Ibn Khaldun Today

Ibn Khaldun and the Systems of Intellectual Survival By Ahmed E. Souaiaia Abstract This article examines Ibn Khaldun’s striking praise of political authority in the introduction to al-Muqaddima , arguing that it reflects neither hypocrisy nor routine courtly convention, but a historically informed strategy shaped by the structural conditions of knowledge preservation. Drawing on Ibn Khaldun’s theory of the state ( al-dawla ) as an emergent system grounded in ʿumrān —a concept encompassing social cohesion and civilizational development—as well as patronage and institutional continuity, the article demonstrates that knowledge production is inseparable from power. By situating Ibn Khaldun’s choices alongside earlier episodes of intellectual suppression, most notably the fate of Ibn Rushd, and his own experiences of political instability, exile, and imprisonment, proximity to power is reframed as calculated accommodation rather than ideological submission. Extending the analysis to the pre...

Ibn Khaldun’s Systemic Language in the Muqaddima Ahmed E. Souaiaia, University of Iowa Here, I examine Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima through what I call the grammar of systems thinking, arguing that his writings exhibit a sophisticated systemic logic articulated through language, method, and explanatory practice rather than through formal theory. Addressing the common anachronism objection—that identifying Ibn Khaldun as a systems thinker projects a modern framework onto a pre-modern author—the cited evidence demonstrates that Ibn Khaldun consistently employed a vocabulary and analytical structure grounded in order (tartīb), rules (aḥkām), causality (asbāb and musabbabāt), connection (ittiṣāl), organization (intidām), and instrumentalization (istidhār)—some of the key principles of the systems thinking framework. His concepts function together as a coherent grammar governing his explanations of natural phenomena, human action, economic activity, and political power. Ibn Khaldun integrates co...

In " Processing Theory in Islamic Thought: A Comparative Analysis of al-Mawardi and Ibn Khaldun with Implications for Islamic Education ," published in the November 2025 issue of Tadibia Islamika, Muhammad Farid Asysyauqi undertakes a sophisticated re-examination of medieval Islamic scholarship through the lens of modern cognitive psychology. The article moves beyond the traditional bifurcation of al-Mawardi as merely a jurist and Ibn Khaldun as solely a sociologist, positing instead that both scholars constructed intricate theories of information processing that prefigure contemporary educational psychology. By employing Optimal Matching Analysis (OMA) to dissect classical texts like Adab al-Dunya wa al-Din and al-Muqaddimah, Asysyauqi constructs a compelling narrative that bridges the gap between twelfth-century theology and twenty-first-century information processing theory. The narrative begins with al-Mawardi, whose contribution is reframed from simple moral instruction ...

Rethinking a Complex Worldview Across Economics, Sociology, and Philosophy Abstract   Recent decades have witnessed a striking resurgence of scholarly interest in the work of Ibn Khaldun, a fourteenth-century North African thinker long celebrated yet insufficiently theorized. Although often described as the founder of sociology or an early political economist, Ibn Khaldun developed a far more comprehensive and internally coherent system for understanding human civilization, one that linked economics, social cohesion, moral psychology, urban development, historical cycles, and statecraft within a single conceptual architecture. Modern scholarship, however, has often treated Ibn Khaldun selectively, isolating one or two concepts—asabiyya, state cycles, taxation—without appreciating the systemic totality of his thought. This article surveys recent works on Ibn Khaldun. Taken together, these works reveal both the richness of Ibn Khaldun’s intellectual legacy and the persistent gaps...

Abstract This article examines Ibn Khaldun’s foundational economic principle that active human work—expressed through the ever-present, transformative agency of the hand ( yad )—produces rightful ownership ( kasb ) that cannot be surrendered except through compensation ( ʿiwaḍ ). This dynamic relationship between labor, possession, and reciprocal exchange not only legitimates individual property but also establishes the systemic conditions under which the State may impose taxes without descending into injustice. In grounding political and fiscal legitimacy in the natural processes of human work rather than in inherited legal categories, Ibn Khaldun articulates a worldview that sets him apart from classical Muslim jurists and places him in a category of his own within Islamic intellectual history. This same systems-thinking framework—through which he analyzes value, authority, and historical change—has rendered him profoundly misunderstood or entirely un-understood by many modern scho...

