Framing Ibn Khaldūn’s Kitāb al-’Ibar : Cyclical History and the Moral of Nothing Human is Forever

Abstract

Abstract: The works of the 14th-century historian and jurist ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406 CE) have long attracted significant interest in the West, both within and beyond the academy. Different assessments of his works and legacy have emerged, with some considering his writings a late-medieval precursor to modern social science, and others considering him typical of his intellectual and social context. While most Ibn Khaldūn scholarship avoids these extremes, they have a heuristic value and can help better understand the relationship between text and context in Ibn Khaldūn’s writings. Within this discursive context, this article attempts to recontextualize Ibn Khaldūn’s magnum opus, the Kitāb al-’Ibar (Book of Morals), within the universal human desire to find meaning through history. It does so by identifying the moral that “nothing human is forever” forms the key moral of the work, and that this would be immediately obvious for Ibn Khaldūn’s contemporary readership. This article is divided into three sections. The first outlines the importance and limitations of context for interpreting Ibn Khaldūn, followed by a discussion of the importance of human mortality and impermanence in Ibn Khaldūn’s historical writing. The article concludes with a discussion of cyclical history and the search for universal truth in the art of history writing. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, this article places Ibn Khaldūn in conversation with his ancient and medieval predecessors, as well as with later historiographers and contemporary scholarship.