Ibn-e-Khaldoon

Introduction:
Abu Zaid Abd-al-Rahman Ibn-e-Khaldoon, the North African Muslim of the 14th century, was undoubtedly the first to introduce a most scientific method in the political study of the history of human civilization. He is distinguished for considering history as a science worthy of study and not merely a narration of facts. Ibn-e-Khaldoon belonged to an Andalusian family which had migrated from Seville to Tunis on the expulsion of Moors on the conquest of Spain by Ferdinand III of Castile. It was one of these humble families that Ibn-e-Khaldoon was born in 1332, and he raised to be a man of remarkable knowledge as well as of profound historical and political acumen, perhaps the first scientific historian of world and one who has left an indelible mark on the sciences of historiography and sociology.


During fourteenth century, Tunis was the cradle of learning and knowledge. Young Ibn-e-Khaldoon took full advantage of the scholastic opportunities which were abundantly available there. He learnt the Quran by heart, studied the Traditions and Maliki Jurisprudence, as well as Arabic Grammar and Rhetoric from eminent scholars and by dint of his sharp diligence and intellect, he was taken in service at the age of twenty by the ruler of Tunis, Abu Ishaq II. The restless spirit that was in him made him roam about from one capital to another, now secretary of state of Fez, then crossing the straits of Gibraltar as a fief holder of Muhammad bin Yousaf, Sultan of Granada, later as the head of a political mission to Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile who was staying at his ancestral town of Seville. Then he moved on to the court of the Prince of Bejaya near Constantine. In 1374, he again went to Granada but it was not long before he was expelled back to Africa.


After returning Africa he was tired and weary of perennial wanderings and he took refuge in African Desert and compiled his world-famed Prolegomena giving finishing touches to it about the middle of 1377, after which he returned to his native town of Tunis a quarter of a century after he had left it. In 1382 he went to Cairo where he lived the rest of his life. At Egypt, he occupied a distinct position and high status as a Chief Justice a number of times and during the intervals, he used to deliver lectures. He died as judge in Cairo on March 17, 1406. He was reverently buried in Sufi Cemetery outside Cairo’s Nasr Gate. He was a versatile genius, a great philosopher and a man of strong convictions of his age, who wielded an abysmal influence on the posterity.


Ibn-e-Khaldoon made great contributions in the field of knowledge and learning and his works are still widely read by every student of political philosophy. He gave us the following works:


1. Kitab-al-Ibrar…..It is a universal history written in seven volumes, the introduction to this work entitled Muqaddamah, extensive enough to take the whole of the first volume. It was about the author’s views with regard to the nature and method of history.

2. al-Taarif

3. Histroy of the Berbers

Contribution of Ibn-e-Khaldoon
to Islamic Political Thought

Ibn-e-Khaldoon wielded a deep influence on his succeeding political philosophers due to his systematic study of political theory in a dark age, when political discussion meant nothing more than a rough and ready formulation of the functions of the ruler. Almost all the eminent western philosophers like Machiavelli, Boding, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Hegel and Marx were profoundly influenced by his political theory composed in his immortal work “Muqaddamah” which extensively deals with a great variety of subjects. Ibn-e-Khaldoon was greatly reverenced as a sage of the age and his contemporaries envied him for his steadfastness and political acumen for combating political abuses and ills that prevailed in all ages of thoughts and philosophies. He left behind a treasure of knowledge which will work as a store-house for the posterities.

Ibn-e-Khaldoon discussed various Islamic political institutions in the light of the history of the early Islamic state. He made political enquiries into the various historical events of the early period of Islam with impartiality and analytical mind of jurist. He upholds the practicability of Islamic laws in the state and considers the Sharia state as definitely superior to the Power state. He contemplates little of the Siyast Madaniya for he considers the philosophers ideal state as the visionary product of utopian thought, having no relation with historical facts. The ideal for him is the Islamic state as it existed under the first four Caliphs. But his empiricism is manifest in his analysis of the Muslim empires of his own day. In his political thinking, it is Islam that emerges as the sole objective for all human endeavors.


Mohsin Mahdi says, “The biographical, stylistic and doctrinal evidence introduced in this study establish this point beyond any reasonable doubt. It has been shown that he articulately though cautiously, defended the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle against Neo-Platonism, atomism and logical nominalism; and that his study of Prophecy, the religious law and the character of the Islamic community prove that he was a true disciple of the Islamic Platonic tradition of political philosophy.”