 Abstract This study reimagines the foundational role of work in economic life through a comparative analysis of Ibn Khaldun and key Western economic thinkers, including Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Max Weber, and John Maynard Keynes. Drawing on the Systems Thinking Framework, the research positions work not merely as an economic activity but as a structuring principle that shapes civilizations, value systems, and social organization. Unlike modern paradigms that prioritize capital accumulation, this study explores how Ibn Khaldun’s pre-Enlightenment perspective centers work as the original and enduring source of value, production, and moral order. By contrasting this with Western theories that progressively decouple wealth from labor, the paper proposes a re-evaluation of economic systems toward a more equitable, sustainable, and human-centered model. The study also underscores the determinant role of the State in shaping dominant worldviews, offering a critical perspective on the i...

Feng Jiewen’s article,  A Survey of Research on Ibn Khaldun’s Socio-Historical Philosophy since the 19th Century, offers a comprehensive and carefully structured survey of more than a century and a half of scholarship on Ibn Khaldun’s socio-historical philosophy. Drawing on a broad corpus of European, Middle Eastern, and Chinese academic works, the author maps the development of Ibn Khaldun studies from early manuscript collection and translation projects to contemporary, specialized analyses of his intellectual legacy. As a review essay, the article succeeds in presenting both the breadth of international research and the relative gaps within Chinese scholarship.

On Franz Rosenthal, “Ibn Khaldun in His Time,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 18, no. 3 (1983): 166–178. Franz Rosenthal’s “Ibn Khaldun in His Time” is a concise yet erudite study that situates Ibn Khaldun’s intellectual and political career within the turbulent social and historical landscape of the fourteenth-century Maghrib. Known as one of the preeminent translators and interpreters of The Muqaddima , Rosenthal brings to this article a depth of philological mastery and historical sensitivity that allows him to illuminate how Ibn Khaldun’s thought was not an abstract philosophical exercise but an intervention shaped by—and responding to—the immediate pressures of his era. Rosenthal begins by mapping the political fragmentation of North Africa during Ibn Khaldun’s lifetime: dynastic instability, incessant tribal conflict, and shifting centers of power. Rather than treating Ibn Khaldun as a solitary genius outside his milieu, Rosenthal underscores how his itinerant career—mo...

Ibn Khaldūn—The Silent Architect of Systems Thought

Ibn Khaldun: The Visionary Who Anticipated the Modern Social Sciences In the vast expanse of Islamic intellectual history, few figures have achieved the lasting significance of Ibn Khaldun, the fourteenth-century North African historian, philosopher, and jurist who lived a life as complex and eventful as the civilizations he studied. The 2016 article  “A Review of Ibn Khaldun and His Scholarly Contributions”  by Li Yanwei and Zhang Meimei, published in the  Journal of Ningxia Normal University (Social Science) , offers a sweeping account of his extraordinary journey and the timeless relevance of his ideas. Through their study, Ibn Khaldun emerges not merely as a chronicler of his age but as a thinker who understood the deep structures of history, power, and human society centuries before the birth of sociology or modern historiography. Born in 1332 in Tunis to a distinguished Andalusian Arab family, Ibn Khaldun’s early years were marked by privilege, rigorous education, a...

Reimagining Work Reimagining Work  offers a profound and timely exploration of one of humanity’s most enduring questions: what is the true nature and purpose of work? In an age when automation, financialization, and global inequality challenge the moral foundations of economic life, this study returns to first principles—reconsidering how civilizations have understood work as both a material and ethical force. At its core,  Reimagining Work  situates the concept of labor within a comparative dialogue between Ibn Khaldun—the fourteenth-century North African historian, philosopher, and founder of the science of civilization ( ʿilm al-ʿumrān )—and leading Western economic thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Max Weber, and John Maynard Keynes. Through this dialogue, the study illuminates not only the intellectual lineage of economic thought but also the deep divergences that shape modern understandings of value, productivity, and human purpose. Drawing on the  Sy...

 Abstract This article turns to Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah (1377) to explore how spiritual leadership becomes spatialized through ʿasabiyya (group feeling), ritual infrastructures, and territorial design. Sacred offices, as Ibn Khaldun shows through his reflections on the Pope, Patriarch, and Kohen, function as spatial institutions, organizing power through pilgrimage routes, sacred capitals, and clerical hierarchies. Drawing on Islamic intellectual traditions and postcolonial theory, this study advances the concept of ‘civilisational spatiality’: the process by which moral authority, territorial control, and collective identity co-constitute one another. We treat Ibn Khaldun’s work as a theoretical resource in its own right, instead of a precursor to Western theory. In doing so, the analysis repositions ongoing struggles over sacred sites, diasporic belonging, and the spatial politics of sovereignty.

by Dr. Souaiaia Ibn Khaldun and the Enduring Power of Jaah as Social Capital This essay revisits Ibn Khaldun’s 14th-century concept of jaah—a form of social capital rooted in prestige, reputation, and moral authority—as a powerful counterpoint to conventional understandings of capital as purely financial. Drawing on his Muqaddima, the essay argues that jaah constitutes a resilient, intergenerational, and often more enduring form of power than material wealth, as it cannot be seized by the state, purchased with money, or easily eroded by time. By highlighting the asymmetrical relationship between financial resources and social influence, the article underscores Ibn Khaldun’s enduring relevance to contemporary debates on power, legitimacy, and the multifaceted nature of capital. When the term capital is invoked in contemporary discourse, it is most commonly associated with financial assets—money, gold, real estate, or even digital currencies such as Bitcoin. In this conventional understa...

Robert Irwin’s 1997 article “ Toynbee and Ibn Khaldun ,” published in Middle Eastern Studies, offers a nuanced and erudite comparative analysis of the historical philosophies of Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) and Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). Irwin’s central aim is not merely to juxtapose the two thinkers but to interrogate the nature and limits of Toynbee’s engagement with Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima, exposing both the productive affinities and the profound distortions that arise when Toynbee appropriates the North African historian as an intellectual forebear. The essay functions simultaneously as a historiographical critique, a study in intellectual transmission, and a subtle reflection on the politics of historical interpretation in the twentieth century. Irwin begins by situating Toynbee historically and intellectually: as a British scholar writing in the turbulent interwar and postwar decades, shaped by the collapse of empires, the rise of nationalisms, and his experiences at Chatham House...

In his 2005 article, “ Theorizing from Within: Ibn Khaldun and His Political Culture ,” anthropologist Lawrence Rosen offers a nuanced and culturally grounded critique of the dominant Western reception of Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). Rather than celebrating the North African polymath as a proto-sociologist or an early architect of grand historical theory—an approach common among both Orientalist and postcolonial scholars—Rosen insists that Ibn Khaldun must be understood first and foremost as an Arab-Muslim thinker whose theoretical insights emerged from, and were inseparable from, the specific political and cultural milieu of his time. This essay reviews Rosen’s central arguments, evaluates his methodological contribution, and situates his intervention within broader debates about cross-cultural intellectual history and the politics of comparative theory. Rosen’s primary concern is with what he sees as a persistent misreading of Ibn Khaldun in Western scholarship. Too often, he argues, Ibn...

Yang Zhiyin’s article, “An Empirical Study on the Research Object and Definition of the Economics of Religion,” represents a significant contribution to the interdisciplinary field straddling economics, religious studies, and sociology. At a time when the economics of religion remains undertheorized in Chinese academia, Yang’s work undertakes the foundational task of clarifying the discipline’s object of study—namely, religious economic entities—and proposes a comprehensive definition grounded in empirical evidence and comparative analysis. The article begins by situating the study within a historical and methodological framework. Yang rightly notes that while religious communities have long reflected on and regulated their own economic practices—predating the formal discipline of economics by centuries—systematic academic inquiry into religious economics from an economic standpoint only emerged in the 20th century. He compellingly demonstrates this through examples from Islamic, Buddh...