Customer Reviews

The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is difficult to avoid overusing superlatives when thinking of or reviewing this work. 'Muqaddimah' means 'introduction'; this was ibn Khaldun's introduction to his volumes of world history. The introduction, however, is what has been entered into the library of the world's greatest written works. By those who read more than western books, he is called the father of sociology (westerners grant Weber that title). In addition to groundbreaking and still-relevant sociological ideas, his muqaddimah is filled with major contributions to political science as well. He includes his thoughts on the supposed 'state of nature' and goes on to describe the workings of civilizations, in Braudel's longue duree view.

The book is worth reading for two reasons. First, it is a historical monument -- the birthplace of many important ideas. Second, the ideas are still not common knowledge. His ideas provide a useful and accurate representation of the world, suitable (after adaptation to the time period) to examining Chingis Khan's empire or the position of the United States in global political and economic regime.

One caveat: I read the three-volume, unabridged version. This 300 page paperback version comprises only a small fraction of the complete (and compleat) work.

Another reviewer mentioned the dated scientific theories in this book. In a three-volume 'introduction' to a seven-volume (if memory serves) 'history of the world', ibn Khaldun covered a wide array of topics, including both the social and the natural sciences. The dated natural science is kept strictly seperate from the more lastingly-relevant social science; this makes it an easy job to seperate the wheat from the chaff.

Obviously, I HIGHLY recommend the Muqaddimah to anyone with an interest in political science, anthropology, sociology, or history.

Hello.

The English interpretation of Ibn Khaldun's historical works should be read by all those who wish to gain a better understanding into the currents that drive human civilization. The scholar's words, although they were written down over six hundred years ago, contain insights that are remarkable and wisdom that will provide the reader with a fresh outlook on the world around them.

The work deals with the various conditions that underly the rise, maintenence, maturity and decline of civilization and of the political entities that are created by people. The role of the "dynasty" (government) in the economy, the effect of taxation, the circulation of wealth, and other aspects of the political economy are set down in great detail.

Ibn Khaldun describes the stages that every civilization passes from the turmoil of the inception of political entities, through the stability of the "middle period," to the "senility" and decline. Where the pursuit of luxury and ease in a sociey dominates and results in the eventual death of the dynasty. His parallel of the life of a society and with the life of an individual is a thing that is thought provoking.

I hope more people will read this book and thereby experience the genius of Ibn Khaldun.

Peace,

Sharif M. Sazzad

You can chisel out the sections on temperature and race, temperature and behavior, for these are silly and offensive. He compares Sub-Saharan Africans as just a hair above dumb animals, and he slams Arabs and Bedouin in other ways. However, his sections on economics and social politics are still valid, and he was a pioneer in areas that other Westerners tend to get credit for.

Before Adam Smith outlined the need for "Specialized labor" in a commercial society, there was Ibn Khaldun. Khaldun wrote of the pivotal role of "crafts" and specialization of crafts in a functioning human society. He even suggests that skills in crafts are limited, that is, if you're a master shoe-maker you in all likelihood won't be a master farmer. Therefore, master shoe-makers should make as many shoes as they can and farmers should farm as they can, so as to produce as many goods between the two of them than if they shared their time doing both. Before there was Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises, Ibn Khaldun implied the need for Rule of Law. Khaldun chastized the Bedouin who disrupted the social order through their raids, and sent the craftsmen packing. Some sort of consistent legal standard and social order is needed to ensure that specialized labor has the ability to perform its "crafts". Before there was Reaganomics and Arthur Laffer, there was Ibn Khaldun. You want more tax revenue? Cut taxes, which provides incentive for people to work harder and expand their enterprises. More business, more economic growth, more tax revenue. High taxes deter enterprise and shrinks tax revenue. Arthur Laffer? Yes, but Ibn Khaldun 300+ years earlier.

The issue Khaldun is most known for is "squadness", Group Feeling, Group Narcissism, Tribalism, whatever you wish to call it. Governments and regimes come and go based on the strength of the leaders to appeal to group cohesion. This could be religious, blood, nationalist, whatever, but regimes need ideological cohesion in order to survive. Once that group feeling is lost, the regime becomes weak and conquerable if not self destructive. Multiculturalism and Postmodernism would be signs of cultural disorder and eventual social crumbling to Ibn Khaldun. Crane Brinton, Erich Fromm, Erik Hoffer all touched on the "Group Feeling" themes in their own works, in different ways and emphases, and in many ways did it better (they had more historical examples to pull from, since history has dramatically accelerated since Khaldun's time), nonetheless, Khaldun was the one who first articulated this concept of political and social (dis)order.

Arnold Toynbee described this book as " Undoutedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever been created by any mind in any time or place ..." That is what convinced me to read the book, but I don't think it is for everyone.

In addition to being the "earliest critical study of history", the book is truely encyclopedic, coverying sociology, culture, theology, and economics , in addition to history. It covers the rise and fall of dynasties and civilizations ( you can see why Toynbee liked it), the necessary conditions for civilization to arise and what determines the level of civilization that will be achieved by a given population.