Ibn-e-Khaldoon seems to be the only great thinker who not only saw the problems of the relation of the history and the science of society to traditional political philosophy but also made full endeavors to develop a science of society with the framework of political philosophy as based on its principles. According to Ibn-e-Khaldoon, traditional philosophy demands the study of man and society as they really are, and supplies the frame work of directing such a study and utilizing its results. Rosenthal was of the view that importance of Ibn-e-Khaldoon was not recognized in his own time, and until the seventeenth century did Muslims writers take any notice of him, while Europeans scholars discovered him only in the last century. Ibn-e-Khaldoon’s importance consists in a number of novel insights of permanent value and significance:

1. In his distinction between rural and urban life and the necessity of the latter for the emergence of civilization and a state in the strict sense of the term.


2. In his postulating the Asabiya as the principal driving force of political action.


3. In his projection of Islam into a universal human civilization, thus standing on the social and in the climate of Islam and looking out towards humanity at large.


4. In his realization of the casual interdependence of the several factors of social life in the power state; economic, military, cultural and religious.


5. In the concept of the parallel existence of the state founded by a prophetic law-giver, as distinct from the state built on power in response to the human need for political association and the desire of strong personalities for domination.


6. Arising from the last point, in his definition and analysis of the Islamic country, as a composite structure whose law is a mixture of Shariah and political law.


7. In his basic recognition of the vital part which religion should play in the life of the state, especially if it transforms the Asabiya into a durable, cohesive and spiritual motive power.

Ibn-e-Khaldoon’s Historical Approach
to the Political Science

With the ascendancy of Islam, historical literature got its birth and religious, moral and practical aspects of history were greatly stressed for the expansion of Islamic influence over the whole world. Muslims, by the inspiring source of history, are directed to contemplate the vicissitudes of earthly life, the rise and fall of the kingdoms and the Judgment of God upon the nations are revealed in their fortunes and misfortunes. As to the method they demand and command veracity and exactitude in transmitting historical information derived, whenever possible, from primary sources or eye-witnesses. With the expansion of Islam during the seventh-eighth centuries and the production of a vast and varied historical literature, the seeds of historical thought contained in the Holy Quran and the sayings of the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H).

History as a profession started in Islam with the search for and the collection and transmission of individual reports about specific events. These reports were first transmitted orally and when written records were gradually introduced, these were accepted at first merely as aids to memory. The historians took pains to learn about, and ascertain the competence of the authorities who transmitted these reports and used the science of biography (Ilm al-rijal) and of authority criticism (al-jarh wal-tadil) as their main tools. Tabri, a famous Muslim historian, was of the view that history is not a rational discipline and that human reason does not play significant role in it.


Ibn-e-Khaldoon’s Views on History:
Ibn-e-Khaldoon had seen considerable political ordeals and vicissitudes, and he fully knew that a number of states quite distinct in culture, dialect, historical environments and administration were destroyed under the wheels of time and fully realized the factors responsible for the rise and fall of Islamic states. The methods of argument that he adapts to a large extent, is analytical but he does not fail to supplement it with historical data. Ibn-e-Khaldoon also considered history as a science. The aim of history for him is not merely to narrate the stories of kings, queens and dynasties or prepare the chronicles of war and pacts among states but to describe the facts of vise and fall of human civilization. It is essentially the record of human society, its growth and decay, under different geographical, economic, political, religious and other cultural conditions.


Laws of Sociology:
Ibn-e-Khaldoon was undoubtedly a sociologically minded historian. He was conscious of the originality of his work and claimed himself to be discoverer for the first time of the laws of national progress and decay. The sociological laws operate with regard to masses only and would not be significantly determined with reference to single individuals, for the individual’s own attitudes and beliefs are considerably conditioned by the social environment in which they are placed.


Historical Approach to the Science of Politics:
His political theory developed as part of his description of human civilization. Ibn-e-Khaldoon held that all political institutions are closely associated to the socio-economic conditions of a time and that they are quite at in with the environments of a particular age, both mental and physical. That is why he makes political enquiries pertaining to religious, social, economic and physical circumstances. Ibn-e-Khaldoon’s science was new, independent and was not dealt with by any previous thinker with such originality, extension and profoundness. He was the first Muslim philosopher cum-historian who contributed to the study of political institutions, forms of Government and the other public institutions and their development in Muslim States.


Physical Environments:
Ibn-e-Khaldoon is predecessor of Montesquieu, realizing the influence of physical environments and climatic conditions on the habits and characters of people. He devotes a major portion of his work on the enquiry of the influence of food and climate upon human things. He explains that the people of fertile zones are stupid in mind and coarse in body, and that the influence of abundance upon the body is apparent in matters of religion and divine worship. He signifies the influence of physical environments on political institutions which reflect the character of people as molded by geographical environments. He said, “Bedouins are more courageous than other and the decline sets in life of a dynasty when people indulge in luxury and ease-loving life due to abundance of food and also development in arts and crafts.”


