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...
...in his own words and in the words of others who read his works