To pick one topic on which I have some backgroud, economics , the author sucessfully analyzes the effect of demand and supply on prices, the effect of population growth on the economy, the effect of low stable prices on commerce, and the different ways merchants make profits. All, long before these were understood in Western Europe. He also presents the case for Supply Side Economics ( the proposition that raising taxes will result in lower revenue) 600 years before Art Laffer and Ronald Reagan.

Although he refers frquently to God, Muhammad, and the Qur'an (Koran), and has an entire section devoted to theology , his approach is consistently analytical rather than religious. In many was he is influenced by Aristotle, whom he quotes favorably several times.

Unfortunately I found this a difficult book to read. Although I realize that the book has tremendous historical importance, and was highly original at the time it was written , reading it in the 21st Century I found much of the theory of history to be obvious. Not being familiar with Muslim history , I found many of his examples to be incomprehensible. Lacking a knowledge of Medeival Muslim society and culture, I found much of the institutional discussion to lack content and therefore interest.

I'm sure that for someone better read on early Muslim history and society, this is a great book.But if you are not, I do not reccomend it.

I first read this book as part of a history course, but I only appreciated it when I read it later at a slower pace (the first time was just some pre-exam cramming!). I like to use the analogy of ibn Khaldun being the Isaac Newton of social sciences since their contributions were similar in a way: they both took a very ordinary happenings that people take for granted everyday (the falling objects in Isaac Newton's case, everyday social life in ibn Khaldun's case), researched them and gave some marvellous findings. ibn Khaldun shows how societies and people group together to form communities, cities and eventually countries and nations. He shows through logical reasoning the relationship between social and economic circumstances within a society, plus many other fascinating findings that show that the medieval Arabs must have had some very organized researchers and thinkers. Definitely one of the best books ever written on social sciences.

This is a gem of a book that is not well enough known in the West. It is a brilliant account of the ordinary, things that take place around us that we often take for granted. Ibn Khaldun notices these things and explains them in an organized manner.

His theory of 'asabiya' describes the rise and fall of tribes and nations as a very natural process, one that occurs and will occur repeatedly throughout history. His is perhaps the most coherent theory that I know of. It's perhaps a bit simplistic but sometimes Occam's razor, the simplest explanation being the correct one, is true.

Many accuse Ibn Khaldun of leaving God out of the picture but, as a devout Muslim, God was the very being of everything he wrote. Just because nations rise and fall in a natural progression doesn't mean that God is not a part of the picture. God has given us free will and allows the world to operate on this free will, one side effect on a collective scale being the rise and fall of nations. This notion underpins his work.

He also catelogues in great detail all kinds of events, both natural and human, in a very interesting fashion. It is a treasure trove of a book, one that you can revisit in bits and pieces and always come away with a feeling of having learned something you already knew.

This book needs more recognition as it has influenced far more people than may be realized. The kicker is that this book was written over 600 years ago, long before the notion of 'science' as we know it today as an independent and 'objective' approach to the study of reality really existed.

Ibn Khaldun was not always remembered as a historian, but anyone who reads Muqaddimah will surely be surprised.

I recommend this book for those who are starting to explore the halls of Islamic legacy since it gives a solid foundation on the philosophy of history itself. He will recite numerous historical events around Ifriqiyyah (Northern Africa) and Andalus (Islamic Iberian Peninsula) in the medieval era. What's more is that each event will be given a socio-scientific comments that add up to his unique historical framework.

The historical details are termed to be the first with encyclopedia-scope and his approach is considered multi-disciplinary in time where speciality is rare.

Buy it and you'll be amazed by how much you didn't know about Ibn Khaldun.

The first work of historiography ever written. ibn Khaldûn is the sanest kind of Aristotelian, a Sufi, and a very unique rationalist in that for him, men and djinn coexist. His theory of history is fascinating, and greatly informs my view of the 21st century. For him, the human world is divided into wild people, and civilized people; for him, the Bedouin and the medieval urban Muslim are the two polar extremes. The city people generate wealth, culture, technology, and reason. They lose their moral fiber through decadent living, and become fat, weak, lazy, and sinful. Meanwhile, the wild people are hungry, wiry and pious. They are closer to God because they do not have the distractions the city people do. Eventually, the wild people sack the cities. Their genetic stock fortifies the indolent urban gene pool, their piety reinvigorates the religious life of the city, and their austerity reforms the city. On the other hand, the town people teach reason, science, technology and culture to the wild people, and get them to be less savage and cruel. After a few generations, the invaders and the urbans are indistinguishable from each other, and a new crop of wild people come and sack the cities. This is the cycle of history. Very compelling.

If you want to read on the Islam's philosophical stance on state and its management than this is probably the best source. Ibn Khaldun has also written Islamic History, which would be another good thing to read if you like the style of this one. Original Muqaddimah is about 1200 pages long. I would recommend that if the reader is interested in detailed analysis of the human behavior in the state making and its management. Ibn Khaldun also views many historians with a critiques eye, which is an excellant act in itself becasue he shows why some have flaws.

As an intellectual Ibn Khaldun deserves 5 stars. As social theory the Muqaddimah has weathered the centuries well and still rates 4 stars (as an historical document, it rates 5).

Unfortunately, the translation does not do the work justice. Read it if: A) You are a student of Arab history, culture, or letters. and B) You are not fluent in Arabic.

There may be a better French or German translation in print, but I can't recall right now.