gained first-hand knowledge and experience of political life. His theoretical knowledge of science, coupled with his practical experience of working within the civil service, sharpened his understanding of politics, public affairs and the social dynamics of his society.
The faint-hearted rarely succeed in the murky and uncertain world of politics, but Ibn Khaldun was not one of them. He thrived in his new role as a political administrator, and Sultan Abu Inan was so impressed with his performance that he promoted him to a position of considerable political eminence. He thus became a high-ranking politician who wielded considerable political power and influence in North African public life whilst he was still in his early twenties. He continued to serve Sultan Abu Inan conscientiously until he was accused of disloyalty and subsequently incarcerated. After Abu Inan’s death in 1358, Ibn Khaldun was released by his successor and again he returned to political life. He was barely twenty-eight when he was appointed a judge (qadi) on account of his expertise in maliki jurisprudence. However, he found his new job very tedious, cumbersome and repetitive. This prompted him to leave North Africa and move to Granada. Not keen on leading a quiet and lonely life, he thrived in the prevailing culture of political uncertainty and social upheaval. Not surprisingly, his biography reads more like an action packed James Bond story than the life of one of history’s most influential Muslim thinkers. After he moved to Granada in 1362, he received a warm reception from its ruling elites including Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib, the learned Chief Minister of the State, who subsequently became one of his closest allies. Both being intellectuals and politicians they had many things in common, especially their passion for learning and scholarship which strengthened and fortified their friendship, although later on mutual jealousy and rivalry was to drive them apart in an acrimonious way.
Prior to their falling-out, Ibn al-Khatib had nominated Ibn Khaldun – who had become a scholar of repute and a politician in his own right – to lead a mission to Pedro, the King of Castile. The purpose of this mission was to sign a peace treaty between the King and the Muslims of Granada. During this period he visited Seville, the city of his ancestors, and acquired considerable skills and expertise in international politics and diplomacy. On his return to Granada, his reputation as an electrifying orator, politician and public figure made many of his erstwhile friends, including the Chief Minister Ibn al-Khatib, very jealous of him. Thus they began to make life difficult for him. In the end, he had no choice but to leave Granada and return to North Africa. At the time North Africa was passing through one of the most volatile periods in its history, and Ibn Khaldun found himself caught in the middle of prevailing political uncertainty and social upheaval. For the next decade or so he led a politically active life, which was often interrupted by periods of personal difficulties and incarceration. As a result, he suffered, struggled and faced considerable personal challenges but, on each and every occasion, he came through unscathed. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Ibn Khaldun was the ultimate survivor, in the sense that one day he would be sitting next to the Sultan, while on another day he would find himself locked in a prison. In fact, his political life was neither static nor dull; rather he was a risk-taker whose whole life was full of drama, uncertainty and suspense. Every where he went, he found himself caught in the middle of political plots, coups and intrigues.
Tired of political uncertainty, he eventually withdrew from public life for good and began to pursue his intellectual and literary interests. He was around forty-five when he settled with his family in a quiet location in the district of Bani Arif, and spent the next four years living like a hermit. It was during this period that he authored his voluminous and universally acclaimed Kitab al-Ibar wa Diwan al-Mubtada wa’l Khabar fi Ayyam al-Arab wa’l Ajam wa’l Barbar (The Book of Instructive Examples and Register of Subjects and Predicates Dealing with the History of the Arabs, Persians and Berbers), which was destined to immortalise him. Ibn Khaldun’s early training in traditional Islamic sciences, coupled with his expertise in philosophy, law and politics, enabled him to undertake a systematic study and analysis of North African culture and society. Being a brilliant intellectual, he understood the nature of social trends and the factors which influenced historical change better than anyone else; thus he was not only able to formulate a fresh and innovative methodology for analysing human culture, but also explained the factors which led to the rise and decline of societies. Ibn Khaldun’s thinking on this issue was both refreshing and profound because he was not interested in merely explaining the external factors which contributed to social and historical change; rather he was eager to identify and explain the underlying causes of such phenomena. In other words, he was determined to investigate, decipher and demonstrate the relationship between the external (zahiri) and internal or invisible (batini) factors which contributed to the rise and decline of cultures and civilisations. Applying his unique scientific approach to understanding human culture and society, he systematically analysed the external data vis-à-vis the internal currents of change, in order to demonstrate the true nature of social phenomena and historical changes.
According to Ibn Khaldun, a scientific analysis and interpretation of external data showed that there was an underlying rational structure behind all social and historical events. By exploring the nature of social organisation, identifying the nature and characteristics of leadership, and exploring the impact of the environment on human character, personality and social ethos, he was able to demonstrate that a combination of factors – some of which were external, while others were internal – contributed to the rise and decline of human culture, society and civilisation. He also compared primitive societies with the urbanised cities of his time to prove his theory. Indeed, he analysed the North African Berber society and discovered that the group with the most robust asabiyah (or ‘sense of social solidarity’) tended to dominate those that lacked a similar sense of social unity and cohesion, until there eventually emerged a unified political structure (for example, a monarchy) which expressed their social solidarity. Following further socio-cultural expansion and political consolidation, a new civilisation emerged. This, in turn, led to the formation of urbanised towns and cities where cultural, artistic and scientific pursuits flourished, until the people began to succumb to the lures of luxuries and pleasure, which precipitated the age of decline and disintegration. Though Ibn Khaldun’s analysis of the rise and decline of civilisation was restricted to the North African Berber society, the quality and originality of his social analyses, cultural insights and historical observations were both profound and pioneering. No other historian or social philosopher, before or after him, had been able to analyse human culture and history in such a thoroughly modern, scientific and innovative manner. In fact, he was the first historian and philosopher to develop an integrated approach to the study and interpretation of human history and culture. And in so doing he effectively inaugurated what is today known as ‘social science’, even though he referred to it as the ‘science of culture’. Not surprisingly, he is today widely considered to be the founding father of both the sociology and philosophy of history.
Ibn Khaldun completed his Kitab al-Ibar in 1382 at the age of fifty. Known as the Muqqadimah fi’l Tarikh (Introduction to History), in the first part of this voluminous book, he systematically developed his new theoretical approach to socio-historical analysis of culture, society and civilisation. Sir Arnold J. Toynbee, the acclaimed British historian and author of A Study of History, rated this book so highly that he described it as ‘undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place.’ In the second part of the book, Ibn Khaldun analysed the history of the Arabs, up to to his own time. In the third, and last part, he provided an historical account of Western Islam, including the history of the Berbers of North Africa. His autobiography, entitled al-Ta’rif, also appears at the end of the third book. This autobiography contains valuable information about his background, childhood, early education and career as a politician and judge. Experts in Arabic literature have rated this autobiography very highly for its literary merit and eloquence. After completing his monumental Kitab al-Ibar, Ibn Khaldun travelled to Egypt in 1382 with a view to performing the sacred hajj (pilgrimage). But on this occasion he was unable to go to Makkah, and instead he went to Cairo where he began to deliver regular lectures on political thought, Islamic history and maliki jurisprudence at the world famous al-Azhar University (it is interesting to note that the great scholar of hadith Ibn Hajar
