Back To Nature : the Agrarian Foundations of Society According To Ibn Khaldun

Abstract

HILE the North African 'Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldiin (732V 808/1332-1406) was writing the first draft of his universal interpretation of history, the Muqaddima, on the other side of the Mediterranean Italian engineers experimented with gunpowder weapons, the first mentioning of which goes back to the early decades of the fourteenth century 1. As is well-known, these weapons became the backbone of infantries which were generally recruited in villages and urban centers and which in time became more than a match for the hitherto dominant cavalries of often nomadic stock 2. In fact, Ibn Khalduin's contemporary T-imir (736-807/1336-1405) was the last nomadic empire builder in history3. Although nomads eventually adopted firearms and countinued to control local agricultural centers, they were never again able to extend their power over urban populations in Asia, Europe or North Africa '. Thus two of the central theses of the Muqaddima, those of the militarily superior and morally unified nomads as empire builders and the