Ibn Khaldoun translated from K.J. Mortimer

The Man

Although it is often said that he preferred study to public office, Ibn Khaldoun had a strong tendency to concern himself with political matters, which he was inclined to do on account of his wide learning and sound judgment.

So it is that his life was intimately bound up with the political history of the Arabs of Tunis, Fez, Spain, Syria, and Egypt toward the middle of the fourteenth century. The destiny of Ibn Khaldoun was affected by all the swings of fortune of the different forces in conflict with one another.

He came from the Kinda tribe in Hadramout. His ancestor Khaled, who came with an army into Spain in the third century of the Hegira, had given his name to the family Beni Khaldoun settled in Carmona, then in Seville, and finally in Tunis, where Ibn Khaldoun was born on 27th May, 1332.

After finishing his studies, he entered service with the Hafsid sultan Abu Ishac Ibrahim, but had to seek refuge in Ceuta after the defeat of the latter. When his protector had managed to settle his affairs, Ibn Khaldoun was recalled, but had hardly begun to enjoy the favor of the court when he was flung into prison on the pretext of treason, for his friendship with the Emir of Bougie did not have his patron’s approval. Once free again thanks to a change in authority, he won the friendship of Sultan Abu Abdallah Ibn el-Ahmar, who after seizing the kingdom of Grenada from his brother Ismaïl charged Ibn Khaldoun with a mission in Castile to conclude peace with the ruler Don Pedro. There the jealous intrigues of his compatriots obliged him to return to Abu Abdallah Mohammed, his fellow-prisoner in Fez, who had just entered into possession of Bougie and who reserved him the office of Grand Chamberlain and regent of the kingdom. This good fortune could last no longer than the peace. The prince of Constantine having beaten Abdallah Mohammed, Ibn Khaldoun handed over the keys to the conqueror, without however managing to obtain his trust. He was soon obliged to seek refuge with Abdel Aziz, who had driven Abu Hamdu out of Tlemcen. On the death of Abdel Aziz Ibn Khaldoun attached himself to Abul-Abbas and Abder-Rahman, who had divided the government between them. Suspect of being inclined towards the first of these joint rulers, he was imprisoned by the second. Then having managed to flee to Spain, he was grandly received by Ibn al-Ahmar at Grenada; but he soon fell into disgrace and returned to Tlemcen just in time to find Abu Hamdu back on the throne. Charged with the mission of rallying the Bedouins to the party of Abu Hamdu, he spent four years in the castle of a minor princeling at Kalaat Ibn Salama, where he composed his celebrated Prolegomena and his great work on the history of the Berbers.

But the misfortunes of Ibn Khaldoun had not come to an end yet. So long as there were Arab princes disputing power – as there always will be – Ibn Khaldoun suffered the most unexpected reversals of fortune.

His former co-disciple and friend Ibn Arafa, now Mufti of Tunis, having represented him as a dangerous individual, on the pretext of a pilgrimage to Mecca Ibn Khaldoun went off to Cairo. There the students crowded around his house and implored him to stay in Egypt to be their teacher. Ibn Khaldoun agreed and the sultan Barkok, despite his unwillingness, appointed him chief Malekite judge and agreed to release him from his high office only after his family, whom he had recalled from Tunis, perished in a shipwreck. He was still suffering from stress after this new misfortune when he was obliged to take up his function as judge again, one which he exercised until the year 1400 under Barkok’s successor Malika Nassir Foraj. This prince threw him into prison and then released him, finally taking him with him to Syria in his celebrated campaign against Timur Leng. This expedition having degenerated into a disastrous retreat, Ibn Khaldoun secretly left Damascus and presented himself to the Tartar victor, who gave him back his post as judge in Cairo, a post which he lost and regained several times, until his death on 20th March, 1406.

