Ibn Khaldun, whose full name was Abu Zayd Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun, was a prominent Muslim historian, philosopher, and scholar. He was born on May 27, 1332, in Tunis, present-day Tunisia, and passed away on March 17, 1406, in Cairo, Egypt.
Ibn Khaldun is best known for his ground-breaking work, "Muqaddimah" (also known as "The Introduction" or "Prolegomena"). This extensive treatise serves as an introduction to his larger historical work, "Kitab al-Ibar" ("Book of Lessons"), which together constitute a comprehensive seventeen-volume analysis of world history that continues to serve as a foundational text for sociology and economics to this day.
He who finds a new path is a pathfinder, even if the trail has to be found again by others; and he who walks far ahead of his contemporaries is a leader, even though centuries pass before he is recognized as such.
Aside from his contributions to academia, Ibn Khaldun held positions as a judge and diplomat, serving in several political and administrative roles in North Africa and the Middle East. He also travelled extensively, engaging with scholars and rulers of his time and gaining first-hand knowledge of different societies and cultures.
The Muqaddimah took a multidisciplinary approach to the study of societies, combining history, sociology, economics, and anthropology. Ibn Khaldun developed his ‘new science’ (umrān) – a positive rather than a normative study of state and society as they are, rather than as they should be.
Prejudice and partisanship obscure the critical faculty and preclude critical investigation. The result is that falsehoods are accepted and transmitted.
This methodology allowed him to identify and characterise sociological and economic phenomena centuries before these ideas were developed in the West. He developed the concept of ʿasabiyyah – the importance of social cohesion in avoiding civilisational decline. As a society becomes more prosperous and sedentary, the original asabiyyah weakens, and decadence sets in, meaning it must be prioritised and strengthened at any cost.
In economics, his elegant contributions in the Muqaddimah to economics included some of the earliest known descriptions of the multiplier effect, human capital, the effect of technological improvements on growth, supply side-economics and the Laffer Curve.
It should be known that at the beginning of the dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.
He wrote in great detail how, for instance, “business men are soon discouraged by the comparison of their profits with the burden of their taxes ... Consequently production falls off, and with it the yield of taxation”. Ibn Khaldun’s impressive, instinctive understanding of the benefits of the market economy and the workings of Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ rightly place him in the pantheon of the greatest liberal economists of all time.
His ideas formed, along with those of Aristotle, the bedrock of the corpus of literature introduced from the Islamic and Byzantine world which helped spark the European Renaissance, meaning the Muqaddimah’s legacy extends far beyond Ibn Khaldun’s lifetime. This ‘new science’ would be recognisable to modern readers, containing elements of rationalist and empiricist thought, allowing us to see the echoes of Ibn Khaldun’s writings in those of Francis Bacon and Karl Popper.
All the sciences came to exist in Arabic. The systematic works on them were written in Arabic writing.
Ibn Khaldun Institute is committed to preserving, promoting, and perpetuating the legacy of Ibn Khaldun, transforming his ideas into a powerful force for positive change and a source of inspiration for generations to come. Together, we strive to create a global community that values the wisdom and vision of this exceptional scholar, characterized by free trade, property rights and the rule of law.