Natural Society:
Herbert Spencer regarded moral improvement merely as an existence of the biological concept of adaptation, and social well-being in terms of the law of the survival of the fittest. Ibn-e-Khaldoon preceded him in propounding a theory of organic state. He said, “Dynasties have a natural life span like individuals. They have life of their own which normally does not exceed a period of 120 years for each dynasty in its capacity as a ruling nation.” Ibn-e-Khaldoon had already stressed on moral improvement in terms of biological concept of adaptation in the course of his discussion on problems concerning the transformation of nomadic life together with its variations in the various aspects of social behavior.


Professor Schmidt says, “Ibn-e-Khaldoon is a philosopher as much as Auguste Comte, Thomas Buckle or Herbert Spencer. His philosophy of history is not a theodicy as Hegel’s. Thus he is placed as philosopher, historian of civilization, a scholar of sociology and political economy. It is worthwhile to discover the glimpses of Ibn-e-Khaldoon’s views in the works of every western philosopher.”

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Stages in the Development of Society and the State

During the period of establishment, solidarity based upon familiarities and religion continues to be essential for the preservation of the state. This is the period during which the ruler forces the ruled to build the institution necessary for a civilized culture. There are new activities to be carried out and new political relations to be created. When aided by religion, solidarity becomes more effective in establishing the state, since the subjects will then obey the ruler and his directives more willingly convinced that in doing so they are praying to God. The stages in the development of the society and the state are following:

Stage 1. During the first stage, solidarity is still largely based on a community of sentiments, and the ruler owes his position to his noble ancestry and the respect of his fellow tribesmen. His role is dependent on their number, power and assistance. He is still their chief rather than their master and king. He has to accommodate their sentiments and desires and to share his power with them. The same is true of religion. The ruler who is establishing a state with the aid of a religious passage cannot act as a master and a king, since religion means the obedience of all to God and the religious Law.


Stage 2. The second stage in the development of the period of consolidating the ruler’s power is to create absolute kingship. Natural solidarity and religion are checked so far as they mean the sharing of power, and are used at the discretion of the absolute ruler. Solidarity is replaced by a paid army, and an organized administrative bureaucracy, that carry out his wishes. Natural solidarity becomes increasingly superfluous. The people generally acquire the habit obeying their new ruler. The impersonal organization of the army and bureaucracy take care of the protection of the state and the development of the various institutions of a civilized culture.


Stage 3. As the ruler’s lust and aggrandizement for attaining absolute power is satisfied with the full concentration of authority in his hands, he begins to use his authority for the satisfaction of his other desire in other words; he starts to collect the fruits of authority. Thus a third stage of luxury and leisure follows. The ruler concentrates on the organization of the finances of the state and goes on increasing his income. He spends lavishly on public works and one beautifying the cities in imitation of famous civilized states. He enriches his followers who start living a luxurious life. Economic progress and prosperity usher a new era of development, which satisfy the increasing desires of the ruler. The crafts, the fine arts and the sciences are greatly patronized to be flourishing for the satisfaction of the new ruling class. The state has finally reached the stage where it is able to satisfy man’s craving fro luxuries and his pride in possessing them. This is a period of rest and self-indulgence in which men enjoy the comforts and pleasures of the world.

The first three stages are powerful, independent and creative, they are able to consolidate their authority and satisfy the subjects becoming the slaves of these desires.


Stage 4. Having reached its zenith, the next stage is a period of contentment in which the ruler and the ruled are satisfied and complacent. They imitate their predecessors in enjoying the pleasures of life, how their predecessors struggled to achieve them. They think that their luxurious life and the various advantages of civilization have always been existed and will continue to exist for ever. Luxury, comfort and the gratification of their desires become a habit with them. The length of this period depends upon the power and extent of the achievements of the founder of the state.


Stage 5. During fifth stage, the state is already starting to decline and disintegrate. The fifth and last stage of waste and prodigality is setting in. the state has reached old age and is deemed to be slow or nearing death. The very process of establishing it had destroyed the vital forces of solidarity and religion that were responsible for its existence. The ruler had destroyed the communal pride and loyalty of their kinsmen, who humiliated and impoverished have lost the drive to conquer. Their successes, having known only the life of luxury and surrounded by a prodigal entourage, continue to spend more and more on their pleasure. They increase taxes and these in turn discover economic activity and lead to a decline in the income of the state which makes it impossible for the ruler to support his new followers.