This brief survey of the life of Ibn Khaldoun is only the summary of one page of the history of the Arabs in Mediterranean Africa. The annals of their conquests are always complicated by the endless and most disconcerting story of disorder, intrigue, party struggles, disputes for power, intestine wars and the greatest social disorganization imaginable.
The Writer

Ibn Khaldoun left us the Kitab el’bar, of which two manuscripts, unfortunately incomplete, have recently been discovered at Constantinople and at Constantine.

This work is divided into three parts:

1- The Prolegomena, translated into French by Mac Guckin de Slane in Notices et Extraits des manuscripts (Bibliothèque impériale) after Quatemère (Etienne) had published the Arabic text in the same collection.
2- History of the Arabs and Neighboring Peoples, History of the Berbers and Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, published and translated into French by Slane at Algiers.
3- History of the Aglabites and the Arabs of Sicily, published and translated by Noël de Vergers.
Ibn Khaldoun is considered one of the greatest historians of Arab literature, because with an exceptional independence of mind and sure clarity of judgment he was able to formulate a whole admirable philosophy of the history of his country.

In the Prolegomena, he began by laying down rules of historical criticism and the principles of writing history on the basis of facts and of examples. His work, in any case, is called The Book of Examples. He opens by clearly defining people as either nomadic or sedentary. He describes the formation of towns, their influence on civilization, the origin of all authority, the foundation of empires and the cause of their decadence.

The documentation of his recital, joined to a powerful faculty of generalization, gives his work a solidity and breadth which provoke the admiration of impartial scholars of East and West.

However, his translators reproach him for the excessive abstraction of his style, but this is due rather to the genius of Arabic writing than to any fault of the author.

Speaking of the main considerations which are the subject of the Prolegomena, Huart says textually: “All that is laid open in an original and lively style by a man full of ideas, who repeats himself the better to explain and who continually interrupts an argument to provide historical proof for this theories. Everywhere one finds a firm and sagacious spirit. I know of no book more worthy to be studied by anyone wishing to understand the history of the Muslim empires.”
PAGES are chosen from the Prolegomena of Ibn Khaldoun, edition of Bibliothèque impériale. All texts of Ibn Khaldoun are placed between inverted commas.

“A tribe which has lived in base condition and servitude is incapable of founding an empire.”
“Base condition and servitude crush the energy and esprit de corps of a tribe. This state of degradation indicates that in it this spirit does not even exist anymore. Unable to rise from its low state, it (the tribe) no longer has the courage to defend itself; this is all the more reason why it should be unable to resist or to attack its enemies. Notice the cowardice shown by the Israelites when the holy prophet Moses called them to the conquest of Syria and proclaimed to them that the Lord had ordained in advance the success of their arms; they replied to him: ‘The people who inhabit this land are giants and we will not go in until they come out.’

“They meant: ‘Until God makes them come out by showing his power and without our being obliged to do anything for it; that will be one of your great miracles, O Moses.’ The more he entreated with them, the more they remained obstinately disobedient; ‘Go off,’ they said to him, ‘You and your God, and fight (for us.)’ To express themselves in such a way, these people must have felt their own weakness and realized that they were quite incapable of attacking an enemy or resisting him. This is what the passage in the Koran gives us to understand, as well as the traditional explanations that the commentators have collected. This cowardice was the result of the servile life that the people had been living for centuries; they had remained long enough under Egyptian domination to completely lose all spirit of solidarity. Further, they did not sincerely believe in their religion; when Moses announced to the Jews that Syria should be theirs, as well as the kingdom of the Amalekites, whose capital was called Jericho, and that these people would be delivered to them as prey according to the order of God; they recoiled before the enemy, being interiorly convinced that after having passed their lives in a state of humiliation they would be unable to attack an enemy. They even dared to make fun of the words of their prophet and to resist his orders; so God punished them by making them wonder, that is to say, that he made them remain forty years in the desert between Egypt and Syria. During this time it was impossible for them to withdraw into a town or to remain in any inhabited place, because they had on one side the Amalekites in Syria and on the other the Copts of Egypt, and they were, in their own words, unable to fight. The verses which we have just quoted have an application that is easily understood; the punishment of wandering was meant to eliminate the entire population that had been brought out of the oppression and humiliation imposed on them in the land of Egypt, a population without energy that was resigned to degradation and that had lost all feeling for independence. To replace this generation another was needed that had been raised in the desert, that had never been submitted to humiliation and that knew nothing of domination by a foreign nation and of the power of despotism. Through this disposition of Providence, a new corporate spirit was born among the Israelites, one which led them to attack and to conquer. All this makes clear that to make one generation disappear, to be replaced by another, it needs a period of at least forty years.”
“The people who are least civilized make the most extensive conquests.”

