Recontextualizing Ibn Khaldun: A Meta-Theoretical Study of Khaldunian Thought

Abstract

Postcolonial studies and decoloniality have consistently questioned the colonial matrix of power upon which much of our modern world is established. This generated a desire to create a more pluralistic social sciences by rehabilitating non-Western knowledges previously deemed incompatible with the Cartesian epistemological and ontological model. The purpose of this theoretical thesis is to discuss the restoration of Ibn Khaldun’s theory. Extensive studies have sought to explain and interpret Ibn Khaldun’s work from different perspectives. What all of those studies have in common is their utilization of different approaches, all rooted in the Cartesian epistemological and ontological model. This lack of epistemic pluralism led to a crippling stagnation of the contemporary studies on Ibn Khaldun, which seem to have hit a glass ceiling. According to Syed Farid Alatas, the current leading figure of Khaldunian revivalism, a methodical restoration of his theory needs to be undertaken in order for Ibn Khaldun to be incorporated into the corpus of contemporary sociology. More studies need to focus on examining the various aspects of Khaldunian thought in order for a neo-Khaldunian sociology to emerge. The content of the Muqaddimah must be reinterpreted through a recontextualization of Khaldunian though within the wider landscape of Islamic erudition. I decided to move past the usual descriptive accounts of Ibn Khaldun’s work and concentrate instead on an analysis of the theory he detailed in his magnum opus, his Kitab al-‘Ibar featuring the Muqaddimah. By exploring the European reception of Ibn Khaldun’s work, I lay bare the reading grid that emerged from the interpretation of his work within Western academia; a reading grid through which the Muqaddimah continues to be interpreted and understood. This thesis is a meta-theoretical study of Ibn Khaldun’s ‘ilm al-‘umran al-bashari (science of human social organization), which proceeds to a recontextualizing and a repositioning of Khaldunian thought. The studies pertaining to Ibn Khaldun tend to focus solely on two elements of his thought that he described in the Muqaddimah, the passage from a primitive social organization to a civilized one, and the rise and fall of dynasties. However, the other aspects of his theory, such as his understanding of leadership through the concept of ‘asabiyyah, as well as the changes inherent to the transfer of power down the generational line, are for the most part ignored. The goal of this exploration of Khaldunian thought is to transcend the usual reading grid through which the Muqaddimah is often read and interpreted. To do so, this thesis explores the political ideas at the heart of Ibn Khaldun’s theory of state formation, as well as the historical context and the intellectual tradition which fostered the emergence of Khaldunian thought.