Rosenthal was of the view “The fifth phase is one of extravagance and waste. In this phase the ruler destroys what his ancestors have brought together, for the sake of lust and pleasure. For he is generous towards his intimates and liberal at his banquets in order to win the scum of the people, to whom he entrusts great tasks which they are unable to undertake. In this way, he spoils (his chances) with the noble and distinguished among his people and with the followers of his predecessors, so that they are filled with hatred against him and agree among themselves to desert him. Moreover, he loses point of his troops because he spends their pay on his pleasure and prevents them from getting to know him personally. In this phase, the natural ageing of the dynasty (that is the decay) sets in and a chronic disease gets hold of it without remedy or release until it collapses.”

Further, the habits of comforts and luxury generate physical weakness and moral vices. The elite and the aristocrats forget the courageous manners of primitive life. They are powerless before an outside invasion by a strong civilized state or by united primitive people. Excessive taxes and fear of invasion weakens the hopes of ruled. Despondency becomes so common and it reigns the day and consequently it freezes all economic activities. The entire population physically weakens and living in large crowded cities become subject to disease and plague. With the decrease of economic activity and the depopulation of cities, the state begins to disintegrate; starting form the outlying regions, princes, generals and the discontented kinsmen of the ruler become independent.

In the capital of the state, the mercenary troops and civil bureaucracy begin intriguing to wrest the actual power from the ruler, leaving him but the insignia and the name. Finally an external invasion puts an end to the life of the state, or it may continue to decline until it withers away like a wick dying out in the lamp of which oil is gone or goes under the subjugation of foreign power.

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Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Ibn-e-Khaldoon as a Father of Political Economy

Ibn-e-Khaldoon has rightly been claimed as the forerunner of a great many Western scholars such as Machiavelli, Boding, Gibbon, Montesquieu, and many other notable thinkers. There is hardly any other thinker with whom he might not be compared. Long before Adam Smith, Ibn-e-Khaldoon foresaw the interconnection of political and economic institutions. The Muslim genius made an enquiry into the various aspects of economic activities and recorded their political significance in respect of their good and bad effects on the state. Stefan Colosio said, “The great Muslim historian was able to discover in the Middle Ages the principles of social justice and political economy before Considerant, Marx and Baconine. He was an original economist who understood the principles of political economy and applied it skillfully and intelligently, long before it was known to Western research. He thus talks about state’s work in economic field, and its bad effects about political forces and social classes, the methods and kinds of property, the social task of labor, and its division into free and paid labor, and about law of supply and demand.”


Role of capital and labor in Economy:
Ibn-e-Khaldoon depicts a vivid picture of the role of capital and labor in an economy. He devotes special chapters to the question of Government finances and other business affairs. His theory of labor, in which he defines profit and sustenance and the role of labor in the fixation of the values of the commodities, exerted a marked influence on the writings of classical economists. Ibn-e-Khaldoon defines the term sustenance and profit as, “The part of the income that is obtained by a person through his own effort and strength is called profit. When a particular person enjoys its fruits by spending it upon his interest and need, it is called sustenance. Thus it is the part of the profit that is utilized. If the profit results from something other than a craft, the value of the resulting profit and acquired (capital) must also include the value of the labor by which it was obtained; without labor it would not have been acquired. A portion of the value whether large or small, comes from the labor.”


Ibn-e-Khaldoon praises Islamic economic system which prescribes Zakat, Kharaj and Jizya. To establish the superiority of Islamic economic system, he quotes the saying of Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H.): “The only thing you possess of your property is what you ate, and have thus destroyed; or what you gave as charity, and have thus spent.” Ibn-e-Khaldoon severely condemns the engagement of rulers in the commercial activity because it creates hurdles in the development of a free competition in economic field, which is most essential for the circulation of wealth in the society as a whole. If the rulers indulge in trade activities, they would be I an advantageous position in the selling and purchasing of the commodities, by virtue of their political control on the commercial activities. Thus injustice would be brought about in the society which is disastrous for the dynasty.


Taxation Policy:
Among the economic problems his discussion first elaborately starts with taxation. As a practical politician he had full knowledge of the ways and means to collect the Government revenues. He was of the view that taxation must be equitable and just. When justice and equity are lacking in taxation policy of a Government, it is inviting its own ruin. He said, “In the beginning of dynasty taxation yields large revenue from assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields small revenue from large assessments.”