“We have already said that semi-savage nations have everything needed to conquer and dominate. These peoples manage to make others submit because they are strong enough to make war against them, while others consider them as ferocious beasts. Such were the Arabs, the Zenata, and those who live the same kind of life, the Kurds, Turcomans and veiled tribes (Almoravids) of the great Sanhadjian family. Not having a territory where they can live enjoying plenty, races without much civilization have nothing to make them cling to their native soil; so any country, any region seems just as good to them. Not satisfied with being lords where they are and dominating their neighbors, they cross the limits of their territory and invade distant countries, subjugating their inhabitants. The reader has only to recall to mind the anecdote of the Caliph Omar.

“As soon as he had been proclaimed chief of the Muslims, he stood up and harangued the assembly, urging true believers to undertake the conquest of Iraq.

“The Hejaz,’ said he, ‘is not a place for habitation; it is suitable only for pasturing flocks, without which it would be impossible to live. Go on, you others, you who were the last to have emigrated from Mecca, would you stay so far away from what God has promised you? So cross the earth, God has declared in his Book that it will be your inheritance. He has said: “I will do such as to raise your religion above all others, and this despite the unbelievers...”

“The Arabs can establish their domination only in countries of plains.”

“The natural ferocity of the Arabs has made of them a nation of looters and brigands. Every time they can seize booty without running into danger or have to fight, they never hesitate to take it and return as quickly as possible to that part of the desert where they are pasturing their flocks.”

“They never march against an enemy to fight him openly, unless the good of their own defense obliges them. If during their expeditions they come up against fortified places or localities difficult to approach, they turn away toward flat countryside. Civilized peoples remain sheltered from insults in the rugged mountains and defy the destructive spirit which animates the Arabs.

“In truth, the latter do not dare to attack them there; they would have to climb steep hills, to venture into almost impenetrable ways and to expose themselves to the greatest dangers. It is quite otherwise in the plains; if they (the inhabitants) have no soldiers to guard them and if the government shows weakness, they become prey to the Arabs for what they enjoyed. The nomads renew their incursions, and as they can cover the whole wide area very easily, they give themselves over to pillage and acts of devastation, until the inhabitants resign themselves to accepting the nomads as masters. Possession of these unfortunate countries then passes from one tribe to another; everything is disorganized and civilization completely disappears. God alone has power over his creatures.”

“Every country conquered by the Arabs is soon ruined.”

“The habits and customs of nomad life have made of the Arabs a rough and ferocious people. The coarseness of their customs has become for them second nature, a state which they accept because it assures for them freedom and independence. Such a disposition is opposed to the progress of civilization. To go from one place to another, to scour the deserts, that has been their principal occupation since the most ancient times. As much as sedentary life favors the progress of civilization, so much nomadic life is contrary to it.”

