The Effects of Shortage and Abundance on Human Being in Ibn Khaldun Idealism

Abstract

There has been a link between nutrition styles and human health and physical features for centuries. Similarly, there has been a connection between the easiness and dif ficulty to reach food materials, and shortage and abundance of these material and human behaviors and moral structure. One of the efforts to make a connection between these qualifications comes from Ibn Khaldun. A thinker of Islam, Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the 18 th century, stated that moral characteristics and physical features in the communities which are deprived of food materials are higher than those of the communities having a wealthy living. According to him, overeating leads to the accumulation of harmful wastes in the body and thus to the deterioration of both physical and mental health of human being. Therefore, eating abundant food materials might not result in positive results for man. In the current study , it was investigated how the opportunities of reaching abundant food and types of nutrition affected human health in general and moral structure in Ibn Khaldun. © Kamla-Raj 2014