Civilizational spatiality in context: Ibn Khaldun and the sacred geography of authority

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.

Cite:

Ahn, Y.-J., & Juraev, Z. (2025). Civilizational spatiality in context: Ibn Khaldun and the sacred geography of authority. Cultural Geographies, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14744740251393672

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