi: The Anatonry of an Egyptian Intellectual, will be published in Spring 1984. A second book, on women's literature inspired by the Lebanese Civil War, was the subject of a Fulbright Research Fellowship during 1982; it is due to appear in 1985. Cornell Fleischer joined the faculty of Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri as an Assistant Professor in the Department of History in Fall 1982. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University in May of the same year, and is currently revising for publication his dissertation on Mustafa Ali Efendi, the major Ottoman historian of the 16th century. Warren Fusfeld has specialized in early modern Indian Sufism, gaining his Ph.D. in South Asian history from the University of Pennsylvania in Spring 1982. During the following academic year he taught in the History Department at the University of Pennsylvania before entering its Law School as a fulltime student in Fall 1983. Bruce B. Lawrence is a Professor of Islamic Studies and the History of Religions in the Department of Religion, Duke University, where he has been teaching since 1971. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1972, and is the author of three books as well as several articles, principally on pre-modern South Asian Sufism. He is presently engaged in a comparative study of fundamentalism, Jewish, Christian and Islamic. Gordon D. Newby, a noted authority, with numerous articles, on early Islamic historiography, obtained his Ph.D. from Brandeis University, where he also taught on the faculty for several years before joining the History Department at North Carolina State University in 1976. His forthcoming book concerns biographical assessements of the Prophet Muhammad, and is entitled, Biblical Materials: Their Reception in Early Islam. Franz Rosenthal is Sterling Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Yale University. He is the preeminent scholar on all phases of Muslim civilication deriving from its Arab past, especially the interaction with Hellenism. Among his several major contributions to our knowledge of medieval Islamic history is the sole unabridged English translation of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah.

INDEX Abelard, 17 Abd al-Mu'min, 79 Abduh, Muhammad, 81-82 Abu'l-Khair, Shah, 95-109 Adab, 28, 33 Alexander, 54 Ali, Mustafa, 10, 47-65 Ali b. Abi Talib, 49, 56 Almohads, 79-81, 84 Almoravids, 80 Arabic, 2, 30-31 Arab(s), 2, 4, 6-8, 37 Asabiyah, 9, 38-44, 58, 64, 80-83, 106, 11920, 125-27 Ayad, M. K., 8 al-Azmeh, 5, 7, 8, 117-19 al-Baladhuri, 4 Barquq, 21 Berger, P., 11 al-Bukhari, 17 Celebi, Katib, 10, 47-48, 51 Constitutionalism, 78 Coon, C., 113-14 Daylam, 31 Deoband(i), 102 Enayat, H., 77 Enlightenment, 111, 120 Fischel, W. J., 37, 44 Fundamentalism, 77-78 Geertz, C., 89-91, 96 Gellner, E., 7, 10, 83-84, 89, 91, 114-15, 117-19' 120 Gibb, H. A. R., 14, 15, 22 Great Western Transmutation, 71-72 al-Hariri, 27 Hodgson, M. G. S., 80, 83 Hourani, A., 83 Hulegu, 56 Hume, D., 89, 114-16 Husain, Taha, 32 Ibn Ibn Ibn Ibn

Ammar, M., 22 Hajar, 17 Hazm, 39 al-Khatib, 20

Ibn Ridwan, 25 Ibn Tumart, 79, 84 Ibn Zarzar, 44 al-Isfahani, Abu'l-Faraj, 29, 33 Iqbal, M., 82 al-Jahiz, 27 Jaspers, Karl, 2 Jengiz Khan, 54 Jews, 37-45 al-Juwayni, 4 Kissinger, H., 4 Kinalizade, 48, 50, 52, 65 Mahdi, M., 7, 27, 45, 117-19 Maimonides, 23 Marx, Karl, 3 al-Mas'udi, 4, 79 Mawdudi, 82 Mazhar, Mirza, 91 Memons, 100 Merinids, 25 Miquel, A., 9, 28, 37 Miskawayh, 4 Mongols, 8, 9 Moses, 40 Muallaqat, 32 Mu'awiyah, 56 Na'ima, 10, 47-48, 51 Nationalism, 77 Naqshbandiya, 92-110 Oikumene, 2 Orient/Orientalism, 2, 5, 6, 8, 11, 15, 46, 72, 115-16 Ottomans, 10 Peres, 5 Pines, S., 23 Rida, Rashid, 81-82 Salafiyah, 6, 75-76, 79, 81, 83 as-Samaw'al, 129-30 Shariati, Ali, 10 Stowasser, B., 83, 11 7-19 Sufis(m), 7, 23, 33, 91-110, 114-16 Suleyman the Lawgiver, 49-51, 54 at-Tabari, 4, 79 Taibi, M., 4, 7, 8, 69

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INDEX

Tacars.