Notes on the Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun

February 28, 2007

In preparation for a presentation, I have been reading portions of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah.. which means "Introduction". It is a theoretical introduction to the practice of history, written toward the end of the 14th century.

The beginning of the book is sharply insightful on the subject of methodology.. and he looks at a succession of historical fallacies. The first one is the idea that in the course of the exodus from Egypt there were 600,000 fighting men in the army of the Israelites. That is indeed the number you will find in your Bible. Ibn Khaldun makes mincemeat of this number:

...an army of this size cannot march or fight as a unit. The whole available territory would be too small for it. If it were in battle formation, it would extend two, three or more times beyond the field of vision... The situation at the present day testifies to the correctness of this statement. The past resembles the future more than one drop of water another. [12]

The geography is impossible and the logistics of controlling that number of people are unthinkable. Case closed. Ibn Khaldun makes his case even stronger in the next paragraph by noting the size of the largest armies fielded by the Persians in historical times. Following this historical methodology, when presented with a historical claim a person should imagine that situation in the world as it is today.. and judge accordingly whether that historical claim has any validity. If that situation is unimaginable in the present then it should be unimaginable in the past.

That sounds like an advanced way of thinking about history.. and it is. But Ibn Khaldun switches to the use of what we might term "moral facts" when considering a historical claim. He examines reports that the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid was a wine bibber. The idea is ruled absurd:

It does not in the least agree with ar-Rashid's attitude toward the fulfillment of the requirements of religion and justice... He wept when he heard their sermons. Then, there is his prayer in Mecca when he circumambulated the Ka'bah. [21]

In this way of thinking a known pious reputation is analogous to a geographical fact. A report that violates a moral fact can be discounted.. in the same way that a report of a million people wandering in the desert of the Sinai can be discounted as impossible. Underlying this respect for moral facts is a belief in the unity of human action.. what a person does in private must align with public acts. We are rightfully suspicious of this unity in the modern world, but Ibn Khaldun still has respect for this order of "facts".. as do many people still..

If one is looking for a concept that allows Ibn Khaldun to take this rational view of history, one could do worse than locating it in his view of scholarship. First, understand that there are three types of people: 1) those without any spiritual understanding, 2) those whose thinking moves in the direction of spiritual perception, 3) and those (like prophets) who are able to glimpse the divine in a moment of revelation. Where would Ibn Khaldun place himself? Surprisingly in the lowest order of people: those who are without spiritual perception.

This group of spiritually weak people are

satisfied to move downward toward the perceptions of the senses and imagination and the formation of ideas with the help of the power of memory... according to limited rules and a special order. [77]

It strikes me that plenty of thinkers have looked to kick themselves a step or two closer to spiritual perception. A mystical thinker like Ibn 'Arabi or Rumi termed themselves "knowers" of a higher knowledge. Philosophers back into the Neoplatonic tradition make a similar move. The secret of Ibn Khaldun's critical historical method lies in his willingness to be counted weak in terms of spiritual perception.. and therefore strictly limited to physical reality and logical deduction. That could be a lesson for any of us. Sometimes greatness lies in being something less than a seer..