“If the Arabs need stones to support their cooking-pots, they pull down buildings in order to procure them; if they need pieces of wood to make the pegs or the supports for their tents, they tear off the roofs of houses to get them. By the very nature of their life, they are hostile to any sort of edifice or to constructing edifices, which is the first step toward civilization. Such are the Arabs in general, and we may add that by their natural disposition they are always ready to take by force the goods of others, to seek riches with weapons in their hands, and to plunder without limit and without holding back. Every time that their eyes fall on a fine flock, on a piece of furniture, or any form of utensil, they take it by force. If by conquering a province or by founding a dynasty they are in a condition to satisfy their greed, they make a mockery of all the regulations that serve to protect the property and the riches of the inhabitants. Under their domination all is ruined, On craftsmen and artisans, they impose forced labor for which they see no reason to offer compensation. Now the practice of the arts and crafts is the true source of riches, as we shall show later. If the normal professions come up against obstacles and are no longer profitable, people lose all hope of profit and give up working; the established order is upset and civilization declines. Let us add that the Arabs neglect all the duties of government; they make no effort to stop crime; they take no care of public safety, and their only concern is to extract money from their subjects either by violence or by harassment. Provided that they attain this end, nothing else worries them. Bringing order to public administration, providing for the well-being of the subject peoples, stopping malefactors, all these are occupations to which they give no thought. So it is that the subjects of an Arab tribe remain more or less without any government, and such a state of affairs destroys both the population of a country and its prosperity.

“We should add that the nomads are greedy for power and one can find hardly one of them who would agree to hand over authority to another. An Arab will hand over command neither to his father, nor to his brother, nor to the head of his family. If he should by chance consent, he will be doing it unwillingly and only out of regard for what is fitting; so it is that among the Arabs one finds many chiefs and individuals given some little authority.”

“Consider all the countries that the Arabs have conquered since earliest times. Civilization has disappeared there and so has the population. The very soil seems to have changed its nature. In the Yemen, all the centers of population have been abandoned, some major towns only excepted. In Arab Iraq it is the same; all the beautiful crops with which the Persians covered it have ceased to exist. In our times Syria has been ruined. Ifrikia and the Maghreb are still suffering from the devastation caused by the Arabs. In the fifth century of the Hegira the Beni Halal and the Soleim burst in and for three centuries and a half they continued to exploit the country, so devastation and solitude still reign. Before this invasion, all the region from the country of the black Africans to the Mediterranean was fully inhabited, and the ruins of towns and villages are there to confirm this. God is the heir of the land and of everything it bears, and he is the best of heirs.”

“As a general principle, the Arabs are incapable of founding an empire, unless they have received a more or less strong religious character from some prophet or saint.”

“Of all peoples, the Arabs are the least inclined to accept subordination. Leading an almost savage life, they acquire a coarseness of manners, a pride, an arrogance and a spirit of jealousy that turns them against all authority.”

“Of all peoples, the Arabs are the least capable of governing a kingdom.”

“The Arabs are more accustomed to nomad life than other peoples are, penetrating deeper into the desert, and, being accustomed to misery and to suffering privation, they easily do without cereals and the other products of cultivated countries. Independent and ferocious, they rely only on themselves and accept subordination only with difficulty. If their chief needs their services, it is almost always to use their spirit of solidarity against an enemy.

“In a kingdom, things follow a different course; the king or sultan has to employ force or restraint in order to maintain good order in the state. Further, as we have already said, the Arabs are naturally inclined to plunder other men, something which is their chief concern. As for the care that must be taken to maintain good government and order, they do not let it bother them.
“When they conquer a people, they think only of enriching themselves and stripping the conquered, never trying to give them a good administration.

“Also, under the domination of the Arabs, misdemeanors go on increasing; devastation extends everywhere and the inhabitants, left to themselves so as to say, attack and plunder each other; the prosperity of the country, being no longer sustainable, soon declines and vanishes. This is what always happens with peoples left to themselves. All the causes we have indicated makes the Arab spirit ill-suited for giving the attention needed by the administration of a state.”
These short extracts from the Prolegomena prove once again not only the astonishing frankness of Ibn Khaldoun but also the surprising application of his judgments and their unchanging solidity when faced with the succession of empires and recommencements of history.

Sanchoniathon

Translation from French: K.J. Mortimer