Ibn Khaldun, in spite of himself

One of the pressing motives of writing the present article is to call to attention the following considerations while approaching Ibn Khaldun by our contemporaries. First, one of the obstacles to a safe understanding of Ibn Khaldun is our contemporaries' attempt to ‘steer’ his genius and ‘squeeze’ it just to fit a particular modern trend – and this in spite of Ibn Khaldun himself. Second, Ibn Khaldun has been unjustly torn between his contemporaries and our contemporaries. Some of our contemporaries, on the one hand, have been so insisting in giving him a one-way ticket to the modern age that they have denied him even the ‘right’ to commit mistakes that belong to his age. Some of his contemporaries, on the other hand, were so beyond the level of his far-reaching horizons and deep insights that they made him the butt of their plotting and even excommunication, thus denying him the right to transcend the intellectual confines of his time. Yes, Ibn Khaldun was ahead of his time; still, he was a scholar of his time. It is by putting him and his works into their context that he comes out clearly as a genius.Footnote Keywords: Ibn KhaldunsecularArab thoughtanachronismRosenthalhistoriographyAl-Muqaddimah Notes This is an Arabic verse of poetry: ‘Everyone is claiming to have an affair with Leila. /But Leila never grants them that.’ (My translation). This is to show that everyone is trying to claim an affinity with Ibn Khaldun, but we are not sure if they are right in their claims. Hanafi (Citation1968, p. 141). Schmidt (no date, p. 6). Rosenthal (Citation1999, p. 22). Ibid., p. 24. Lahbâbi (Citation1968, p. 12, my translation from the original French edition). Prolegomena, Vol. III, quoted from Lahbâbi (968, p. 46). ‘La philosophie est une science vaine en elle-même et nuisible dans son application, et le raisonnement logique se montre incapable de faire avancer la connaissance de l'univers, l'esprit étant fort limité.’ www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ quoted as a link from www.tayara.com/club/mrocbd1.htm Lepape (Citation2003, my translation). The original text is: ‘Ibn KhaldÛn ne conçoit aucune contradiction entre sa fidélité érudite à l'esprit de l'islam et l'audace de ses théories scientifiques rationnelles.’ al-Qannudji (Citation1983, p. 352). Ibn Ali Ash-Shawkânî, M. (Citation1987, pp. 338–339). Ibid., p. 338. Taylor Coleridge (Citation1980, p. 324). Saaf (Citation1990, p. 12). Abid Al-Djâbiri (Citation2006, p. 14). This excerpt from Ibn Khaldun's al-'Ibar is one of the rarest occasions in which Ibn Khaldun mentions Europe and Europeans of his time. This might have been the reason why modern scholars give this quotation a certain importance. I have recently come across it (its French translation) at the footnote of an article by another Moroccan historian: ‘Il est également parvenu à notre connaissance qu’à notre époque les sciences philosophiques sont très prospères dans les pays des Francs: dans le territoire de Rome et au-delà, dans la partie nord de la rive [méditerranéenne]. Ces sciences y connaissent un grand renouveau, sont enseignées dans de nombreuses écoles et recueillies dans des livres à caractère encyclopédique. Beaucoup de savants les cultivent et le nombre de ceux qui cherchent à les apprendre s'accroît sans cesse (Ibar, I, 894)' from Cheddadi (Citation1982–1983, p. 19). Ibid., p. 13. Lahbabi (Citation1968, pp. 106, 185). Corbin (Citation1986, p. 387, my translation). The original text is: ‘... un traité intitulé Shifâ al-Sâ’il (La Guérison du chercheur) qui est peut-être de lui et se propose peut-être de traiter de mystique, mais qui n'a certainement pas été écrit par un mystique.' Ibid., p. 388, my translation. The original text is: ‘Voir en lui le précurseur du «positivisme moderne» n'est peut-être pas le meilleur moyen pour juger de l’œuvre d'Ibn Khaldun à l'intérieur de la culture islamique, plus précisément de la philosophie islamique.' Ibid., pp. 389–390. Laroui (Citation1970, p. 202, my translation). The original text is: ‘Il fut donc à la fois conscience et victime de son époque. Il eut l'impression qu'il vivait la fin du monde; l'ayant sentie et décrite avec une intensité poignante, personne après lui ne fut capable d’échapper à cette atmosphère crépusculaire.' Ibid., p. 202. Al-Hossari (Citation1967, p. 615). Ibid., p. 617. Ibid., p. 68. Laroui (Citation1970, p. 204, my translation). The original text is: ‘Les idéologues arabes, de leur côté, n'osent ni accepter ni refuser Ibn KhaldÛn; ils se maintiennent en général à un niveau très abstrait, insistant sur les victoires et passant rapidement sur les défaites; par là, ils laissent le champ libre aux disciples de Gautier.’ Gautier (Citation1987 Citation[1924], p. 308). Ibid., p. 312. Muqqaddimat Ibn Khaldun (Citation2004, p. 432). Yasin Hammoudeh Citation(1995). On the amalgam between ‘chemistry’ as a science and ‘alchemy’ as a non-scientific discipline, cf. Farrukh (Citation1969 Citation[2002]), pp. 79–82 (on alchemy) and pp. 241–256 (on the passage from alchemy to chemistry). It is noteworthy that even Avicenna dedicated a whole treaty to the refutation of ‘chemistry’ with the sense of ‘alchemy’ (p. 253). Desplats (Citation1885, p. 40) (‘alchimie’). The choice of this ‘old’ reference is intended to approach a little bit the time of Ibn Khaldun! Muqqaddimat Ibn Khaldun, p. 583. Ibid., p. 573. The Arabic text is: Ibid., p. 582. The Arabic text is: Nihayat UstÛrah. Nazariyyât Ibn Khaldun Muqtabasah min Rasâil Ikhwan Assafa (Citation1996). Ismail Citation(2000). Ibid., p. 331. Ibid., p. 189. Ibn Khaldun (Citation1996–1417H). Muqqaddimat Ibn Khaldun, p. 614. Even though this is an excerpt from a section dedicated to ‘the scientific travel’, I am indebted to Lamlih Said in whose article I came across this quotation. Cf. Note 46. At-Ta'rîf bi Ibn Khaldun, p. 513. Ibid., p. 514. Ibid., p. 536. As a case in point, Al-Qannudji concludes his Attadj al-Mukallal – a set of 543 biographies of Islamic scholars – with his own biography. Cf. Al-Qannudji (Citation1983, pp. 541–550). Attaarîf bi Ibn Khladun, p. 672. Saïd (Citation1993, p. 217). Rosenthal (1984, p. 24). In this regard, the only thing that we have witnessed so far is the growing number of ‘new editions’ of Ibn Khaldun's books; Moroccan researcher Abdeslam Cheddadi has very recently issued a ‘new critical edition’ of the Prolegomena (Rabat, Dar al-'UlÛm wa al-FunÛn wa al-Âdâb). The editor declares that this work came after the study of about 40 manuscripts written by Ibn Khaldun himself and his disciples and other scribes. The allusion, here, is to the Zarathustrian image as it is depicted by Nietzsche in his Thus spake Zarathusra (Citation1971, p. 22). Additional informationNotes on contributorsKhalid Chaouch Email: [email protected]

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