Ibn Khaldun Today

The study of civilization has long oscillated between two dominant approaches: one that treats civilizations as culturally bounded, historically plural entities, and another that emphasizes systemic integration, structural dominance, and global convergence. Ibn Khaldun and the Meaning of Civilization enters this field by reconstructing Ibn Khaldun’s concepts of ʿumrān and ḥaḍāra as a unified analytical framework capable of resolving tensions that have persisted across modern civilizational theory. Rather than offering a rebuttal to any single school, the article reframes the problem itself: it argues that much contemporary disagreement stems from a categorical confusion between culture, identity, and civilization. Modern civilizational scholarship has been shaped decisively by works that emphasize plurality. From Oswald Spengler’s organicist vision of multiple, self-contained civilizations, to Arnold J. Toynbee’s comparative study of civilizational rise and decline, the dominant p...

 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...