A balanced budget is essential for sound economy and is the key to stability of the political order. Ibn-e-Khaldoon said, “In the beginning of the state, taxes are light in the distribution but considerable in their total and vice versa. The reason is that the state, which follows the ways of religion, only demands the obligation imposed by the Shariah, namely Zakat, Kharaj and Jizya, which are light in their distribution and these are the limits beyond which one must not go.”

A rural economy based on agriculture, with a simple standard of living and light taxes, provides an incentive to work hard, with prosperity as the prize. But as soon as autocrats assume power and urban life, with a much higher standard of living, makes greater demands, heavier taxes are levied upon farmers, craftsmen and merchants. Production and profits decline, since the incentive has been taken away from all those engaged in the economic life of the state.


Salaries and Allowances:
The deductions in services and allowances decrease expenditures of those affected which ultimately affects the incomes of so many others from whom they used to buy things. This involves a decrease in a business activity and monetary transactions and thus leads to diminishing tax revenues of the state. He disapproves such procedures by a state. Ibn-e-Khaldoon extensively deals with the injustice to the people and is of the view that it brings about the ruin of civilization, because attacks on people’s property remove the incentive to acquire or gain property.

The great injustice which he mentions is buying the people’s property at cheaper rates and selling it at higher rates. It is most destructive to civilization. This involves taking the capital of the people and this making them unable to do the cultural enterprise. When capital is decreased, profits are diminished, people’s incentive slackens and thereby the business dwindles. Ultimately this proves to be a death blow to the state.


Standard of Living:
The prosperity and business activity in different cities differ in accordance with the difference in the size of their population. As labor is the fundamental source of profit or income, larger the labor, the higher the profit. The extra labor works for luxuries and luxury goods and crafts etc. Production thrives income and expenditure of the inhabitants multiply and more and more population pours into the city. All the strata of the society in the large city is affected. As profit is the value realized from labor, larger the labor the more will be the value realized from it, which leads to prosperity. In less populated cities or remote towns, villages and hamlets, people are equally poor because their labor does not pay for their necessities and does not yield them a surplus which they can accumulate as profit. Even beggars and poor differ in large and small cities.

Income and expenditure balance each other in every city. If both are large, the inhabitants are prosperous and the city grows. Ibn-e-Khaldoon concludes that the favorable conditions and much prosperity in civilization are the result of its large size. As is the case in cities, so it is with the countries. He gave the examples of the populated countries such as Egypt, Syria, India, and China as being more prosperous as compared to the less populated regions which were less prosperous.

It should be noted that Ibn-e-Khaldoon’s thesis is that higher population brings much labor and much value is realized from it, which causes profit and prosperity. Apparently it may sound strange today, that more populated countries are poor and less populated ones are advanced. But as far as cities in a given country are concerned, his construction is as valid as it was in his time. Technological changes were not occurring in his time, he does not explicitly elucidate the role of productivity of labor.

Ibn-e-Khaldoon was of the view that the wages of the teachers and religious officials are lower, because demand for their services is not high. His remarkable exposition of labor, value, profit, population and their correlation with prosperity and civilization has stood the test of time. He gives the definition of profit as the value realized from human labor. He said, “With the decrease of population sustenance of a country disappears, springs stop flowing because they require labor, they flow only if dug out and water drawn. He compares this process with the udders of cattle.”


Livelihood:
His derivation of livelihood is interesting, he said, “It should be known that livelihood means the desire for sustenance and the efforts to obtain it. Livelihood is information from Ashe life. The idea is that Ashe life obtained only through the things (that go into making a living) and that they are considered with some exaggeration, the place of life.”

Among productive activities he included medical services, education and musical etc. whereas Adam Smith excluded services from his definition of real national product. But Ibn-e-Khaldoon excludes activities such as based on fraud, exploitation or ignorance i-e, astrology, alchemy, search for buried treasure and the various public servants who receive their shares from public receipts vitiated by injustice, oppression and fiscal pressure. While dealing with comparative wages, he has very intelligently analyzed the reasons for the low wages of dealing with religious matters, teachers, mufti, prayer leaders, preacher, muezzin etc. as profit is value realized from labor, the value of labor profits differs according to the needs or particular kind of labor. He said, “Now the common people have no compelling need for the things that the religious officials have to offer.” So their share is in accordance with the general need and demand of the population for them. It is meager as compared with others. Besides he deals with various other and economic problems such as high and low prices, crafts, agriculture, prices of food stuff and hoarding etc. in all these matters, Ibn-e-Khaldoon showed the depth of great thinker and political economist.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga