Lelli-Knowledge and Beauty in Classical Islam - An Aesthetic Reading of The Muqaddima by Ibn Khaldūn

Knowledge and Beauty in
Classical Islam
This volume offers an aesthetic reading of the Muqaddima by Ibn Khaldūn

(d. 1406), a text that has been studied up to the present as a work on
historiography. It argues that the Muqaddima is also a comprehensive

treatise on classical Arab-Islamic culture and provides a picture of classical
Arab-Islamic aesthetics in its totality.
The theme of the book is the intrinsic connection between beauty and
knowledge in the Muqaddima. Whenever Ibn Khaldūn deals with the
problem of knowledge and science, he also deals with the problem of
sensual beauty as an instrument or an obstacle to attain it. Ibn Khaldūn’s
philosophy of history is necessarily also an aesthetics of history. His key-
notion of ‘group feeling’, the physical, ethic and aesthetic virtue of
Bedouin societies, is at once the origin of the ascent of centralised States
and the cause of their ruin. It represents a tragic contradiction that applies
to the history of the Maghreb but then takes a universal value. It reflects a
range of other contradictions inherent to the ‘system’ of classical Arab-
Islamic aesthetics. These contradictions undermine the aesthetic system of
the Muqaddima from within and provide decisive elements for the emergence
of modern aesthetics.
Offering a comparative approach, the volume is a key resource to
scholars and students interested in Arabic and Islamic studies, philosophy,
aesthetics and global history.
Giovanna Lelli has been a visiting professor of Arabic and Islamic studies
at the Universities of Gent and Leuven (KUL). Her interests are interdisci-
plinary, particularly the comparative studies of the civilisations that flourished
around the Mediterranean Sea in the Middle Ages on common Hellenistic
roots. She also pursues a reflection on the problematic relationship
between the classical heritage and modernity in the Arab-Islamic and the
Western world from a global historical perspective.
Routledge Studies in Islamic Philosophy
Series Editor: Oliver Leaman, University of Kentucky
The Routledge Studies in Islamic Philosophy Series is devoted to the publication

of scholarly books in all areas of Islamic philosophy. We regard the discip-
line as part of the general philosophical environment and seek to include
books on a wide variety of different approaches to Islamic philosophy.
Avicenna’s Al-Shifa
Oriental Philosophy
Sari Nusseibeh
Becoming a Genuine Muslim

Kierkegaard and Muhammad Iqbal
Sevcan Ozturk
Al-Ghazali and the Divine

Massimo Campanini
The Philosophy of Religion in Post-Revolutionary Iran

On an Epistemological Turn in Modern Islamic Reform Discourse
Heydar Shadi
Analytic Philosophy and Avicenna

Knowing the Unknown
Mohammad Azadpur
The Political Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā

Seyyed Khalil Toussi
Knowledge and Beauty in Classical Islam

An Aesthetic Reading of the Muqaddima by Ibn Khaldūn
Giovanna Lelli
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

middleeaststudies/series/RSINIP
Knowledge and Beauty
in Classical Islam
An Aesthetic Reading of the Muqaddima
by Ibn Khaldūn
Giovanna Lelli
First published 2021
by Routledge
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© 2021 Giovanna Lelli
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Contents
Acknowledgementvi
Preface: the rationale and aims of the bookvii
1 Ibn Khaldūn and his historical context 1
2 Beauty and knowledge: the meaning of ‘beauty’

(jamāl) and ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm) in the Muqaddima6
3 Knowledge and beauty in history: epistemological

beauty and phenomenological beauty in history 33
4 Human geography and the Unseen world: knowledge

and beauty in human geography and in the
perceptions of the Unseen (ghayb)58
5 Bedouin society: knowledge and beauty in the

Bedouin society of Arab paganism (jāhiliyya)74
6 The dawn of Islam: knowledge and beauty at the

dawn of Islam 98
7 Sedentary civilisation: the aesthetic State 129
8 The Muqaddima as a tragedy 147
Bibliography155
Index161
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my dear friend Prudence

Crane. Thanks to her refined culture, deep sensibility and skills, she has
wonderfully translated this book from the original Italian into English.
Preface1
The rationale and aims of the book
In the Muslim civilisation, unlike the ancient Greeks, the theatre did not
occupy the position of a cultural institution. Only folk theatre was repres-
ented. This is one of the reasons why Averroes, the great commentator on
Aristotle, in his commentary on the Aristotelian Poetics (based, moreover,
on an Arabic translation from the Syriac), rendered ‘tragedy’ as ‘panegyric’
(madīḥ) and ‘comedy’ as ‘satire’ (hijā’), thereby transforming the Aristotelian
text into a treatise on Arabic poetics.2 It was this that inspired Jorge Luis
Borges’ gloomy and unappealing portrait of Averroes, whom he makes
vanish, all of a sudden, as if struck by a blaze without light, when faced
with the text of the Aristotelian Poetics as if he were on the edge of an
abyss.3 But would it be correct to say that the Muslims of the classical and
pre-modern age (eight–eighteenth century) had no knowledge of the tragic,
understood as man’s profound awareness of facing an irresolvable and painful
conflict and thus did not produce aesthetic works that were similar in their
function to Greek tragedy? I am convinced that quite the reverse is true.
Indeed, a magnificent example of tragedy is the Muqaddima by Ibn
Khaldūn (1332–1406), a much renowned text of Arabic historiography
that we shall analyse in this book. The Muqaddima presents us with a pro-
foundly tragic picture of the history of human civilisation (al-‘umrān
al-basharī). Civilisations, in their primitive, nomadic phase are vigorous
and strong, with a rude simplicity and beauty which is at once unconscious
and ingenuous. However, they transform naturally and inexorably into
settlements and cities until they become crystallised in State organisations,
which are initially characterised by their prosperity and a flowering of the
arts and sciences. Their peak is their maturity but also the beginning of
their decline, according to a mechanism which neither God nor man can
do anything to change.
The book known by the name Muqaddima (‘Prolegomena’, ‘Introduc-
tion’) includes the real introduction and the first book of the three-volume
work by the Arab historian Ibn Khaldūn, a work that is usually known by
its abbreviated title of Book of Examples (Kitāb al-‘ibar).4 Thus, the first
book in the Muqaddima, is subdivided into six chapters: I ‘Human Civili-
sation in General’; II ‘Bedouin Civilisation, Savage Nations and Tribes and
viii Preface
their Conditions; III ‘On States, Political Authority, the Caliphate, Govern-
ment Ranks’; IV ‘Countries and Cities, and all Other Kinds of Sedentary
Civilisation’; V ‘The Different Aspects of Making a Living, such as Profit
and the Crafts’; and VI ‘The Different Kinds of Sciences and the Methods
of Education’.5
Unlike other great classics of Muslim thought, the Muqaddima was
only translated into a Western language in the nineteenth century.6 The
Muqaddima has been greatly appreciated by scholars all over the world
for the modern method of historiography that it uses. Ibn Khaldūn is
well aware of the novelty and the value of his historiographic method,
which is both rational and empirical. He refuses to accept historical
information on face value, without critical scrutiny, even when it comes
from sources that are considered authoritative (nāqilūna, the transmit-
ters). He sets out to identify the internal causes of historical events by
analysing them exclusively in the light of their context (aḥwāl, con-
ditions, situation, circumstances), be it political, economic or social. His
intention is to grasp the historical truth, the reason and the manner in
which civilisations arise, develop and, ultimately and inevitably, decline
and disappear, only to return to their nomadic state or be replaced by
other young and vigorous civilisations. The analysis of Ibn Khaldūn
focuses principally on the history of the Maghreb, which he considers
both in the light of its specific characteristics (the dialectal relationship
between the Bedouin tribal society and the formation of a centralised
State) and in the light of its general characteristics which are common to
the history of all human civilisations.
Without taking anything away from the valuable reading of the Muqaddima
which displays a historical materialism ante litteram,7 this study aims to
reveal the extraordinary aesthetic vision of history which it contains. The
possibility of proposing new readings of the Muqaddima is further proof
of the continuing modernity of this great classic, which never ceases to
invite reflection on both the past and the present of Arab civilisation and
of human civilisation as a whole. To be more precise, the intention here is
not only to propose an aesthetic reading but also, at the same time, an
epistemological reading of the Muqaddima. The main objective is therefore
to bring to light the profound relationship between knowledge and beauty
in the Arab-Islamic civilisation as seen by Ibn Khaldūn. The reader will
notice that in this book the word ‘knowledge’ occurs alternately with the
words ‘learning’ and ‘science’. Their Arabic correspondent in the Muqaddima
is ‘ ‘ilm’, which occupies the comprehensive semantic field of archaic English
‘science’, indicating at once knowledge, the pursuit of knowledge and the
different branches of it.
We are aware that an exhaustive reflection on Ibn Khaldūn’s aesthetics
should examine his complete works, including the whole Kitāb al-‘ibar,
his autobiography (al-Ta‘rīf 8), his poems, his work on logic (‘Allaqa li
al-sulṭān), his work on Sufism (Shifā’ al-sā’il) and his work on theology
Preface ix
(Lubāb al-muḥaṣṣal fī uṣūl al-dīn).9 However, the purpose of this book is
limited to the analysis of the Muqaddima.
To our knowledge, most of the existing literature on the Muqaddima
has not paid due attention to the possibility of an overall aesthetic reading
of the work, nor has it considered the profound relationship that it reveals
between knowledge and beauty. Several publications on the aesthetics of
Islam refer to the Muqaddima for the information and opinions it contains
on the arts. Among these studies, I would like to mention those I have
drawn on and to which I am indebted, namely, Il Volto di Adamo: La
questione estetica nell’altro Occidente by Gianroberto Scarcia,10 Beauty in
Arabic Culture by Doris Behrens-Abuseif,11 Beauty and Islam: Aesthetics
in Islamic Art and Architecture by Valérie Gonzales,12 Islamic Aesthetics:
An Introduction by Oliver Leaman13 and José Miguel Puerta-Vílchez, Historia
del Pensamiento Estético Árabe: Al-Andalus y la Estética Árabe Clásica.14
These, in turn, benefit directly or indirectly from the previous studies, now
classics, on the history of Greek and Latin aesthetics, both ancient and
medieval, such as the Etudes d’esthétique médiévale by Edgar de Bruyne,15
the studies of Umberto Eco on medieval aesthetics16 and the History of
Aesthetics by Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz.17 These scholars reacted in a con-
structive and well-argued fashion to the negative evaluation put forward
by idealistic philosophy on the subject of medieval European aesthetics, in
that it was considered poor and lacking from a theoretical point of view,
owing to the prevalence of a religious and metaphysical vision. This prejudice,
which has now been overcome, weighed even more heavily on medieval
Muslim aesthetics.
Historically, aesthetics as an autonomous discipline was founded in the
period of the Enlightenment by the German philosopher Alexander Gottfried
Baumgarten (1714–1762). In his Metaphysics, he presents a ‘gnosiology’,
divided into logic (the doctrine of rational knowledge) and aesthetics (the
doctrine of sensual knowledge, from the Greek aísthēsis, ‘sensation’).18 The
aesthetics of Baumgarten deals with both mere sensual knowledge and
with the theory of the beautiful as well as with the liberal arts.19 According
to Baumgarten, sensual knowledge is an inferior type of gnosiology as
compared to logic, but it can attain perfection when it intuits the beauty of
objects in their entirety. The aesthetics of Baumgarten was subsequently
taken up by those idealist philosophers who, like Benedetto Croce (1866–1952),
argued for the autonomy of aesthetic experience and considered the medi-
eval period as devoid of any real and proper aesthetics, alleging that in the
Middle Ages poetry and art had purely didactic aims and served solely to
propagate religious truths.20
Following in the footsteps of de Bruyne, Eco and, among the orientalists,
especially Scarcia, we propose as an accepted fact that the Arab-Islamic
Middle Ages also possessed its own aesthetics to all intents and purposes,
an aesthetics that was as complex and profound as it was wide-ranging
and interdisciplinary. The thesis of this book is that the Muqaddima by
x Preface
Ibn Khaldūn offers a perfect example of the Arab-Islamic aesthetics of the
classical period.
In our aesthetic reading of the Muqaddima, we do not mean by
‘aesthetics’ a philosophy of art, in the manner of modern philosophers like
Croce. We mean, more generally, a sufficiently well-argued and systematic
reflection on sensual and intelligible beauty. In so doing, we adopt Eco’s
approach in his analysis of the aesthetic problem in Thomas Aquinas.
Indeed, we are convinced that an aesthetic reading of the Muqaddima of
Ibn Khaldūn is as revealing of Arab-Islamic aesthetics, as Eco’s aesthetic
reading of Aquinas’ theology is revealing of the aesthetics of Western
Christianity. Given the Hellenistic background of both, it is no wonder
that Ibn Khaldūn’s aesthetics also emerges from the intimate features that
characterise it such as ‘beautiful’, ‘good’, ‘true’, ‘real’, ‘exact’, ‘perfect’ and
‘suitable for its purpose’.21
With regard to the aspects relating to the Khaldunian conception of
knowledge, I am beholden to the epistemological reading of the Muqaddima
proposed by Muḥammad ‘Ābid al-Jābrī, who maintains that the principal
problems dealt with by Ibn Khaldūn are those of knowledge, its criteria,
objects and limits in the different disciplines.22
The reader will find there are some references in this book which may
seem anachronistic, such as the comparison between the nostalgia of Ibn
Khaldūn for the simplicity of the early revolutionary Islam, for its human
prophet, a model of virtue, vigour and knowledge, and the nostalgia of
Vladimir Majakovskij (1893–1930) for the humane simplicity of Lenin,
who is knowledge [znan’e], arms [sila] and vigour [oruchie] and on the day
of whose death it seemed ‘that, as in ancient times, all Russia had become
nomadic once more’.23 Like Ibn Khaldūn, Majakovskij gives vent to his
pain that the beauty of the revolutionary phase cannot last. It gives way to
the State, rigidity, rules and mausoleums. ‘I fear that processions and mau-
soleums … will drown the simplicity of Lenin in a bland holy oil’.24 The
Russia of 1917 still preserved marked features of its thousand-year-old civ-
ilisation which it shared with that of the Arab-Islamic East: the masses
were primarily farmers but there were also nomads who reared livestock,
as well as an élite whose culture had been shaped in medieval times by
cosmopolitan Hellenism, Eastern Christianity and the Byzantine culture
which had so much in common with the Arab-Persian East.
A modern Arab writer who had direct experience of the profound cul-
tural communion between Russia and the Arab world was the Lebanese
poet Mikhā’īl Nu‘ayma (1889–1988), who spent the formative years of his
youth in a seminary in the Ukraine in the period leading up to the October
Revolution. In his autobiography, he speaks of his understanding and love
for the Russian people and of how he feels part of them.25 Among con-
temporary authors, it is George Corm (2015) who exhorts readers to an
in-depth exploration of the relationship between the Arab and Russian
culture in reaction to the narrow and exclusive comparison with Western
Preface xi
culture. He observes that the Russian and Arab intelligentsia of the nine-
teenth century had a similar way of experiencing the effects of the European
mirror. In the nineteenth century, like the Arab intelligentsia, the Russian
would be fascinated by the European societies and cultures, either admiring
them or hating them.26 In agreement with Corm, our comparisons between
Ibn Khaldūn and Majakovskij, like other reflections that are evoked in this
book, are meant to emancipate us from the exclusive focus on the relation-
ships between Islam and the West, and to enable us to understand aspects of
the history of cultures from a longue durée perspective.27
Our book has a comparative approach, diachronically and synchroni-
cally. We compare Ibn Khaldūn’s aesthetics with the aesthetics of other
civilisations: not only of Russia, but also of ancient Greece, pre-Islamic
Arabia, medieval Europe, China and modern Europe. These comparisons
imply a general theory of culture which needs to be further developed and
which contributes to the current debate on global history.28
We also consider it important to recognise the directions indicated by
Ibn Khaldūn, even if they were not actually pursued by him, due to the
objective historical impossibility of such an undertaking. While in the past
authors like Yves Lacoste tended to admire Ibn Khaldūn for his modernity,
more recently scholars have suggested reading Ibn Khaldūn in the light of
his time and historical context so as not to fall into Eurocentric anachro-
nisms which would make him into the pioneer of modernity.29 On the one
hand, tendencies of this type are healthy, however, on the other hand, they
run the risk of falling into that form of Eurocentrism in reverse that char-
acterises so much of contemporary academic culture and denies Arab
culture the historical possibility of constructing a progressive and emanci-
pating modernity.30 A form of Eurocentrism in reverse, in my opinion, is
the desire to relegate Ibn Khaldūn to the confines of his fixed destiny,
thereby ignoring the fact that the present, even the present of Ibn Khaldūn,
is still living history with the inherent possibility of becoming. Only the
future can tell us what directions human beings actually took. Despite
taking into consideration the useful reminder of the historical context
when reading Ibn Khaldūn, our aesthetic reading of the Muqaddima wel-
comes the old method of approaching the Muqaddima suggested by
Lacoste: reading Ibn Khaldūn in function of problems of our times does
not mean distorting him; it means discovering the real richness of his
thought which, for objective historical reasons, could not come fully to
light during his epoch.31
The basic thesis of this work is therefore that until the Muqaddima is
read from the point of view of its aesthetics, it will be impossible to grasp
all its riches or to understand the aesthetics of classical Islam in its entirety,
into which it gives us such a magnificent insight. We do not know if there
are other texts or other Muslim authors who offer us a complete aesthetic
reading of classical Islam. The Muqaddima is certainly a fundamental text
in this sense. Its obsessive leitmotiv is sensual beauty, which has connotations
xii Preface
that are sometimes positive and sometimes negative: the rude simplicity of
the Bedouins which is their unconscious beauty, the beauty of harmony
and proportions, the inimitable beauty of the Qur’ān, the dangerous
beauty of the lasciviousness that turns you aside from the pursuit of good-
ness, the beauty of false speeches that dissuade you from the truth and the
beauty of luxury that drives civilisations inexorably to their ruin. Ibn
Khaldūn does not pose the problem of beauty considered in an auto-
nomous way philosophically. He rather poses the problem of knowledge
(‘ilm), of its criteria, its limits, its objects, its methods and its certainties.
But in dealing with knowledge, he is continually faced with the problem of
sensual beauty.
For these reasons, we argue that the Muqaddima contains an aesthetics
of history. It is no coincidence that Ibn Khaldūn’s definition of his historical
method in terms of a ‘new science’ (muḥdath) induced certain scholars to
compare the Muqaddima to the Scienza nuova by Giambattista Vico
(1668–1774).32 In our view, the analogy between Ibn Khaldūn and Vico
does indeed consist in their common aesthetic perception of history and
their organicist understanding of it. However, while Vico highlights the
historiographic value of subjective and irrational perceptions that the
ancient peoples expressed in their myths and poems, Ibn Khaldūn rejects
legends and fantasies because they distract the historian from the objective
truth, which is established through the aesthetic and epistemological cri-
terion of muṭābaqa (correspondence between events and circumstances).33
As Eco observed, it is we moderns who consider the problem of beauty in
isolation, and thereby reduce its significance so drastically. This is because
our aesthetic universe is limited. The aesthetic universe of the Middle Ages
was much broader than the modern one,34 and included both the meta-
physical and intelligible dimension of beauty and, by analogy, the dimension
of sensual beauty, through a series of reciprocal cross-references that do not
always allow us to distinguish clearly between the two. This dialectic of
reciprocal cross-references is perfectly applicable to Arab-Islamic aesthetics
in general and to the aesthetics of the Muqaddima in particular.
In order to highlight the intrinsic connection between knowledge and
beauty in the Muqaddima, we have chosen to use two categories from
among our instruments of analysis: ‘epistemological beauty’ and ‘pheno-
menological beauty’. The first refers to beauty as an instrument (or an obs-
tacle) to knowledge; the second refers to beauty as a phenomenon and
experience. As in the case of the intelligible and sensual dimensions of
beauty, its epistemological and phenomenological dimensions are in fact
intrinsically linked and continually defined by analogy and through recip-
rocal cross-references.
This book is structured in terms of a ‘journey’ through the Muqaddima,
which is in turn a ‘journey’ into history. It is not lacking in cross-
references, foretastes of what is to come and flashbacks to what has been, but
I believe that following the order of the Muqaddima itself is the best way
Preface xiii
to rediscover the sensibility of the author. The present volume contains six
chapters: after a brief, introductory chapter on the biography of Ibn
Khaldūn and his historical context, comes Chapter 2, ‘Beauty and Knowledge:
The Meaning of “Beauty” (jamāl) and “Knowledge” (‘ilm) in the Muqad-
dima’, which provides some preliminary explanations on the terminology
used by Ibn Khaldūn. Chapter 3, ‘Knowledge and Beauty in History: Epis-
temological Beauty and Phenomenological Beauty in History’, analyses the
historical method described by Ibn Khaldūn in the introduction and the
first pages of the first book of the Muqaddima, in the light of our aesthetic-
epistemological reading. Chapter 4, ‘Human Geography and the Unseen
World: Knowledge and Beauty in Human Geography and in the Perceptions
of the Unseen (ghayb)’, refers mostly to the first chapter of the Muqaddima
and is divided into two parts. The first part is on phenomenological beauty
understood as moderation and balance in human geography, while the
second part concerns epistemological beauty related to extrasensory percep-
tions: true in the case of prophecy and false in the case of diverse types of
occult sciences. Chapter 5, ‘Bedouin Society: Knowledge and Beauty in the
Bedouin Society of Arab Paganism (jāhiliyya)’, refers to the second chapter
of the Muqaddima and deals with the phenomenological and epistemologi-
cal aspects of beauty in the Bedouin society, in opposition to the sedentary
civilisation characterised by the presence of a centralised State. Chapter 6,
‘The Dawn of Islam: Knowledge and Beauty at the Dawn of Islam’, refers
both to the second chapter of the Muqaddima and, in a transversal way, to
various parts of the book, in order to highlight the markedly aesthetic char-
acter of both the period of the Islamic revelation and of its epistemological
content. This chapter contains a section on the poetics of the Qur’ān.
Chapter 7, ‘Sedentary Civilisation: The Aesthetic State’, refers to the second,
third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters of the Muqaddima and deals with
beauty in the mature civilisation, be it epistemological or phenomenological,
characterised as it is by the State organisation, by the flourishing of the arts
and sciences and by their inevitable decline.
Our conclusion, Chapter 8, is titled ‘The Muqaddima as a tragedy’. It
sums up the fundamental points of our aesthetic reading of the Muqad-
dima, based on its indissoluble connection between knowledge and beauty.
The Muqaddima is the stage for the human tragedy inasmuch as it is an
expression of an insoluble contradiction between light and shade: the light
of the impassioned attachment of Ibn Khaldūn to the ephemeral beauty of
physical bodies and the shade contained in the inadequacy of his faith in
eternal life and in the resurrection of the body.
Notes
1 Throughout this book, the dates of dynasties and the births and deaths of
historical figures are often approximate when referred to pre-modern times.
2 [Ibn Rushd] Averroè, Commento al Perì Poietikēs, translated by C. Baffioni
(Milan: Coliseum, 1990), 27ff.
xiv Preface
3 Jorge Luis Borges, ‘La ricerca di Averroè’, L‘Aleph (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1959), 99;
and Borges, ‘La busca de Averroes’, El Aleph, in Obras completas 1923–1972
(Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 1974), 587.
4 Kitāb al-ʻibar wa-dīwān al-mubtadaʼ wa al-khabar fī tāʼrīkh al-ʻArab wa
al-‘Ajam wa al-Barbar wa man ʻāṣarahum min dhawī al-shaʼn al-sulṭān al-akbar
[Book of Lessons and Archive of Early and Subsequent History, Dealing with the
Political Events Concerning the Arabs, non-Arabs, and Berbers, and the Supreme
Rulers who were Contemporary with Them], Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, translated
by Franz Rosenthal, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Vols I–III
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), Vol. I, 13.
5 Titles of chapter are quoted in an abridged manner.
6 William MacGuckin de Slane, Prolègomènes historiques d’Ibn Khaldūn (Paris,
1862, 1865 and 1868), quoted in Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima (1980), Vol. I,
cviii.
7 For example, Yves Lacoste, Ibn Khaldoun: Naissance de l’Histoire, passé du
tiers monde (Paris: La Découverte, 1998).
8 Ibn Khaldūn, Al-ta‘rīf bi Ibn Khaldūn wa riḥlatihi gharban wa sharqan
[Presenting Ibn Khaldūn and his Journey West and East], edited by Muḥammad
Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Cairo: s.n., 1370/1951).
9 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima (1980), Vol. III, 498. For more exhaustive biblio-
graphical information on Ibn Khaldūn, cf. María Jesús Viguera Molins,
‘Conclusiones, fuentes y bibliografía’, in Ibn Jaldún: El Mediterraneo en el siglo
XIV (Sevilla-Granada: Fundación José Manuel Lara y El Legado Andalusí,
2006), 414–455.
10 Gianroberto Scarcia, Il volto di Adamo: La questione estetica nell’altro occi-
dente [The Face of Adam: The Aesthetic Question in the Other West] (Venice:
Il Cardo, 1995).
11 Doris Behrens-Abuseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener
Publishers, 1999).
12 Valérie Gonzales, Beauty and Islam: Aesthetics in Islamic Art and Architecture
(London: I.B. Tauris Publishers in association with the Institute for Ismaili
Studies, 2001).
13 Oliver Leaman, Islamic Aesthetics: An Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2004).
14 José Miguel Puerta-Vílchez, Historia del Pensamiento Estético Árabe: Al-Andalus
y la Estética Árabe Clásica (Madrid: Akal, 1997), trans. Aesthetics in Arab
Thought: From Pre-Islamic Arabia through Andalous (Leiden: Brill, 2017).
15 Edgar de Bruyne, Etudes d’esthétique médiévale, Vols I–III (Brugges: De Tempel,
1946).
16 Umberto Eco, Il problema estetico in Tommaso d’Aquino (Milan: Bompiani,
1982); and Eco, Arte e bellezza nell’estetica medievale (Milan: Bompiani, 1994
[1987]).
17 Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz, Storia dell’estetica, Vols 1–2 (Torino: Einaudi, 1979,
1st Polish edn 1970).
18 Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Metaphysics, translated by Courtney D.
Fugate and John Hymers (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
19 The liberal arts, according to the classification of the sciences favoured in medi-
eval Europe, were divided into trivium (grammar, rhetoric and dialectics) and
into quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy), see Ernest
Robert Curtius, Letteratura europea e Medio Evo latino (Rome: La Nuova
Italia, 1995, first German edition 1948), 45ff.
20 Benedetto Croce, Breviario di estetica, written in 1912. Croce, Breviario di
estetica: Estetica in nuce (Milan: Adelphi, 1990).
Preface xv
21 For a comprehensive exposition on the meaning of aesthetics which is broadly
in agreement with our approach, the reader can refer to Renato Barilli, Corso
di estetica (Milan: Mondadori, 1989), following in the footsteps of J. Dewey’s
Arts as Experience (1934), reprinted in Jo Ann Boydston, John Dewey: The
Later Works, 1925–1953, Vol. 10 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1989).
22 Muḥammad ‘Ābid al-Jābrī, Naḥnu wa al-turāth: Qirā’āt mu‘āṣira fī turāthinā
al-falsafī [We and our Heritage: Contemporary Readings on our Philosophical
Heritage] (Beirut: Markaz dirāsāt al-waḥda al-‘arabiyya, 2006), 377ff. The
reader can also refer to Zaid Ahmad, Ibn Khaldūn’s Epistemology (London:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), a book that draws attention to the importance of the
often-neglected Chapter 6 of the Muqaddima (‘The Various Kinds of Sciences’).
23 ‘Et c’est/ comme si/ la Russie/ était redevenue nomade’, Vladimir Majakovskij,
‘Vladimir Il’itch Lenin’ (1924), in Poèmes 1924–1926 translated by Claude
Frioux (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000), 5. English translations of quoted works
throughout the book are Prudence Crane’s or ours, unless otherwise noted.
24 ‘Je crains/ que les processions et les mausolées,/ le statut établi/ des dévotions/ ne
noient/ dans une fade huile sainte/ la simplicité/ léninienne’, Majakovskij (2000), 37.
25 Mikhā’īl Nu‘ayma, Sab‘ūna: Ḥikāyat ‘umrī [Seventy: The Story of my Life],
Vols 1–3 (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1959–1960).
26 Georges Corm, Pensée et politique dans le monde arabe: Contextes historiques
et problématiques XIXe–XXIe siècle (Paris: La Découverte, 2015), 149. Corm
draws inspiration from the analysis of Russian culture of Nina Berberova, C’est
moi qui souligne (Paris: Actes Sud, 1989).
27 Fernand Braudel, ‘Histoire et sciences sociales: La longue durée’, Annales 4
(October–December 1958), 725–753.
28 We understand ‘global history’ in the general sense of a field of research that
analyses historical transformations in their world dimension, from the point of
view of time and space, and opposes Eurocentric prejudices which often affect
national history. Samir Amin, Global History: A View from the South (Cape
Town: Pambazuka Press, 2011).
29 For example, Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).
30 This controversy is analogous to that between ‘Orientalism’ and ‘Orientalism
Overturned’, which Edward Said contrasts in the twentieth century, see Orien-
talism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978) and Ṣādiq Jalāl al-Aẓm, Al-istishrāq
wa al-istishrāq ma‘kūsan [Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse] (Beirut: Dār
al-ḥadātha, 1981).
31 Lacoste (1998), 15.
32 Giambattista Vico, Principi di scienza nuova (Milan: Mondadori, 1990).
33 On comparisons between Ibn Khaldūn and Vico, cf. Francesco Gabrieli, ‘Ibn
Khaldūn: Il Vico dell’Islam’, Bollettino del Centro di Studi Vichiani V (1975):
122–126. On the ‘muṭābaqa’, cf. Chapter 3.
34 Eco (1994), 8.
References
‘Ābid al-Jābrī, Muḥammad (2006) Naḥnu wa al-turāth: Qirā’āt mu‘āṣira fī
turāthinā al-falsafī [We and our Heritage: Contemporary Readings on our Philo-
sophical Heritage]. Beirut: Markaz dirāsāt al-waḥda al-‘arabiyya.
Ahmad, Zaid (2003) Ibn Khaldūn’s Epistemology. London: RoutledgeCurzon.
Al-Aẓm, Ṣādiq Jalāl (1981) Al-istishrāq wa al-istishrāq ma‘kūsan [Orientalism and
Orientalism in Reverse]. Beirut: Dār al-ḥadātha.
xvi Preface
Amin, Samir (2011) Global History: A View from the South. Cape Town: Pambazuka
Press.
[Ibn Rushd] Averroè (1990) Talkhīṣ kitāb al-shi`r, trans. Carmela Baffioni, Commento
al Perì Poietikēs. Milan: Coliseum.
Barilli, Renato (1989) Corso di estetica. Milan: Mondadori.
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb (2013) Metaphysics, trans. Courtney D. Fugate
and John Hymers. London: Bloomsbury.
Behrens-Abuseif, Doris (1999) Beauty in Arabic Culture. Princeton, NJ: Markus
Wiener Publishers.
Berberova, Nina (1989) C’est moi qui souligne. Paris: Actes Sud.
Borges, Jorge Luis (1974) ‘La ricerca di Averroè’ [‘La busca de Averroes’]. In
L‘Aleph. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1959. In El Aleph, in Obras completas 1923–1972.
Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 582–588.
Boydston, Jo Ann (1989) John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, Vol. 10.
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Braudel, Fernand (1958) ‘Histoire et sciences sociales: La longue durée’. Annales 4
(October–December): 725–753.
Corm, Georges (2015) Pensée et politique dans le monde arabe: Contextes historiques
et problématiques XIXe–XXIe siècle. Paris: La Découverte.
Croce, Benedetto (1990) Breviario di estetica: Estetica in nuce. Milan: Adelphi.
Curtius, Ernest Robert (1995) Letteratura europea e Medio Evo latino. Rome: La
Nuova Italia.
De Bruyne, Edgar (1946) Etudes d’esthétique médiévale, Vols 1–3. Brugges: De
Tempel.
Eco, Umberto (1982) Il problema estetico in Tommaso d’Aquino. Milan: Bompiani.
Eco, Umberto (1994 [1987]) Arte e bellezza nell’estetica medievale. Milan: Bompiani.
Gabrieli, Francesco (1975) ‘Ibn Khaldūn: Il Vico dell’Islam’. Bollettino del Centro
di Studi Vichiani V: 122–126.
Ibn Khaldūn (1970 [1858]) Muqaddima, ed. Etienne Quatremère, Prolégomènes
d’Ebn Khaldoun, Vols I–III. Paris: Reprint Beirut: Librairie du Liban.
Ibn Khaldūn (1980 [1967]) Muqaddima, trans. Franz Rosenthal, The Muqaddimah:
An Introduction to History, Vols I–III. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gonzales, Valérie (2001) Beauty and Islam: Aesthetics in Islamic Art and Architec-
ture. London: I.B. Tauris Publishers in association with the Institute for Ismaili
Studies.
Irwin, Robert (2018) Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Lacoste, Yves (1998) Ibn Khaldoun: Naissance de l’Histoire, passé du tiers monde.
Paris: La Découverte.
Leaman, Oliver (2004) Islamic Aesthetics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Maïakovski, Vladimir Il’itch (2000) Poèmes 1924–1926, trans. Claude Frioux.
Paris: L’Harmattan, Russian parallel text.
Nu‘ayma, Mikhā’īl (1959–1960) Sab‘ūna: Ḥikāyat ‘umrī [Seventy: The Story of my
Life], Vols. 1–3. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir.
Puerta-Vílchez, José Miguel (2017 [1997]), Aesthetics in Arab Thought: From Pre-
Islamic Arabia through al-Andalous [Historia del Pensamiento Estético Árabe
Al-Andalus y la Estética Árabe Clásica] translation. Leiden: Brill.
Said, Edward (1978) Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
Preface xvii
Scarcia, Gianroberto (1995) Il volto di Adamo: La questione estetica nell’altro
occidente. Venice: Il Cardo.
Tatarkiewicz, Wladyslaw (1979 [1970]) Storia dell’estetica, Vols 1–3. Torino:
Einaudi, original in Polish.
Vico, Giambattista (1990) Principi di scienza nuova. Milan: Mondadori.
Viguera Molins, María Jesús (2006) ‘Conclusiones, fuentes y bibliografía’. In Ibn
Jaldún: El Mediterraneo en el siglo XIV. Sevilla-Granada: Fundación José
Manuel Lara y El Legado Andalusí, 414–455.
1 Ibn Khaldūn and his
historical context1
The life of Ibn Khaldūn, intellectual and member of the Arab political-
administrative ruling class of the fourteenth century is emblematic, both
with respect to the society to which he belonged and to the fundamental
leitmotiv of his aesthetics of history, which I shall analyse in this book. In
his prologue to the A History of the Arab Peoples, the historian Albert
Hourani (1993) takes the life of Ibn Khaldūn as an example in order to
illustrate the profound, unshakeable unity of the classical Arab-Muslim
culture along with its diversity, its cultural variety, its political fragmen-
tation, the instability of its State institutions and the precariousness of
human life. A civilisation in which a family from Southern Arabia, the
Khaldūns, could return to Spain, its place of origin, six centuries after
having left it, and still find itself in a familiar environment, could not but
have a profound cultural unity.2 Hourani goes on to maintain that this
unity was the result of the Arabic language, a common body of knowledge
and the belief in a sole creator God.
To Hourani’s words I should like to add that the unity and the cultural
wealth of the classical Arab culture, its strength and its fragility are dis-
played in a masterly manner by the Muqaddima and appear in a particularly
rich way in an aesthetic reading of the work.
In the course of his life, Ibn Khaldūn moved from one part of the Arab
world to another, as was often common practice for the members of the
cosmopolitan cultural élite to which he belonged. In the service of diverse
dynasties of the Maghreb or Andalusia, he switched his allegiance when-
ever it proved advantageous to him or according to the changing fortunes
of the States and their relationships with their client States. The ruling
houses, in turn, suffered from a congenital vulnerability due to the egalit-
arian structure of their tribal-military social base. Indeed, the latter were
able to overturn the State every time it came into conflict with their
interests.3
The leitmotiv of the aesthetics of the Muqaddima is twofold: the virtues
of the Bedouins which are contrasted with the vices of sedentary citizens;
and the seeds of decadence that begin to destroy the most flourishing
States from within, from the very moment of their birth. Both stem from
2 Ibn Khaldūn and his historical context
observing the social and historical situation in the Maghreb and from the
real political precariousness of its dynasties. However, the aesthetics of the
Muqaddima is not an added ingredient in the historiographical vision of
Ibn Khaldūn, but rather it is an integral part of its historiography: it
springs from it and is explained through it.
Ibn Khaldūn was born in Tunis in 1332 and died in Cairo in 1406. His
life is known to us mainly through his autobiography, al-Ta‘rīf (Introduc-
tion).4 His family belonged to the political-administrative ruling class.
Originally from the Arab peninsula but having moved to Seville, towards
the year 1230 they left Andalusia which had fallen prey to internal strug-
gles. They settled in Tunis, at the time of the foundation of the Hafsid
dynasty (Banū Ḥafṣ) (1228–1574), one of the dynasties of Bedouin origin
in the Maghreb. The Khaldūn family was in their service and enjoyed their
protection.
Ibn Khaldūn’s education was thorough and, in accordance with the
canons of the time, included both the religious (the Qur’ān, the Sunna,
theology and Islamic jurisprudence) and the rational sciences (philosophy,
logic, mathematics, medicine and astronomy). He also received training in
history and epistolography (the art of composing official letters according
to the sophisticated rules and etiquette of the administration). When the
Marinid dynasty (Banū Marīn) of Morocco conquered Tunisia for a
certain time (in 1347), Ibn Khaldūn switched to their service. He thereby
gave proof of great diplomatic ability that would last his entire life and
also, as some saw it, of opportunism. In 1348, the plague devastated the
entire Arab world and Ibn Khaldūn lost his parents, friends and masters.
He was subsequently active as a courtier and official at various North
West African courts (Tunis, Bougie and Fez). After an imprisonment of
two years for having taken the wrong side in power politics, he entered the
service of the Nasrid sultanate of Granada (Banū Naṣr), the last Arab sul-
tanate in Spain, which would survive until the definite triumph of the
Reconquista in 1492. After having returned to Morocco once more, he
retired to a fortress (Qal‘at ibn Salāma, 1374–1378) in the Algerian desert
to devote himself to composing the Muqaddima. From that point on, Ibn
Khaldūn abandoned political life. In 1382, he finally settled and spent the
rest of his days in Cairo, brilliant capital of the Mamluk dynasty
(Mamlūk, pl. Mamālīk 1250–1517), where he devoted himself to teaching
and the magistracy, in the role of judge (qāḍī), among the most prestigious
for a Muslim intellectual. He would lose all his family in a shipwreck. Tra-
dition has it that in Damascus he had met the Turco-Mongol conqueror
Tamerlane, who had so admired his ability and culture that he invited him
to enter his service as an adviser but that Ibn Khaldūn had refused.
The fourteenth century in which Ibn Khaldūn lived was a century of
decline, from which the Arab-Islamic world never fully recovered again.
The Arab-Islamic civilisation, whose political unity had begun to fragment
as early as the ninth century, contained elements of great diversity but also
Ibn Khaldūn and his historical context 3
of profound unity. It spread from the western Mediterranean to the coasts
of India and the borders of China, and drew the surplus that was crucial
for its growth from international long-distance commerce and trade. In the
fourteenth century, the Arab East had not yet recovered from the devast-
ating Mongol invasions of Gengis Khan (with the destruction of Baghdad
in 1258), when it suffered the new and even more devastating invasions of
the Mongol Tamerlane. The Timurids (fifteenth century), successors of
Tamerlane, ruled in Iran and in Mesopotamia, while Egypt and Syria were
governed by the Mamluks, a dynasty that was originally composed of
Turkish military slaves in the service of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate. In Asia
Minor, the rise of the Ottomans in the Balkans was temporarily halted by
the Timurids (1402), only to begin again a few years later. Starting from
the sixteenth century, the whole Arab world, with the exception of
Morocco, would be transformed into Ottoman provinces. The Arab
West, the Maghreb, was under the rule of the Hafsid dynasties of Tunisia
(1228–1274) and of the Marinids of Morocco (1269–1420) who were
mentioned above. In Spain, the Arab civilisation steadily declined in the face
of the Reconquista, until the fall of the last Arab sultanate, the Nasrids of
Granada, in 1492.
What is important to underline here are the social characteristics of
the Maghreb, which constitute the principal object of observation for Ibn
Khaldūn when developing his historiography. As Lacoste (1998) explains
in detail, the social and economic structures of the Maghreb were
different from those of the Arab East. In the East (Egypt and Mesopotamia),
the farming component, dependent on the existence of great water
courses, was fundamental in the social production, although the surplus
which was crucial for the expansion of the States derived from inter-
national commerce. The farm labourers, tied to the States that directed
the great irrigation works, were a servile manpower, bound by personal
relationships to the ruling class. The Arab and Berber West, on the
other hand, was made up of tribal, nomadic-pastoral societies who
earned their vital surplus from the trade provided by the Sudanese Gold
Route. As well as imposing tributes of various types on the population,
the States participated in these benefits both indirectly by taxing the
commercial transactions and directly through the merchants who were
associated with them.
In the fourteenth century, the conflict that existed between the Hafsid
and Marinid dynasties of the Maghreb was due to their desire to control
the trade routes. The benefits to be had from trade were fabulous, but
owing to its long-distance nature, it rendered the beneficiary States
extremely vulnerable. This observation is obviously true for the entire
Arab world but particularly for societies like those of the Maghreb whose
pastoral economy remained a subsistence economy. In fact, it was enough
for a trade route to be interrupted for diverse reasons for the States to
rapidly go to ruin. The ruling class of the Maghreb was composed of an
4 Ibn Khaldūn and his historical context
aristocracy of merchants, military and tribal chiefs, whose precarious
situation was due to the fact that the fortunes made from trade which were
not reinvested in the business could either be lost or confiscated by the
State. In contrast, in the Arab East the ruling class was a military caste and
often of foreign origin (especially Turkish).
It was no wonder then that the Muqaddima describes history as a tale
of precariousness, given the nature of the social structures peculiar to the
Maghreb. As we will examine in the following chapters, in the fine analysis
of Ibn Khaldūn, the group feeling (‘aṣabiyya) was at once a deciding factor
in the rise of the centralised States and the cause of their ruin.
Notes
1 The information contained in this chapter is very general. For a more detailed
account, cf. among others, Yves Lacoste, Ibn Khaldoun: Naissance de l’Histoire,
passé du tiers monde (Paris: La Découverte, 1998), the introductory pages of the
translation of the Muqaddima by Vincent Monteil, Ibn Khaldūn: Discours sur
l’histoire universelle (Paris: Sindbad, 1967–1968), and the translation by Franz
Rosenthal, Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, translated by Franz Rosenthal, The
Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Vols I–III (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1980 [1967]), the classics Muhsen Mahdi, Ibn Khaldūn’s
Philosophy of History: A Study in the Philosophical Foundation in the Science of
Culture London: Routledge, 1957), Charles Issawi, An Arab Philosophy of
History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), and more recently
Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2018).
2 Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber and Faber, 2013
[1993]), 4.
3 Yves Lacoste, Ibn Khaldoun: Naissance de l’Histoire, passé du tiers monde
(Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 123ff.
4 Ibn Khaldūn, Al-ta‘rīf bi Ibn Khaldūn wa riḥlatihi gharban wa sharqan [Present-
ing Ibn Khaldūn and his Journey West and East], edited by Muḥammad Tāwīt
al-Ṭanjī (Cairo: s.n., 1370/1951).
References
Hourani, Albert (2013 [1993]) A History of the Arab Peoples. London: Faber and
Faber.
Ibn Khaldūn (1370/1951) Al-ta‘rīf bi Ibn Khaldūn wa riḥlatihi gharban wa
sharqan [Presenting Ibn Khaldūn and his Journey West and East], ed.
Muḥammad Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī. Cairo: s.n.
Ibn Khaldūn (1967–1968) Muqaddima, trans. Vincent Monteil, Ibn Khaldūn: Dis-
cours sur l’histoire universelle. Paris: Sindbad.
Ibn Khaldūn and his historical context 5
Issawi, Charles (1986) An Arab Philosophy of History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Mahdi, Muhsin (1957) Ibn Khaldūn’s Philosophy and History: A Study in the
Philosophical Foundation in the Science of Culture. London: Routledge.
2 Beauty and knowledge
The meaning of ‘beauty’ (jamāl)
and ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm) in the
Muqaddima
In order to embark on our aesthetic and epistemological journey through

the Muqaddima, we shall need adequate tools. First of all, it is necessary to
clarify the meaning of ‘beauty’ (jamāl) and the meaning of ‘knowledge’
(‘ilm) and in what context these two terms are used by Ibn Khaldūn. This
is a preliminary and general exposition, regarding which it is necessary to
point out from the start that neither the term ‘ilm, nor even the term jamāl
exhaust the vast semantic fields of ‘knowledge’ and ‘beauty’ – or their
reciprocal relationships in the Muqaddima.
The meaning of beauty (jamāl)

In the Muqaddima, the word ‘jamāl’ is far from being the sole occupant
of the semantic field of intelligible and sensual beauty. Other terms also
contribute to rendering its meaning, like kahyr (the good), ḥusn (good-
ness, beauty) and kamāl (perfection). In fact, jamāl is rather a rare word
in the Muqaddima, because it only occurs few times.1 However, what
makes it interesting is that, unlike the other terms that indicate beauty, it
indicates only beauty and only sensual beauty, despite having many
different connotations. For this reason, jamāl is the word that is most
suitable for these introductory pages, whose aim is to provide a basic
tool for the reader intent on making an aesthetic journey through the
Muqaddima.
Sensual beauty (jamāl) suggests ‘pleasure’ (laddha) for the hearing
through music, for the eyes through shapes and colours, for the olfactory
sense through fragrant aromas and for the taste through flavours. Sensual
beauty has an extremely strong hold over the human being. This is why it
can be dangerous. It proves irresistible to the soul and drives the human
being to behave in an uncontrolled and unusual way. For these reasons, sensual
beauty needs to be regulated by criteria of ‘proportion’ and ‘harmony’
(talā’um, tanāsub), of ‘conformity’ and of ‘appropriateness’ (muṭābaqa). It
requires a good ‘purpose’ (gharaḍ, qaṣd), and must not exceed the limits of
‘moderation’ (qaṣd, tawassuṭ, i‘tidāl), otherwise it becomes the source of
religious, theological, ethical and epistemological error. To summarise, Ibn
Beauty and knowledge 7
Khaldūn uses the word jamāl in the following contexts, which we shall
examine one by one:
a With reference to vice and impiety.

b With reference to the dynasties or States in decline.
c With reference to musical harmony.
d With reference to rhetorical embellishments.
‘Beauty’ with reference to vice and impiety

Ibn Khaldūn uses the term jamāl with reference to the irresistible attraction
of the female body, which, in conjunction with material splendour and
‘luxury’ (taraf), drives man to vice and impiety. This theme occurs several
times, for example, when Ibn Khaldūn reviews the different ways in which
the ‘lie’ (kadhib) distorts historical truth. He cites cases in which the histo-
riographic sources attribute lascivious and sinful behaviour to morally
upright figures from the history of Islam like the ‘Abbāsid caliphs Hārūn
al-Rashīd (r. 786–809) and al-Ma’mūn (r. 813–833). Ibn Khaldūn categor-
ically denies the reliability of an anecdote mentioned by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih
(860–940) in his adab treatise titled Al-‘Iqd al-farīd (The Unique Neck-
lace) regarding the lascivious behaviour of al-Ma’mūn.2 The anecdote,
known as the story of ‘the basket’ (zinbīl), tells of how one night when the
caliph was walking through the streets of Baghdad, seeing a basket
descend from one of the roofs of the houses, he sat in it and was pulled up
and deposited in a room (majlis) which was luxurious, extraordinarily
beautiful (jamāl ruwā’ihi) and magnificently decorated, where he spent the
night in the company of a lady of exceptional beauty (rā’iqat al-jamāl).
This was no other than his future bride, Būrān, the daughter of al-Ḥasan
ibn Sahl.
Such an erotic adventure in the way of Bedouin-Arab lovers is deemed
totally improbable by Ibn Khaldūn since in no way does it correspond to
the ‘circumstances’ (ḥāl, pl. aḥwāl) or to the character of al-Ma’mūn. This
example enables us to highlight two aspects of sensual beauty according to
Ibn Khaldūn. The first is that it is a dangerous source of temptation that
can corrupt man’s morality; the second is that even the words that describe
it, as in the case of the text by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih, are a dangerous source of
temptation for the readers, who fall under their spell and are persuaded to
believe in lies.
‫و من أمثال) هذه الحكايات ما نقله ابن عبد ربه صاحب العقد من حديث الزنبيل في سبب إصهار‬‎)
‫المأمون إلى الحسن بن سهل في بنته بوران و أنه عثر في بعض الليالي في تطوافه بسكك بغداد‬
‫في زنبيل مدلى من بعض السطوح بمعالق و جدل مغارة الفتل من الحرير فاعتقده و تناول المعالق‬
‫فاهتزت و ذهب به صعداً إلى مجلس شأنه كذا و وصف من زينة فرشه و تنضيد ابنته و جمال روائه‬
‫ما يستوقف الطرف و يملك النفس و أن امرأة برزت له من خلل الستور في ذلك المجلس رائعة الجمال‬
‫فتانة المحاسن فحيته و دعته إلى المنادمة فلم يزل يعاقرها الخمر حتى الصباح و رجع إلى أصحابه‬
‫بمكانهم من انتظاره و قد شغفته حبا ً بعثه على اإلصهار إلى أبيها و أين هذا كله من حال المأمون‬
‫المعروفة في دينه و علمه و اقتفائه سنن الخلفاء الراشدين من آبائه و أخذه بسيرة الخلفاء األربعة أركان‬
‫الملة و مناظرته العلماء و حفظه لحدود هللا في صلواته و أحكامه فكيف تصح عنه أحوال الفساق‬
‫المستهترين في التطواف بالليل و طروق المنازل و غشيان السمر سبيل عشاق األعراب و أين ذلك من‬
3
‫منصب ابنة الحسن بن سهل و شرفها و ما كان بدار أبيها من الصون و العفاف‬
A similar story has been reported by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih, author of The
Unique Necklace. It is the story of the ‘basket’, which claims to
explain how the caliph al-Ma’mūn became al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl’s son-in-
law by marrying his daughter Būrān. According to this tale, one night
al-Ma’mūn was walking in the streets of Baghdad when he was sur-
prised by a basket coming down from the roofs by means of pulleys
and scrolling silk cords. He sat in the basket and suddenly seized the
pulleys which started shaking and he went upwards, into a room
which Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih describes in detail. It was magnificently deco-
rated and furnished and so extraordinarily beautiful as to captivate the
soul and the eye of anyone who saw it. Then a woman of exceptional
beauty and seductive features appeared from behind the curtains. She
greeted al-Ma’mūn and invited him to be intimate with her. He drank
wine with her until morning and then went back to the place where
his friends had been waiting for him. He was so madly in love with
her that he asked her father for her hand.
How does this story match the personality of al-Ma’mūn, his religion and
learning, and the way he conformed to the behaviour of the righteous
‘Abbāsid caliphs, his forefathers, and to the way of life of the first four
caliphs, the pillars of religion? How does it match al-Ma’mūn’s emulation of
the religious scholars and his observance of the laws of God most High in
his prayers and in his policies implementing the commandments of God?
How could it be true that he behaved like a dissolute and shameless man
who wanders around the city at night and enters other people’s houses in
the dark, in the manner of Arab Bedouin lovers? How can this match the
rank of al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl’s daughter, her honour, the morality and the
female chastity typical of her father’s house?4
In the above-mentioned passage about the story of the ‘basket’, Ibn
Khaldūn’s aim is not to explain what he understands by ‘beauty’, but to
criticise harshly the lies and errors that abound in historical sources, whose
authors, be they in good or bad faith, present ‘stories’ (here ḥikāyāt, else-
where khurāfāt, qiṣaṣ) as true which are clearly imaginary and unreliable.
The aim of Ibn Khaldūn is to counter these ‘stories’ with the ‘science of
history’ (‘ilm al-tārīkh), in a criticism which would not be out of place in current
historiographical debates. Ibn Khaldūn claims that history as founded by him
is a completely new discipline (muḥdath, mustanbaṭ al-nash’a), whose
scientific and demonstrative method ensures it is error-free since it is based
on a rigorous checking of every event for the correspondence (muṭābaqa)
between facts and circumstances (aḥwāl). However, although it was not
Ibn Khaldūn’s intention to speak of beauty in this context, he nevertheless
provides us with useful information concerning his aesthetic vision.
Sensual beauty, the temptation that induces man to impiety and lascivious-
ness, is contrasted with religious piety (dīn), learning (‘ilm), observance of
the divine laws (ḥudūd) and norms (aḥkām) governing honour (sharaf),
morality (ṣawn) and virtuous female chastity (‘afāf). Those who slander
figures of the utmost integrity such as al-Ma’mūn and his bride Būrān act
in this way because they themselves are inclined to such behaviour and
intend by so doing to justify it.
‫أمثال هذه الحكايات كثيرة و في كتب المؤرخين معروفة و إنما يبعث على وضعها و الحديث‬
‫بها االنهماك في اللذات المحرمة و هتك قناع المرؤة و يتعللون بالقوم فيما يأتونه من طاعة‬
5
‫لذاتهم فلذلك تراهم كثيراً ما يلهجون بأشباه هذه األخبار‬
There are many of these stories. They are very common in the books
of the historians. The reason why the historians report them is peo-
ple’s propensity for forbidden pleasures and for discrediting the virtue
of others. By means of these calumnies, they intend to justify their
own subjection to pleasure. Therefore, they use these kinds of allega-
tions as an excuse.6
It is clear that beauty occupies an important place in the work of Ibn

Khaldūn. While modern aesthetics adheres to the principle of the auto-
nomy of aesthetic experience introduced by Baumgarten in the eighteenth
century and admits that the ‘beautiful’ can also be in opposition to the
morally ‘good’, medieval aesthetics is consistent with ancient aesthetics in
attempting to demonstrate that true beauty (whatever names it may go by)
must necessarily be good. On its own, sensual beauty that is devoid of the
moral quality of the ‘good’ (khayr), which is piety (dīn), learning (‘ilm),
honour (sharaf) and morality (ṣawn), takes hold of the human soul like the
song of the sirens in the Odyssey took hold of the sailors, and drives it
helplessly to impiety and lasciviousness.
Eco (1982) helps us gain a better understanding of this point when
he says in Il problema estetico in Tommaso d’Aquino (The Aesthetic
Problem of Thomas Aquinas), that the aesthetic sensibility of medieval
Europe did not distinguish between pulchrum (beautiful), aptum
(appropriate for the aim), decorum (appropriateness for the aim)
and honestum (good). The purpose of theologians and philosophers
was to demonstrate that the Beautiful was the same as the Good and
the True.7
Despite our awareness of the differences of theme and context, our aes-
thetic reading of the Muqaddima is an undertaking that contains analogies
with that conducted by Eco on the work of Thomas Aquinas.
Beauty with reference to the dynasties in decline
Another context in which Ibn Khaldūn uses the term jamāl is when he
describes the ‘dynasties’ or ‘States’ (duwal), which, as they decline, lose
their ‘splendour and beauty’ (al-ubbaha wa al-jamāl). In accordance with
his organicistic and naturalistic vision of history, Ibn Khaldūn describes
civilisations and dynasties as physical bodies that are born, grow, decay
and perish. Jamāl, in this context, does not refer positively to the beauty of
civilisations in the full vigour of youth but rather and critically, to the
decay that sooner or later strikes the vacuous beauty of luxury (taraf).
The life cycle of the State is divided into stages (ṭawr, pl. aṭwār). At the
beginning, the State, or dynasty (dawla) is Bedouin (badawiya), sober,
moderate in expenditure (al-qaṣd fī al-nafaqāt) and taxation and respectful
of its subjects. The group feeling (‘aṣabiyya) is powerful. Then comes the
stage of conquest (istīlā’), growth and expansion (ya‘ẓum), the increase of
soldiers’ allowances and payments for the members of the court and the
administration, luxury (taraf) and extravagant expenditure. The ruler
imposes increasing custom duties on goods sold in the market. He becomes
despotic (qahr) and confiscates the properties of his subjects. It is too late.
The army grows hostile towards the State, which has entered the stage of
senility. The group feeling no longer exists. This decay (haram) exhausts
States and consumes their vigour until they collapse beneath the domina-
tion of new aggressors who are young and strong or else die out little by
little like the guttering wick of a lamp that is running out of oil. ‘God is
the owner of everything’, concludes Ibn Khaldūn.
‫و يفقد ما كان للدولة من األبهة و الجمال بهم و إذا اصطُلِمت نعمهم تجاوزتهم الدولة إلى أهل‬
‫الثروة من الرعايا سواهم و يكون الوهن في هذا الطور قد لحق الشوكة و ضعفت عن‬
‫االستطالة و القهر فتنصرف سياسة صاحب الدولة حينئذ إلى مداراة األمور ببذل المال و‬
‫يراه أنفع من السيف لقلة غنائه فتعظم حاجته إلى األموال زيادة على النفقات و أرزاق الجند‬
‫و ال تغنى فيما يريد و يعظم الهرم بالدولة و يتجاسر عليها أهل النواحي و الدول تنحل عراها‬
‫في كل طور من هذه إلى أن تفضي إلى الهالك و يتعرض االستيالء الطالب فإن قصدها‬
‫طالب انتزعها من أيدي القائمين بها و إال بقيت و هي تتالشى إلى أن تضمحل كالذبال في‬
8
‫السراج إذا فني زيته و طفئ و هللا تعالى مالك األمور و مدبر األكوان ال إله إال هو‬
Finally, the State loses its splendour and beauty. The wealth of tax-
collectors has vanished. The State then turns towards the riches of
other subjects. At this stage, weakness has already affected its former
bravery and it is too feeble to enforce the subjects’ submission. The
policy of the State now consists in managing the situation by spending
money, a practice that it finds more advantageous than the use of the
sword. However, given its lack of resources, the need for money
exceeds both expenditure and the soldiers’ salaries. The State never
has enough and gets more and more senile. Neighbouring peoples
attack it from the borders, until it dissolves and falls into complete ruin.
It undergoes the aggression of those who want to conquer it. Anyone
who wants can take possession of it. Or else the State survives, like the
guttering wick of a lamp that is running out of oil, until it dies out. God
is the owner of all things and rules the whole universe.9
The aforementioned passage on the life cycle of States is very important

and will serve as a constant reference in the course of this book. On the
one hand, this describes the mechanism of repeated failure of centralised,
stable States in the Maghreb while, on the other, it allows us to see how
the materialistic conception of history of Ibn Khaldūn is inseparable
from a profoundly aesthetic conception of it. It is worth noting the last
sentence of the above passage, ‘God is the owner of everything’ where,
behind an apparently conventional invocation of God inserted after a
materialistic and mechanistic description of history, the reader of the
Muqaddima is immediately made aware of an aspect of the tragic contra-
diction that pervades it: if God owns and rules all things, why does the
world escape him?
Beauty with reference to musical harmony

The context of the Muqaddima in which Ibn Khaldūn dwells on sensual
beauty in more explicit and systematic terms is that of music. In the
section on the art of singing (ṣinā‘at al-ghinā’), Ibn Khaldūn explains that
music (mūsīqā) is harmony (tanāsub, talā’um). Not only does the
harmony of harmonious sounds give rise to pleasure (laddha) and exer-
cise an attraction, but this is also true for the harmony of forms, colours,
aromas and flavours. The human being is naturally (bi-fiṭratihi) attracted
by all that is harmonious and well proportioned. These objects are in
harmony with the soul (nafs). ‘Beauty means’ (ma‘nā al-jamāl wa
al-ḥusn) harmony of forms (ashkāl) and of lines (takhāṭīṭ) of sensual
objects that conform with their own specific matter (mādda) in a perfectly
proportioned way. The reason why the soul is attracted to beautiful
objects is that they are in a harmonious and proportioned relationship
with it. There follow two passages that illustrate these ideas well and
serve as an eloquent example of how classical Islam (a more appropriate
adjective than ‘medieval’) assimilated at one and the same time aesthetic
ideas that were Pythagorean, Platonic, Aristotelian and Neoplatonic.
This ability to synthesise and propagate knowledge made it the origin of
immense resources for late medieval and modern Europe, even though it
cannot always be traced philologically.
‫أما المرئيات و المسموعات فالمالئم فيها تناسب األوضاع في أشكالها و كيفياتها فهو أنسب‬
‫عند النفس و أشد مالئمة لها فإذا كان المرئي متناسبا ً في أشكاله و تخاطيطه التي له بحسب‬
‫مادته بحيث ال يخرج عما تقتضيه مادته الخاصة من كمال المناسبة و الوضع و ذلك هو‬
ّ
‫فتلتذ بإدراك‬ ‫معنى الجمال و الحسن في كل مدرك كان ذلك حينئذ مناسبا ً للنفس المدركة‬
10
‫مالئمها‬
The harmony in what we see and hear derives from the proportion of
its forms and qualities. Good proportions are most appropriate and
harmonious to the soul. If what we see is well proportioned in the
forms and lines which it possesses in accordance with the matter from
which it is made, and if its matter does not deviate from the require-
ments of its specific perfection, this is the very meaning of the beauty
and the goodness of what a human being can perceive. This beauty
and goodness are in harmony with the sensitive soul that takes
pleasure in their being harmonious.11
For this reason, continues Ibn Khaldūn, lovers wish to be united with the
beloved and the metaphysical sages of the Gnostic-Neoplatonic trends
(ḥukamā’) declare that all beings ardently desire to mingle to the objects in
which they see perfection (kamāl) in order to unite with them, to leave the
realm of erroneous conjectures (wahm) for truth (ḥaqīqa), and in so doing
they aspire to union with the First Principle (mabda’) of all things and to
becoming part of the Universe (kawn).12
‫و لهذا نجد العاشقين المستهتِرين في المحبة يعبّرون عن غاية محبتهم و عشقهم بامتزاج‬
‫يشرك بين الموجودات كما يقوله‬
ِ ‫أرواحهم بروح المحبوب و معناه من وج ٍه آخر أن الوجود‬
13
.‫الحكماء فتَ َو ُّد أن تمتزج بما شهدت فيه الكمال لتتحد به‬
This is why lovers who are passionately in love express their extremely
deep feelings and their ardent affection in their desire for their spirit to
mingle with the spirit of the beloved. This also means that Existence is
shared by all existing things, as the Sages say. Therefore, all existing
things aspire to being one with the objects in which they see perfec-
tion, in order to unite with them.14
The sensual beauty of music has a positive connotation also (but not only)
thanks to the analogy with the intelligible beauty of God (the ‘First Prin-
ciple’, mabda’), of the soul and of the universe. A similar positive connota-
tion is to be found in other passages of the Muqaddima in which Ibn
Khaldūn describes the effect of melodies and sounds (al-nagham wa
al-aṣwāt) on the irrational part of the soul where it instils joy and causes a
state of inebriation (nashwa). Just as Plato describes the effect of love on
beautiful forms in the Symposium,15 Ibn Khaldūn quotes the case of the
Berber ‘Zanāta’ warriors. who bring musical instruments with them to the
battlefield and are exhorted by the melodious song of their poets with a
desire to fight fearlessly and are ready to die (istamātā, ‘to seek death’).
The same happens with animals like camels and horses, who are under the
influence of their drivers’ whistling and shouting (al-ṣafīr wa al-ṣarīkh),
especially if these sounds are harmonious as in singing (idhā kānat
al-aṣwāt mutanāsiba kamā fī al-ghinā’).
‫وأما الحق في ذلك فهو أن النفس عند سماع النغم و األصوات يدركها الفرح و الطرب بال شك‬
‫فيصيب مزاج الروح نشوة يستسهل بها الصعب و يستميت في ذلك الوجه الذي هو فيه و هذا‬
‫موجود حتى في الحيوانات العجم فانفعال اإلبل بالحداء و الخيل بالصفير و الصريخ كما علمت‬
‫و يزيد ذلك تأكيداً إذا كانت األصوات متناسبة كما في الغناء و أنت تعلم ما يحدث لسامعه من‬
ً‫مثل هذا المعنى ألجل ذلك تتخذ العجم في مواطن حروبهم اآلالت الموسيقارية ال طبال‬
‫و ال بوقا ً فيحدق المغنون بالسلطان في موكبه بآالتهم و يغنون فيحركون نفوس الشجعان‬
16
‫ و كذلك زناتة من أمم المغرب‬.… ‫بطربهم إلى االستماتة‬
The truth is that when we hear melodies and sounds our soul will
doubtless feel joy and pleasure. This produces an effect similar to
drunkenness on the spirit: difficult things become easy and people are
suddenly ready to die. This also happens with dumb animals, as
appears from the reaction of camels and horses to the shouting and
whistling of their master, as everybody knows. This happens particu-
larly if the sounds are harmonious as in songs. For the same reason
non-Arabs [‘Ajam] take their musical instruments to the battlefield.
The singers gather round the cavalcade of their chief with their instru-
ments and sing. In so doing, they arouse strong emotions in the souls
of the fearless warriors and drive them to seek death … This also
happens among the Zanāta, the Berbers of the Maghreb.17
The fact that the beauty of music and singing have an irresistible effect
on the soul means that it can play a positive or negative role, and this is
true for all sensual beauty. Everything depends on its aim (gharaḍ, qaṣd).
One case in which the beauty and the melodious harmony of the sounds
can play a morally negative role is in the psalmody of the Qur’ān
(talāwa). The psalmodic recitation of the Qur’ān is neither music (talḥīn)
nor chant but is so sweet and melodious that whoever listens to it will
experience pleasure such that he might forget the fear of God, of death
and the Day of Judgement (al-Qur’ān maḥall khushū‘ bi-dhikr al-mawt
wa mā ba‘dahu), and mistake it for secular music suitable for parties and
banquets.
We know that the Bacchic current in Arabic poetry is partly a continu-
ation of pre-Islamic motifs, associated literary themes of poetry, song, wine
and at times scenes of explicit impiety. The poet Abū Nuwās (756–815) is the
best-known representative of this genre. Quite apart from the realistic or
literary meaning that could be attributed to these verses, the association of
music with libertine scenarios is a leitmotiv of Islamic literature (Arabic,
Turkish and, above all, Persian). In a bid to avoid losing the fear of God,
Mālik ibn Anas (711–795), founder of the Mālikī law school that bears his
name, disapproved of the use of melody in Qur’ānic recitation (talāwa). In
contrast, Shāfi‘ī (767–820), founder of the Shāfi‘ī law school, considered it
permissible. Ibn Khaldūn says that he is in agreement with Mālik.
‫و الظاهر تنزيه القرآن عن هذا كما ذهب إليه اإلمام رحمه هللا ألن القرآن هو محل خشوع‬
18
‫بذكر الموت و ما بعده و ليس مقام التذاذ بإدراك الحسن من األصوات‬
It is evident that the Qur’ān must be kept free [of melodies, talḥīn], in
accordance with the opinion of the Imām [Mālik]. Indeed, the recita-
tion of the Qur’ān must provoke the fear of death and the Day of
Judgement in those who listen to it, and not the pleasure that derives
from the perception of beautiful voices.19
The question of the religious legitimacy of music was also debated

by ancient and medieval Christianity, as is confirmed by the profound analo-
gies both through diffusion and convergence among the cultures of the
Mediterranean.20 Regarding Latin Christianity, it is sufficient to mention De
Musica (On Music) and passages from the Confessionum Libri XIII (Con-
fessions in Thirteen Books) of Augustine (354–430), the De Institutione
Musica (On Music) of Boethius (475–524) and the Summa Theologica of
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). As Eco (1982) observes, the theme of the
fear that the beauty of sacred music may distract the listener from religious
contemplation recurs in Augustine, while Thomas Aquinas allows sacred
chant on account of its didactic function but exhorts the reader to avoid
instrumental music because of the excessive aesthetic delight that it
arouses.21 Although it is not a theological text but rather a historiographic
one that is even materialist, the Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldūn with its diffuse
aesthetic problem fits perfectly into the cultural context of the medieval
Mediterranean, its themes, its problematics and its concerns.
‘Beauty’ with reference to rhetorical embellishments

The last context in which Ibn Khaldūn uses the term jamāl in the
Muqaddima is with reference to the rhetorical embellishments of
speech, and in particular to figures of speech (‘ilm al-badī‘, ‘science of
the badī‘ ’, where badī‘ literally signifies ‘new’, ‘resplendent’). The
names by which literary rhetoric is called vary from one author to
another. Ibn Khaldūn calls it ‘ ‘ilm al-bayān’ (which literally means
‘clarity’) and subdivides it into two branches: ‘ilm al-bayān (with the
same name but a subdivision of it) and ‘ ‘ilm al-badī‘ ’. The former
mainly includes the figures denoting meaning such as the simile, and
the latter the figures of speech such as rhyming prose (saj‘) in the
Qur’ān and various kinds of assonances. The badī‘ adorns speech with
a sweetness and beauty (ḥalāwa wa jamāl), which are additional to the
meaning (jamāl kulluhā zā’ida ‘alā al-ifāda).
With regard to the badī‘, Ibn Khaldūn explains that, once the perfection
of meaning (kamāl al-ifāda) is attained, embellishments can be added to
natural speech (al-kalām al-maṭbū‘), giving splendour (rawnaq al-faṣāḥa)
to the discourse and pleasure to the ear.
‫بل المتكلم يقصد به أن يفيد سامعه ما في ضميره إفادة تامة و يدل به عليه داللة وثيقة ثم يتبع‬
‫تراكيب الكالم في هذه السجية التي له باألصالة ضروب من التحسين و التزيين بعد كمال‬
‫اإلفادة و كأنها تعطيها رونق الفصاحة من تنميق األسجاع و الموازنة بين حمل الكالم و‬
‫ و المطابقة بين المتضادات ليقع التجانس‬.… ‫تقسيمه باألقسام المختلفة األحكام و التورية‬
‫بين األلفاظ و المعاني فيحصل للكالم رونق و لذة في األسماع و حالوة و جمال كلها زائدة‬
22
‫على اإلفادة‬
The speaker wants to communicate what he has in mind to the lis-
tener in a perfect and precise manner. Once the communication of a
certain meaning has been perfectly achieved, the word combinations
which conform with the authentic nature of the language can
receive rhetorical embellishments and ornaments. These, in turn,
give the word combinations the brilliance of a clear and correct
discourse. [Among these embellishments there is] rhymed prose, the
use of sentences with homogenous endings [muwāzana], allusion
[tawriyya] … and antithesis [muṭābaqa] … so that there is homo-
geneity between words and meanings. This provides the discourse
with brilliance, the ears with pleasure, and adds sweetness and
beauty to the meanings.23
The stylistic figures, explains Ibn Khaldūn, recur both in Arabic poetry and
in the Qur’ān. In pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, they were used by poets spon-
taneously and unintentionally. The first poets of the Islamic era to excel in
their use were Abū Tammām (805–845), al-Buḥturī (820–897) and Muslim
ibn al-Walīd (747–823). They worked wonders (‘ajab). In the inimitable
Word of God (al-kalām al-mu‘jiz), the Qur’ān, stylistic figures recur fre-
quently as in the following verses from the Qur’ānic sūra ‘The Night’:
ِ ‫بِ ۡس ِم ِٱهلل ٱلر َّۡح َم ٰـ ِن ٱلر‬

‫َّح ِيم‬
(١( ‫َوٱلَّ ۡي ِل إِ َذا يَ ۡغش َٰى‬
(٢( ٰ‫إِ َذا تَ َجلَّى‬
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,
By the night, when it envelops! (1)
By the day, when it shines! (2)
(Qur’ān, al-Layl [The Night], 92:1–2)
The beauty of stylistic devices can be dangerous precisely when dealing

with Qur’ānic exegesis, continues Ibn Khaldūn. In fact, some comment-
ators like Zamakhsharī (1075–1144), make use of figures of speech to
justify unorthodox dogmas and the innovations of the Mu‘tazilite theo-
logy.24 For this reason, the reading of the Qur’ānic commentary of
Zamakhsharī is advised against for anyone who does not possess a solid
and unshakeable faith because they might remain under its spell.
These preliminary pages on the significance of ‘jamāl’ in the Muqaddima
have allowed us to highlight the fundamental importance of the aesthetic
question in this famous work of Arabic historiography. Whether it be a
question of female beauty, of luxury that ushers in the downfall of States,
of musical harmony or stylistic devices, sensual beauty pervades the
Muqaddima like a problem that the seeker of knowledge must continually
face and for which he must furnish adequate answers.
The meaning of ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm)

Unlike jamāl, the word ‘ ‘ilm’ (knowledge, science) recurs innumerable
times in the Muqaddima, and this does not make it any easier to interpret.
Despite not exhausting the semantic field of sensual beauty, we have seen
that jamāl can easily be restricted to a precise and limited number of
contexts. In this section, we shall conduct a similar study regarding the
term ‘ilm. From our analysis, there will clearly emerge the indissoluble
link between the aesthetic and the epistemological dimensions of the
Muqaddima, inasmuch as Ibn Khaldūn continuously defines the problem
of beauty in relation to the problem of knowledge, as in a complex play of
mirrors. To sum up, Ibn Khaldūn uses the word ‘ilm in the following
contexts:
a ‘Ilm in the sense of primitive and natural knowledge and under-

standing of what is true, just and good. In this meaning ‘ ‘ilm’ is
always in the singular and never in the plural form (‘ulūm). Associated
with religion (al-‘ilm wa al-dīn), it is par excellence the attribute of the
Prophet, then of his Companions and, in descending order, of the first
caliphs of Islam. It was also the attribute of the pagan Arabs, partly as
a kind of foretaste of the sublime perfection that would be attained
later by the Prophet. This ‘knowledge’ with its strong ethical connota-
tion is part and parcel of the nature (fiṭra) of the person who knows.
b ‘Ilm, pl. ‘ulūm in the sense of the sciences which characterise the soph-
isticated culture of economically advanced civilisations with their
complex, centralised, political structures (the State, dawla). Whether
the terms be plural or singular, there are multiple sciences and they are
on a par with the arts (ṣanā’i‘). They denote separation between the
person who knows and the object of knowledge.
Among these sciences in the plural, there is one that is unique and
singular: history. However, in this particular case, it refers to history
as founded by Ibn Khaldūn, and of which he claims paternity with jus-
tifiable pride. This is the science of all sciences, unclassifiable and an
undisputed champion.
c ‘Ilm in the sense of a transcendent perception (idrāk) of the Unseen
(ghayb). Reserved for certain categories of beings: the metaphysical sages
(al-ḥukamā’ al-ilāhiyyūna), the Sufi saints (awliyā’), the prophets
(anbiyā’) and the angels (malā’ika). Always in the singular (‘ilm),
prophetic knowledge is a gift of God. On a par with that of the proph-
ets, the knowledge of the angels is characterised by its perfect union
between the person who knows and the object of knowledge.
Knowledge as a primitive understanding of

what is true, just and good
The term ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm) in this context is always used in the singular
and indicates an extremely clear knowledge and understanding which
nevertheless is not divisible into disciplines, it is not cumulative, nor can it
be accumulated. It is not doctrine. It is pure and absolute. It is not
acquired through study nor is it taught by masters. Teaching is an art, a
profession carried out by professionals in developed and sedentary soci-
eties which have gone beyond the stage of mere subsistence. Instead, this
‘knowledge’ in the singular is primitive. The pagan Arabs, the Bedouins,
already possessed it in part, before Islam. However, they possessed a soph-
isticated art, only one though, namely, poetry which was the archive
(dīwān) of their knowledge (here in the plural, ‘ulūm), of their history
(akhbār, reports) and of their morals and wisdom (ḥikam). Despite being
in the plural in this context, it is an indistinct plural, which cannot be
broken up and is one with both ethics and wisdom.
‫و اعلم أن فن الشعر من بين الكالم كان شريفا عند العرب و لذلك جعلوه ديوان علومهم و‬
26
‫ و أصال يرجعون إليه في الكثير من علومهم و حكمهم‬25‫أخبارهم و شاهد صوابهم و خطئهم‬
You should know that the Arabs considered poetry a noble art. There-
fore, they made it the Archive of their sciences and their history, the
evidence for distinguishing right from wrong and the principle to refer
to in many of their sciences and wisdom.27
Knowledge in the singular, at its highest point (comparable only to that of

the angels) is the attribute par excellence of the Prophet, who sublimely
combines and perfects all the Bedouin virtues and surpasses them, thanks
to the gift of revelation of which he is the recipient. With reference to the
Prophet, to the Companions and to the first noble heads of Islam, the term
knowledge recurs associated with religion (al-‘ilm wa al-dīn), where dīn is
to be understood in its early legal sense of debt (dayn, ‘debt’ is one of its
possible etymologies), which man owes God, by keeping to his Law.28
‘Knowledge’ is an indivisible whole of truth, justice, goodness and even
beauty, despite never being named, never called jamāl, seeing that the term
jamāl is uniquely exterior and often has a negative connotation, being
associated with luxury and lasciviousness.
The beauty of the knowledge of the Prophet is still a primitive Bedouin one,
characterised by simplicity (sadhāja), roughness (khushūna) and vigour,
the backbone of the ‘aṣabiyya, the ‘group feeling’ which cements the
members of the Bedouin society, transforming all its bodies into one sole
body. The Prophet surpasses the tribal group feeling by transforming the
‘aṣabiyya of blood into the universal ‘aṣabiyya of religion, (‘aṣabiyyat
al-dīn).
The beauty of this ‘knowledge’ can be defined only by contrast. It is in
fact the opposite of the luxury and sophistication of advanced sedentary
societies in which the arts and the sciences (al-‘ulūm wa al-ṣanā’i‘) flourish
and which are followed by degeneration and death. The latter are undeni-
ably plural disciplines, divisible into branches, data, rules that can be
described and subject matter that can be taught by professional teachers.
Conversely, at the time of the Prophet, teaching was not for financial gain
but was rather one with life itself. The political and spiritual élite of early
Islam had a kind of knowledge, which had nothing to do with external
learning acquired through study and scholarship. It was a living and fresh
kind of knowledge, listened to and understood by the leaders of noble
origin and group feeling as soon as it came out of the mouth of the
Prophet. It was not learnt but absorbed from the very air they breathed.
For this reason, Ibn Khaldūn is dismissive of the historical sources that
claim that al-Ḥajjāj, the noble iron-willed governor of Umayyad Iraq, was
the son of a school master.
‫) فمن هذا الباب) ما ينقله المؤرخون من أحوال الحجاج و أن أباه كان من المعلمين مع أن‬
‫التعليم لهذا العهد من جملة الصنائع المعاشية البعيدة من اعتزاز أهل العصبية و المعلم‬
‫ و أن التعليم صدر اإلسالم و الدولتين لم يكن كذلك‬.… ‫مستضعف مسكتين منقطع الجذم‬
‫و لم يكن العلم بالجملة صناعة إنما كان نقالً لما سمع من الشارع و تعليما ً لما جهل من الدين‬
‫على جهة البالغ فكان أهل األنساب و العصبة الذين قاموا بالملة هم الذين يعلمون كتاب هللا و‬
‫سنة نبيه صلى هللا عليه و سلم على معنى التبليغ الخبري ال على وجه التعليم الصناعي إذ هو‬
‫كتابهم المنزل على الرسول منهم و به هداياتهم و اإلسالم دينهم قاتلوا عليه قتلوا و اختصوا به‬
29
‫من بين األمم و شرفوا‬
The historians report that al-Ḥajjāj was the son of a schoolteacher.
Nowadays, teaching is a craft for making a living and a far cry from
the ancient pride of group feeling. Teachers are vulnerable, poor and
rootless … Instead, at the dawn of Islam and at the time of the
Umayyad and ‘Abbāsid caliphates, teaching was totally different.
Knowledge wasn’t a craft, but the transmission of a living message
that came from the very mouth of Muḥammad, the legislator. Know-
ledge was the oral teaching of the aspects of the religion which people
did not yet know. Chiefs of noble origin and of group feeling ran the
affairs of the Muslim community. They were the ones who taught the
Qur’ān and the Sunna by means of oral communication and not by
professional teaching. The Qur’ān was the book revealed to their
Prophet and their source of guidance. Islam was the religion for which
they fought and died, the religion which elevated them among the
nations.30
Al-Ḥajjāj still transmitted that living knowledge to simple and ignorant

people through example, word and gestures. He was famous for the bril-
liant eloquence of his Kufa sermon, given with the intent of assuaging local
revolts. Addressing the Arab soldiers, he said that their heads were ripe,
and time had come to gather them, that blood was already sparkling
between turbans and beards.31 For those noble leaders, ‘knowledge’ meant
Islam for which they were ready to die: an Islam that was living, fresh, and
not understood as a doctrinal form of codes, theology or jurisprudence.
Let us recall that in the first section of this chapter we referred to the pas-
sages of the Muqaddima in which the sensual beauty of musical harmony
is said to impart courage to the warriors and make them ready to die.
Islam also made men ready to die for the sake of its sublime beauty. For
this reason, Ibn Khaldūn, and many others (first of all God himself in the
Qur’ān), feel the need to affirm the difference between the Qur’ān and
poetry, between the psalmodic recitation of the Qur’ān and song.
Only later, explains Ibn Khaldūn, teaching (ta‘līm) became a craft and a
profession and the living knowledge of its origins was codified into
branches, rules and doctrines. It then became necessary to receive a sys-
tematic and organised teaching in order to learn the sciences and the arts.
Knowledge became a habit (malaka) which needs to be learned. Therefore,
teaching became a craft and a profession (min al-ṣanā’i‘ wa al-ḥiraf).
Notions were acquired, knowledge was deepened, completely new fields of
study were discovered but the primitive and natural understanding of what
is true, just and good was lost forever. We will see that this will remain
partly accessible to saints and mystics through analogy and allegory, but
henceforth it will only be a shadow of its former self, like the shadows in
the myth of Plato’s cave.32
‫فلما استقر اإلسالم و وشجت عروق الملة حتى تناولها األمم البعيدة من أيدي أهلها و استحالت‬
‫بمرور األيام أحوالها و كثر استنباط األحكام الشرعية من النصوص لتعدد الوقائع و تالحقها‬
‫فاحتاج إلى قانون يحفظه من الخطاء و صار العلم ملكةً تحتاج إلى التعلم فأصبح من جملة‬
33
‫الصنائع و الحرف‬
When Islam became well established and the Muslim community
firmly rooted, faraway nations passed under the dominion of the
Muslims. With the passage of time, the situation evolved. More and
more rules were deduced from the fundamental texts of Islam because
many events full of consequences had happened. A clear norm was
needed in order to preserve this codification process from error.
Knowledge became a habit that needed to be learned, and therefore it
became a craft and a profession.34
In a way that seems paradoxical, the Prophet’s ‘knowledge’ is defined as
ignorance. Those who would apologetically endow the Companions with a
perfect mastery of writing and spelling are much mistaken, says Ibn Khaldūn.
They were still Bedouins and most Bedouins are illiterate. On the contrary,
they made many spelling mistakes. Indeed, the Prophet was illiterate
(ummī). Perfection in the arts is superfluous (al-kamāl fī al-ṣanā’i‘ iḍāfī), it
is not absolute perfection (muṭlaq). For the Companions, writing had
nothing whatsoever to do with perfection. Rather, it was in the very illiter-
acy of the Prophet that his perfection lay. The practice of crafts and the
acquisition of technical or scientific knowledge would have limited the
totality of his devotion to God. This is not the case for ordinary people.
‫و اعلم أن الخط ليس بكمال في حقهم إذ الخط من جملة الصنائع المدنية المعاشية كما‬
‫رأيته فيما مر و الكمال في الصنائع إضافي و ليس بكمال مطلق إذ ال يعود نقصه على الذات‬
‫ و قد كان صلعم أميا ً و كان ذلك كماالً في حقه و بالنسبة إلى‬. …‫في الدين و ال في الخالل‬
‫مقامه و تنزهه عن الصنائع العملية التي هي أسباب المعاش و العمران كلها و ليست األمية‬
35 ً
‫كماال في حقنا نحن إذ هو منقطع إلى ربه‬
It should be known that writing and calligraphy [khaṭṭ] [as far as the
Prophet and his Companions are concerned] did not involve perfection
at all. Indeed, as previously noted, writing is an urban craft for making
a living whereas perfection in crafts is something relative and is not
absolute perfection. A lack of perfection in the mastering of a craft does
not affect one’s piety [dīn] and natural disposition … The Prophet, God
bless him and grant him salvation! did not know reading and writing,
but his being illiterate was his very perfection, being appropriate to his
rank and to his being free from practical crafts that serve to make a
living and are a constituent element of all civilisations. Unlike us, the
illiteracy of the Prophet was his very perfection, because he needed it in
order to be totally devoted to his Lord.36
By contrast, simplicity (sadhāja), roughness (khushūna) and ignorance

(jahl) are all features that characterise the ‘knowledge’ of the origins and
of early Islam as possessing a kind of negative aesthetics. In an aesthetic
continuum between Arab paganism and the dawn of Islam, they define
such knowledge in terms of true beauty, and precisely for this reason it is
never called by this name. This type of knowledge with its absolute perfec-
tion is contrasted with the relative and superfluous perfection of the sci-
ences and arts that flourish in a mature, sedentary civilisation, together
with luxury and opulence, the source of their inevitable moral and
material decline. In order to grasp the sense of the beauty of the Prophet’s
‘knowledge’, it needs to be seen from a certain historical distance. It needs
to be seen from the visual perspective of the pre-Islamic Bedouins. The
Prophet’s non-scholarly learning is much greater, yet in part it resembles
theirs, despite the fact they were pagan. In fact, their knowledge, which
was a primitive and natural understanding of what is true, just and good,
is ‘closer to the good’ (aqrab min al-khayr) and to the purity of the ori-
ginal nature (al-fiṭra al-ūlā) than the sophisticated scholarship and artistic
skill of the advanced urban societies, which are the very last stage of civili-
sation, and the beginning of decadence and corruption (fasād).
The ‘good’ (khayr) is the word in the Muqaddima that designates, in
certain contexts, a complete idea of beauty. In the Qur’ān, where there
abound descriptions of the totally sensual beauty of paradise, it is said that
the life to come will be ‘more beautiful’ (khayr) than this life (li al-ākhira
kayrun laka min al-ūlā).37
‫و أهل الحضر لكثرة ما يعانون من فنون المالذ و عوائد الترف و اإلقبال على الدنيا و‬
‫العكوف على شهواتهم منها و قد تلوثت أنفسهم بكثير من مذمومات الخلق و الشر و بعدت‬
‫ و أهل البدو و إن كانوا مقبلين‬.… ‫عليهم طرق الخير و مسالكه بقدر ما حصل لهم من ذلك‬
‫على الدنيا مثلهم إال أنه في المقدار الضروري ال في الترف و ال في شيء من أسباب‬
‫الشهوات و اللذات و دواعيها فعوائدهم في معامالتهم على نسبتها و ما يحصل فيهم من‬
‫مذاهب السوء و مذمومات الخلق بالنسبة إلى أهل الحضر أقل بكثير فهم أقرب إلى الفطرة‬
‫ و قد‬.… ‫األولى و أبعد عما ينطبع في النفس من سوء الملكات بكثرة العوائد المذمومة‬
‫نوضح فيما بعد أن الحضارة هي نهاية العمران و خروجه إلى الفساد و نهاية الشر و البعد‬
38
‫عن الخير فقد تبين أن أهل البدو أقرب إلى الخير من أهل الحضر و هللا يحب المتقين‬
Sedentary people enjoy all kinds of pleasures, they are devoted to

worldly affairs and indulge in sensual desires. The more tainted their
souls become with blameworthy qualities and evil, the farther they
get from the paths of righteousness … whereas even when Bedouins
are involved in worldly affairs like sedentary people, their concern
with them is limited to necessity and does not involve luxury, or any-
thing causing or arousing worldly desires and pleasures. They
observe proper rules of behaviour in their interactions and relation-
ships with other people. Compared with sedentary people, they are
far better behaved and not of a blameworthy nature. They are closer
to the original human nature and farther from having bad habits
impressed on their souls … It is now clear that sedentary society is
the end of civilisation, the beginning of its path to corruption. It
represents extreme evil and the farthest existing thing from goodness.
Bedouins are closer to goodness than sedentary people. ‘God loves
the pious ones’.
(Qur’ān, Ᾱl-‘Imrān [The Family of ‘Imrān], 3:76)39
According to Lacoste (1998), the apparently irrational and moralising

opposition between the Bedouins and sedentary people in the Muqaddima
in fact derived from the fact that Ibn Khaldūn criticised the citizens for
their inability, after having lost their tribal group feeling (‘aṣabiyya), to
form a new social class that would be capable of providing the centralised
State with a stable and productive base.40 Lacoste’s argument is convincing.
However, from the point of view of our reading of the Muqaddima, what
interests us is to highlight the aesthetic elements that emerge from the
moralising opposition between the Bedouins and sedentary people.
The ‘knowledge’ of the advanced civilisations

with a centralised State
The second context in which the term ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm) recurs in the
Muqaddima is with reference to the sciences (‘ulūm) and arts (ṣanā’i‘),
whose development is a feature of the economically and culturally
advanced urban societies, which are characterised by a State that centra-
lises the surplus of production by way of taxes and tributes. It is no longer
a question of societies at the stage of subsistence as was the case of Arab
paganism, in some Bedouin societies of the Maghreb or the Arab peninsula
at the time of the revelation. To be clear, it is rather the society at the time
of Ibn Khaldūn, which was already in a state of decline.
In accordance with one of the types of classification of the sciences in
vogue in the Arab-Islamic world, Ibn Khaldūn divides the sciences into
religious (al-‘ulūm al-waḍ‘iyya al-naqliyya, literally: laid down by a Law-
giver and then transmitted) and rational or philosophical (al-‘ulūm al-
‘aqliyya, al-ḥikmiyya al- falsafiyya). The Arabic linguistic sciences (‘ulūm
al-lisān al-‘arabī) are an indispensable tool for the study of the former, and
logic (manṭiq) is instrumental for the latter. The former include the
Muslim religious disciplines (Qur’ānic sciences, law, theology and Sufism),
while the latter include philosophical disciplines of Aristotelian origin
(logic, the natural sciences, metaphysics and mathematics).
In this context, the sciences are in the plural (‘ulūm) and still inextric-
ably linked to the arts. In some meanings, the same discipline can be both
an art and a science, especially in the case of the rational sciences, accord-
ing to whether doctrinal aspects (the rules and the data) or theoretical
aspects are considered. In fact, both the arts and the sciences compete to
move the rational soul (al-nafs al-nāṭiqa) from potentiality (bi al-quwwa)
to actuality (ilā al-fi‘l), enabling it to move from the perception of sensual
things (maḥsūsāt), to attain the highest knowledge of intelligible things
(ma‘qūlalāt).
In a passage of the Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldūn seems to affirm that the
sciences and the arts enable the soul to aspire to such a high level of know-
ledge of things as to become ‘pure intellect’ (‘aql maḥḍ), spiritual essence
(dhāt ruḥāniyya) and perfection (yastakmil). This can be realised in the
context of a highly developed sedentary civilisation (al-ḥaḍāra al-kāmila).
‫قد ذكرنا في الكتاب أن النفس الناطقة لإلنسان إنما توجد فيه بالقوة وأن خروجها من القوة إلى‬
‫الفعل إنما هو بتجدد العلوم و اإلدراكات من المحسوسات أوالً ثم ما يكتسب بعدها بالقوة‬
‫النظرية إلى أن يصير إدراكا ً بالفعل و عقالً محضا ً فتكون ذاتا ً روحانيةً و تستكمل حينئذ‬
ً‫وجودها فوجب لذلك أن يكون كل نوع من العلم و النظر يفيدها عقالً مزيداً و الصنائع أبدا‬
‫يحصل عنها و عن ملكتها قانون علمي مستفاد من تلك الملكة فلهذا كانت الحنكة في التجربة‬
41 ً ً ‫عقال و الملكات الصناعية تفيد‬
ً ‫تفيد‬
‫عقال و الحضارة الكاملة تفيد عقال‬
We have already mentioned in this book that the rational soul exists in
man only as a potentiality. Its passage from power to act takes place
thanks to the acquisition of new knowledge deriving first from the per-
ception of sensual things and then from the speculative faculty. In this
manner [the rational soul] becomes actual perception and pure intel-
lect, spiritual essence and its existence attains perfection. There is no
doubt that all kinds of knowledge and speculation provide the rational
soul with a greater intellectual capacity. The arts and the mastery
resulting from their habitual practice [malaka] always produce scient-
ific norms which derive from that habit. Therefore, practical experience
stimulates the intellect as do technical habits and perfect civilisation.42
We have already mentioned the fact that Ibn Khaldūn has an organicistic
and naturalistic vision of history, that for him civilisations are living
organisms that are born, grow, flourish and die. The phase in which the
arts and the sciences (those in the plural) flourish, is that of maturity, fol-
lowed by degeneration and passing away. We do not believe it is correct to
attribute to Ibn Khaldūn a cyclical vision of history or at least not in the
sense of an archaic eternal return. He describes the history of the Arab civ-
ilisation known to him, an urban and vulnerable civilisation in which
long-distance trading represented the real source of economic surplus and
in which urban decline became widespread as soon as that trade fell off,
for reasons that were extraneous to society. Ibn Khaldūn conducts an in-
depth analysis of the internal causes of the vulnerability of the Maghreb,
which are inherent in its social structures, but does not seem to consider
the external causes inherent in its dependence on international trade. In
Chapter 3, we shall mention the aesthetic implications of this choice.
As regards the moralising opposition between the Bedouins and sedentary
people and its aesthetic-epistemological implications, it is clear that Ibn
Khaldūn is perfectly aware that neither the jāhiliyya (Arab paganism), nor
the dawn of Islam will ever return. How can man rediscover the ‘knowledge’
of the Prophet and of the Companions that has been lost forever?
In the passage quoted above, it seems that the arts and the sciences of
advanced, sedentary civilisation can offer the possibility of attaining some-
thing similar to this lost ‘knowledge’, in the form of a philosophical specula-
tion of a Gnostic-Neoplatonic type and only to those who are capable of it.
However, on looking more closely, when speaking of the Prophet, Ibn
Khaldūn does not speak of the ‘intellect’ (‘aql), or of the ‘intelligence’ (fikr),
but of the ‘nature’ (fiṭra or jibilla) and of the soul (nafs), of perception (idrāk)
and of inspiration (waḥyī), besides ‘learning and religion’ (al-‘ilm wa al-dīn).
The procedure described above through which the rational soul
acquires knowledge follows in the footsteps of the Hellenistic philosophers
(falāsifa) who belong to Gnostic-Neoplatonic trends, like al-Fārābī (870–950),
Avicenna (980–1037)43 and the writings of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ (ninth–tenth
centuries).44 We can infer that one of the possibilities of reconquering the
original ‘knowledge’ in the singular (‘ilm, and not ‘ulūm) would seem to be
via the philosophical Illuminationism which Ibn Khaldūn in fact contem-
plates because of its closeness to Sufism, for which he repeatedly shows an
inclination and sympathy. Another possibility is precisely the mystical and
spiritual path that revives the primitive ‘knowledge’ of what is true, just
and good, in a way that seems more analogical and allegorical than real in
the Muqaddima, like a sort of theatrical representation. In the same way,
pilgrims wear a simple tunic and abandon every kind of superfluous orna-
ment precisely because they can draw near to God only by returning to a
condition that is as near as possible to their original nature when they
were created: in pure devotion (mukhliṣan), nude. For this reason, the art
of dressmaking (khiyāṭa), that produces sophisticated and precious clothes,
flourishes in highly civilised urban environments. It is an indication of how
sedentary civilisation is characterised by superfluity and luxury.
‫و [الخياطة] مختصة بالعمران الحضري لما أن أهل البدو يستغنون عنها … و تفهم هذا في سر‬
‫تحريم المخيط في الحج لما أن مشروعية الحج مشتملة على نبذ العالئق الدنيويئة كلها و الرجوع إلى‬
45
‫هللا تعالى كما خلقنا أول مرة‬
Dressmaking is characteristic of sedentary civilisation, because the
Bedouins can do without it … You can understand this if you think of
the reason why handmade dresses are forbidden on the pilgrimage.
Indeed, religious Law orders all worldly attachments to be abstained
from on the pilgrimage, because man should return to God most High
as He created him in the beginning.46
According to our reading of the Muqaddima, and excepting the particular

case of the analogical and allegorical epistemology of Sufism and Gnosis,
Ibn Khaldūn presents the sciences of advanced civilisations on two levels.
The first level, and the most obvious, is that whereby they are presented as
disciplines which arouse the admiration and appreciation of the historian
on account of their usefulness and all the knowledge they have given
mankind. This level is consistent with Ibn Khaldūn the materialist
historian who, as Behrens-Abuseif observes, is able to establish relation-
ships between the world of the arts and culture and that of the political
and social environment and in this way he is clearly ahead of his time.47
On this level and when their time comes, the sciences and the arts are
swept away by the decline and return to dust like all material aspects of
civilisation. Even when regarding history as a discipline and after his
proud boast of having founded a completely new science, Ibn Khaldūn
gives voice to his doubts. Is it really true that nobody before him had ever
thought of inventing history, or had someone already done it but his book
had been lost, as had been the case with so much knowledge in the history
of ancient civilisations? There have been many sages (ḥukamā’) and sci-
ences in the past, but only the sciences of the Greeks have been handed
down to the Muslims, thanks to the efforts of the caliph al-Ma’mūn.
Where are the sciences of the Persians, of the Chaldeans, of the Syrians, of
the Babylonians, of the Copts …? Ubi sunt que ante nos in mundo fuere?
Where are those who were in the world before us? Où sont les neiges
d’antan?48
‫و لعمري لم أقف على الكالم في منحاه ألحد من الخليقة ما أدري لغفلتهم عن ذلك و ليس الظن‬
‫بهم أو لعلهم كتبوا في هذا الغرض و استوفوه و لم يصل إلينا فالعلوم كثيرة و الحكماء في أمم‬
‫ فأين علوم الفرس التي أمر عمر رضي هللا عنه بمحوها عند‬.… ‫النوع االنساني متعددون‬
‫الفتح و أين علوم الكلدانيين و السريانيين و أهل بابل و… أين علوم القبط و من قبلهم و إنما‬
49
‫وصل إلينا علوم أمة واحدة و هم يونان‬
I have never got to know a book of this kind from other people. I
ignore whether this is due to the fact that they were not well-informed,
but there is no reason to think that. However, books may have been
written exhaustively on this subject but have not reached us. There
have been many sciences and numerous sages in the human nations …
Where are the sciences of the Persians, which ‘Umar, may God be
pleased with him! ordered to be suppressed at the time of the Arab
conquest? Where are the sciences of the Chaldeans, of the Syrians, of
the Babylonians, of the Copts and those who came before them? …
Only the sciences of one nation have reached us: those of the Greeks.50
The second level on which Ibn Khaldūn presents the arts and sciences of
advanced civilisations is a little less obvious yet it is important for us to
highlight because it adds depth to the complex, aesthetic-moral dimension
of Ibn Khaldūn’s views. The sciences, like the arts, contain something dia-
bolical due to the Promethean wish in mortals to appropriate knowledge
for themselves and the moral and physical corruption which sooner or
later will destroy them. Regarding the art of writing (kitāba), which in the
public administration (dīwān) was the prerogative of the secretaries
(kuttāb), Ibn Khaldūn says that, unlike other crafts, it deals with theoret-
ical and scientific matters (‘ulūm wa anẓār). Through letters, the art of
writing transmits meanings (ma‘ānī) that are in the soul, and in so doing it
provides knowledge of what was previously unknown (al-‘ulūm
al-majhūla).
Ibn Khaldūn states that the etymology of ‘dīwān’ lies in the Persian
word ‘dīwāneh’ (mad, demon-possessed, diabolical). According to tradi-
tion, the Persian king Khosrow Anushirvān (r. 531–579) would describe
the secretaries as ‘diabolical’ on account of their intellectual acumen and
their shrewd understanding (kays). The secretaries were servants of the
‘Abbāsid administration and mainly of Iranian origin, almost a caste of
‘scribes’ and heirs to the ancient Mesopotamian State traditions. Ibn Khaldūn
is aware that the sophisticated culture of the secretaries, when the urban
Arab-Islamic civilisation was at the height of its development, was in fact
on its way to becoming as erudite as it was devoid of spiritual depth.
‫)و الكتابة) من بين الصنائع أكثر إفادة لذلك ألنها تشتمل على علوم و أنظار بخالف الصنائع و‬
‫بيانه أن في الكتابة انتقاالً من صور الحروف الخطية إلى الكلمات اللفظية في الخيال و من‬
… ‫الكلمات اللفظية في الخيال إلى المعاني التي في النفس فهو ينتقل أبداً من دليل إلى دليل‬
‫فيحصل لها ملكة االنتقال من األدلة إلى المدلوالت … فتكتسب بذلك ملكة من التعقل تكون‬
‫زيادة عقل و يحصل به مزيد فطنة و كيس في األمور … و كذلك قال كسرى في كتابه لما‬
‫رآهم بتلك الفطنة و الكيس فقال ديوانه أي شياطين و جنون قالوا و ذلك أصل اشتقاق الديوان‬
51
‫ألهل الكتابة‬
Writing is among the most useful of the arts because, unlike other
arts, it involves sciences and speculation. Indeed, writing allows us to
transmit the images of written letters to the imagination in the form
of words, then to transfer the letters to the soul in the form of mean-
ings. The person who writes moves constantly from one sign to
another, until he acquires the habit of passing from the signifier to the
signified … In this way he acquires the habit of intellection, which
improves the capacity of the intellect and produces acumen and saga-
city in the understanding of affairs … For this reason [the Persian
king] Khosrow, who had noticed the acumen and sagacity of his sec-
retaries, said that they were ‘dīwāne’, which means ‘diabolic’ and
‘crazy’, and this is the etymology of ‘dīwān’, the ‘ministry’ of the
secretaries.
The reference to this anecdote about Khosrow Anushirvān indicates that

Ibn Khaldūn still remembers the magical character attributed to writing,
which has the ability to transmit both thought and calculation. We cannot
but think of Plato’s Phaedrus, where Socrates reports the myth according
to which the Egyptian god Theuth taught men the use of letters. Theuth
was proud of his discovery and thought that writing would make the
Egyptians wiser and give them better memories. Socrates, quoting the reply
to Theuth by the god Thamus, then king of Egypt, issues a warning about
writing, which, he says, causes oblivion and discourage men from the use
of memory. Moreover, it is inferior to the oral tradition because it does
not provide truth (alētheia) but only the semblance of truth.52
As we have seen above, the primitive knowledge of the Prophet (‘ilm)
was oral and without the civilised sophistication of the arts and the sci-
ences which would emerge thereafter. From Ibn Khaldūn’s exposition on
writing and despite his statement that this is the most useful art (min
bayna al-ṣanā’i‘ al-akthar ifādatan), there seems to be a possible attitude of
disapproval as regards the numerous sciences which, codified and written
down, have the extraordinary ability to transport thought and spread it far
and wide, thus rendering it multiple and destroying the original unity of
the primitive ‘knowledge’ of the Prophet, which was transmitted through
his voice and reached the ears of his Companions listening to him.
An unclassifiable science: history

There is only one science that stands out from among all the sciences that
flourish in mature sedentary civilisations and that is history as founded by
Ibn Khaldūn. Although history was traditionally part of the Muslim sci-
ences,53 Ibn Khaldūn does not insert it in his classification of the sciences. In
his opinion, history – his history – is in a class of its own and is the science of
all sciences, even religious ones, given that it enables one to understand them
and to define their specific topics, criteria and limits. We shall see in
Chapter 3 that the science of history is characterised by an aesthetic dimen-
sion owing to the precision and the almost geometrical clarity with which the
historian abstracts the ‘nature of things’ from concrete history and checks its
reliability. However, and in this lies the tragic element of the Muqaddima,
history is a science like any other, and its epistemological and aesthetic qual-
ities do not allow it to save itself, nor the historian who masters it, nor the
world that he studies from their common destiny of decay.
The knowledge of the Unseen (ghayb)

The knowledge of the ‘Unseen’ (ghayb) are ‘perceptions’ (idrāk) which are
accessible, according to a precise hierarchy, to ordinary men when they
receive visions sent from God in a dream, to Sufi saints or ‘friends’ of God
(awliyā’), to prophets (anbiyā’) and to angels. The latter inhabit the
Unseen world and are an integral part of it. As we have already mentioned
in some passages, Ibn Khaldūn seems to include in these categories even
the metaphysical sages (al-ḥukamā’ al-ilāhiyyūna), a category somewhat
difficult to interpret. We have identified them with currents that were close
to the Neoplatonic philosophy to which belong the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’,
al-Fārābī and Avicenna, who are close to the mystics in some intuitive and
not demonstrative aspects of their epistemology.
The term ‘Unseen’ (ghayb) recurs in the Qur’ān, where it indicates
above all the knowledge of God which embraces both worlds, the Unseen
and the visible (‘ālam al-ghayb wa al-shahāda). Already in the Qur’ān,
ghayb also indicates a world unknown to man and of which the future is a
part. God may grant to whomsoever he wishes some crumbs of the know-
ledge of the Unseen. The most important person to have this privilege was
the Prophet Muḥammad through the revelation.54 In mysticism and in
Muslim Gnosis, the Unseen is the starting point for metaphysical specula-
tions and theories of transcendent knowledge.55
In the Muqaddima, the knowledge/perception of the Unseen is described
on two levels: a historical and a metahistorical one.
On the historical level, it is a question of knowledge acquired, by the
grace of God, by the Prophet Muḥammad through the revelation which
was the fruit of prophetic inspiration (waḥyī). This takes place at a precise
historical moment, in a precise place and in precise historical-social cir-
cumstances. Even if, because of its sublime nature, it seems to stand
outside history and become an eternal ideal, it has a beginning and an end.
It is the dawn of Islam, the epoch of learning and religion (al-‘ilm wa
al-dīn), of the primitive and natural knowledge of what is true, just and
good and of which Muḥammad was the supreme master.
On the metahistorical level, the knowledge/perception of the Unseen is
found in a parallel world to the historical world of the plural sciences that
flourish in sedentary urban civilisations, be they philosophical or religious.
It belongs neither to a time nor to a precise place, even if it remains the
fruit of the political and social environment, given that there are circum-
stances and peoples that are more capable of receiving it (cf. Chapter 4). In
our opinion, the aspiration to achieve unity between the seeker after knowledge
and the things to be known can be interpreted in terms of an analogical-
allegorical path, as we have already mentioned. This being the only way
possible to return to the primitive unity of the ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm) of the
Bedouin Prophet. All the more so as Muḥammad is the Seal of the Prophets,
and prophecy is at an end and with it the prophetic knowledge of the Unseen.
There remain oneiric perceptions (but only if of an angelic or divine nature
and not diabolical), spiritual exercises of the mystics and possibly something
similar to philosophical Gnosis, which avails itself of mystical procedures in
order to attain the perfection of pure intellect (‘aql maḥḍ).
Since the Unseen world (‘ālam al-ghayb) is a parallel world that is
hidden from the sensual world and to which God alone holds the keys, in
the Muqaddima, there is an epistemology of the sensual world and an epis-
temology of the Unseen world. The former belongs to Ibn Khaldūn the sci-
entist and materialist, the latter to Ibn Khaldūn the Sufi and Neoplatonist.
With his totally medieval approach, Ibn Khaldūn integrates both episte-
mologies in that whole which is the universe of the Muqaddima. In doing
so, he does not fail to astound and disorientate the modern reader who
inhabits an aesthetic and epistemological world that is far more limited.
The Qur’ān paints an eloquent picture to help us grasp the close rela-
tionship between the knowledge of the sensual and the Unseen, a relation-
ship, which can be traced back to that between knowledge and beauty that
runs throughout the Muqaddima. The Unseen to which God holds the
keys (mafātīḥ al-ghayb) is also nature in all its beauty and whose every
hidden detail is known to God, from the drops of the sea to the grains of
the sand. Not a single leaf falls without God knowing it.
‫ب َل يَ ْعلَ ُمهَا إِ َّل هُ َو ۚ َويَ ْعلَ ُم َما فِي ْالبَرِّ َو ْالبَحْ ِر ۚ َو َما تَ ْسقُطُ ِم ْن َو َرقَ ٍة إِ َّل يَ ْعلَ ُمهَا‬ ِ ‫َو ِع ْن َدهُ َمفَاتِ ُح ْال َغ ْي‬
(٥٩( ‫ين‬ ‫ب‬ ‫م‬ ‫ب‬ ‫َا‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ف‬ َّ
ٍ ُِ ٍ ِ ِ ِ ٍ ِ َ َ ٍ َ َ ِ ‫ل‬ ‫إ‬ ‫س‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ل‬ َ ‫و‬ ‫ب‬ ْ
‫ط‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ل‬َ ‫و‬ ‫ض‬ ْ‫ر‬ َ
‫ال‬ ْ ِ ‫َو َل َحبَّ ٍة فِي ظُلُ َما‬
‫ت‬
With Him are the keys of the Invisible, that none knows but Him. He
knows everything that is on earth and in the sea. Not a single leaf falls
without Him knowing it. Not a single grain exists in obscurity, not
a single damp or dry thing can be, but they are written in a clear
Book (59)
(Qur’ān, An‘ām [Cattle], 6:59)
To conclude, in this chapter we have clarified the meaning of ‘beauty’

(jamāl) and ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm) in the Muqaddima in a general and prelimi-
nary manner so as to be able to embark on our aesthetic voyage through
the Muqaddima with instruments that are suitable to steer our course. On
closer inspection, though, our voyage has already begun. From what we
have illustrated, there emerges not only the centrality of the problem of
beauty in the Muqaddima, but also its profound and complex connection
with the problem of knowledge.
In the next chapter, we shall examine the problem of beauty in history,
understood both as a new science of whose paternity Ibn Khaldūn is
rightly proud, and as a concrete unfolding of civilisations and human
affairs over time.
Notes
1 The adjectival form, jamīl (beautiful), which is not analysed in this chapter,
recurs in its turn a few times in the Muqaddima, and also mostly indicates
sensual beauty although at times it refers to moral beauty. Beautiful and bene-
ficial (jamīla ṣāliḥa) rulership (malaka, here not in the sense of ‘habit’) is at the
service of the interests of the subjects.
If the rulership and its effects are good in as much as the inner purpose of
the political authority has been fully achieved, and if the rulership is beauti-
ful and beneficial, then it will serve the interests of the subjects. Instead, if it
is bad and unjust, it will harm the subjects and provoke their ruin.
‫فإذا كانت هذه الملكة و توابعها بمكان من الجودة حصل المقصود من السلطان على أتم الوجوه‬
‫فإنها إن كانت جميلة صالحة كان ذلك مصلحة لهم و إن كانت سيئة متعسفة كان ذلك ضرراً عليهم و‬
‫هالكا ً لهم‬
Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, edited by Etienne Quatremère, Prolégomènes d’Ebn
Khaldoun, Vols I–III (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1970 [1858]), Vol. I, 340. Ibn
Khaldūn (1970) is always quoted with modern Arabic orthography.
For a more accurate English translation of passages of the Muqaddima, the
reader can refer to Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, translated by Franz Rosenthal,
The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Vols I–III (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1980 [1967]). For this passage, cf. Ibn Khaldūn
(1980), Vol. I, 383.
2 Charles Pellat, ‘ADAB ii. Adab in Arabic Literature’, in Encyclopædia Iranica,
I/4 (1983), 439–444.
3 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 28–29.
4 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. I, 40.
5 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 29.
1982), 30–31.
8 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. II, 113 ‫ضعقت‬.
9 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. II, 124.
10 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. II, 355.
11 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. II, 397–398.
12 Ibn Khaldūn (1970) does not include passages referred in our text as ‘to leave the
realm of erroneous conjectures (wahm) for truth (ḥaqīqa), and in so doing they
aspire to union with the First Principle (mabda’) of all things and to becoming part
of the Universe (kawn)’, mentioned in other editions, that reflect an accentuated
monism that was typical of Ibn ‘Arabī; Ibn Khaldūn, (1980), Vol. II, 398, n. 221.
15 Phaedrus, the first to speak in the discussion on love in this Platonic dialogue,
says that if there were an army composed entirely of lovers and their beloved
ones, they would defeat any enemy, even if there were very few of them. In fact,
the lover would prefer to die rather than abandon his beloved or be seen by
him throwing down his arms; Simposio 178e–179b, in Platone, Tutte le opere
(Rome: Newton, 1997), 348–351. Greek parallel text.
16 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. II, 42–43.
20 Knowledge and human capabilities develop in diverse civilisations as a result of
the assimilation of contributions brought by others (diffusion) or through auto-
nomous and independent development (convergence), cf. Joseph Needham,
Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1954–), Vol. I: Introductory Orientations, 226ff., with reference to the devel-
opment of scientific thought in ancient China and its relationship with the
development of scientific thought in the Arab-Islamic world and in Europe.
21 Eco (1982), 165–170.
22 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. III, 353.
23 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. III, 401–402.
24 The Mu‘tazilite theology is a rationalistic tendency of Muslim theology (kalām)
and is considered unorthodox by the dominant theology on account of its
refusal to interpret the attributes of God in a literal and anthropomorphistic
sense, and for its defence of free will as well as other aspects of its doctrine.
25 Ibn Khaldūn (1970) mentions ‘khiṭābihim’ (discourse) instead of ‘khaṭā’ihim’
(wrong).
27 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. III, 374.
28 Louis Gardet, L’Islam: Religion et communauté (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer,
1967), 30.
29 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 46–47.
30 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. I, 58–59.
31 Francesco Gabrieli, La letteratura araba (Florence/Milan: Sansoni/Accademia:
1967), 120.
32 [Plato] Platone, La Repubblica [Republic] (Milan: Rizzoli, 1994), Book VII,
514aff.
37 ‫ك ِمنَ ُْالولَ ٰى‬
َ َ‫( َولَ ْل ِخ َرةُ َخ ْي ٌر ل‬Qur’ān, al-Ḍuḥā, [The Forenoon], 93:4).
38 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 225–226.
39 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn, (1980), I, 254–255.
(Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 174.
43 Analogies between the theory of prophecy in Avicenna and in Ibn Khaldūn
have been analysed by Jamal Abdelali Elamrani, ‘Prophétie selon Ibn Khaldūn
et philosophie arabe classique’, in Ibn Khaldūn et la fondation des sciences
sociales, edited by Zeïneb ben Saïd and Georges Labica (Paris: Publisud,
2009).
44 For the connections between Avicenna and the Gnostic-Ismaili thought, see
Alessandro Bausani, L’Enciclopedia dei Fratelli della Purità (Naples: Istituto
Universitario Orientale, 1978), 22, where the author says that in this respect he
agrees with Henri Corbin’s theses more than with the allegoristic interpretation
of Avicenna by Amélie-Marie Goichon, Lexique de la langue philosophique
d’Ibn Sīnā (Paris: Desclée De Brouwer, 1938).
47 Doris Behrens-Abuseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture (Princeton, NJ: Markus
Wiener Publishers, 1999), 185.
48 François Villon (1431–1463), ‘Ballade des dames du temps jadis’, in Poésies
(Paris: Flammarion, 1992). The motif which was originally biblical (Books of
Wisdom, Isaiah and Baruch) became a recurrent theme in medieval and modern
European literature.
51 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. II, 362–363; and Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. II,
406–407.
52 [Plato] Platone, Fedro [Phaedrus], 275a–b, in Platone (1997), 507.
53 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1150–1210), Jāmi‘ al-‘Ulūm, in Persian, quoted by Ziva
Vesel, Les Encyclopédies persanes (Paris: Editions Recherche sur la Civilisation,
1986), 35–38
54 Qur’ān, Jinn (The Jinn), 72: 25–28.
55 Mohammed Hocine Benkheira, ‘Unseen’, in Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi
(ed.), Dictionnaire du Coran (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2007), 25–427.
References
Abdelali Elamrani, Jamal (2009) ‘Prophétie selon Ibn Khaldūn et philosophie arabe
classique’. In Zeïneb ben Saïd and Georges Labica (eds), Ibn Khaldūn et la fon-
dation des sciences sociales. Paris: Publisud.
Wiener Publishers.
Bausani, Alessandro (1978) L’Enciclopedia dei Fratelli della Purità. Naples: Istituto
Universitario Orientale.
Benkheira, Mohammed Hocine (2007) ‘Invisible’. In Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi
(ed.), Dictionnaire du Coran. Paris: Robert Laffont, 425–427.
Gabrieli, Francesco (1967) La letteratura araba. Florence/Milan: Sansoni/Accademia.
Gardet, Louis (1967) L’Islam: Religion et communauté. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.
Goichon, Amélie-Marie (1938) Lexique de la langue philosophique d’Ibn Sīnā.
Paris: Desclée De Brouwer.
Needham, Joseph (1954) Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. I: Introductory
Orientations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pellat, Charles (1983) ‘ADAB ii. Adab in Arabic Literature’. In Encyclopædia Iranica,
Vol. I (4), 439–444.
[Plato] Platone (1994) La Repubblica. Milan: Rizzoli.
[Plato] Platone (1997) Tutte le opere, ed. Enrico V. Maltese, Vols I–V. Rome:
Newton, Vol. II, Greek parallel text.
Vezel, Ziva (1986) Les Encyclopedies persanes. Paris: Editions Recherches sur la
Civilisation.
Villon, François (1992) ‘Ballade des dames du temps jadis’. In Poésies. Paris:
Flammarion.
3 Knowledge and beauty in history
Epistemological beauty and
phenomenological beauty in
history
In this chapter, we shall analyse what the Muqaddima tells us about knowledge
and beauty in history understood both in the theoretical sense of historio-
graphic science and in the practical sense of human affairs and the develop-
ment of civilisations over time. Ibn Khaldūn describes his historiographic
method in an orderly way, above all in the introduction and in the first
pages of the Muqaddima.
The aim of historical science, says Ibn Khaldūn, is to understand the
truth/reality (ḥaqīqa) of historical facts, stripping them of the distortions and lies
(kadhib) with which they are often handed down. The external beauty of the
historiographic discourse generally indicates that it is false and unreliable.
Historians stray from the truth when they invent imaginary and non-existent
things so as to embellish the facts and satisfy the taste for the extraordinary
(gharīb) on the part of the readers and the public. However, sometimes their
objective is to praise (madḥ) the powerful, by attributing virtue and magnifi-
cent deeds to them. On other occasions, as we saw in Chapter 2 with regard
to the ‘Abbāsid caliph al-Ma’mūn and the anecdote about the ‘basket’, they
delight in attributing immoral behaviour to figures of the utmost integrity so
that they can justify their own reprehensible conduct. At still other times,
they are incapable of assembling the historical facts in the light of the cir-
cumstances and situation (aḥwāl) in which they took place. We also saw in
Chapter 2 that rhetorical embellishments delight the ear on account of their
sweetness (ḥalāwa) and beauty (jamāl), which are added to the meaning
(zā’ida ‘alā al-ifāda). In the case of Qur’ānic exegesis, for example, the
beauty of the words can be used as a pretext for justifying unorthodox exe-
geses. A similar danger is also to be found in historiography because of the
powerful hold that sensual beauty has over the soul. In the best of hypo-
theses, rhetorical embellishments have the function of reducing the history of
past events and States (akhbār ‘an al-ayyām wa al-duwal) to a light and
lightweight genre, a pleasant and elegant tale sprinkled with anecdotes, with
a view to distracting and entertaining the public (al-majālis).
‫إذ هو في ظاهره ال يزيد على أخبار عن األيام والدول والسوابق من القرون األول تنمق لها‬
1
‫األقوال و تضرب فيها األمثال و تطرف بها األندية إذ غصها االحتفال‬
In appearance, history is nothing more than a report on past events
and dynasties, ancient facts coloured with anecdotes and proverbs
with the purpose of entertaining gatherings.2
‘Beware, historiography is not literature’, Ibn Khaldūn seems to put us

on our guard. The more pleasing the external beauty of historiographic
discourse is to those who read or hear it, the more negative its connota-
tion. The examples of embellishments of historiographic discourse
furnish us with precious information as to the meaning of beauty for the
author of the Muqaddima, both on the level of history as a science and
on the level of the real development of civilisations over time. On the
level of historical science, true beauty does not lie in rhetorical artifice
but rather in an almost geometrical method that measures facts and cir-
cumstances and checks that they correspond to one another (muṭābaqa).
Muṭābaqa is the fundamental aesthetic and epistemological criterion of
historical truth. On the level of history understood as the development of
human affairs over time, true beauty is not to be found in imaginary tales
invented to astound the audience. The real beauty of history lies in the
purest nature (ṭabī‘a) of real facts (waqā’i‘), which only historical science
can provide us with.
The epistemological beauty of historical science

Ibn Khaldūn reviews the diverse reasons why lies distort the historical truth
handed down to us by the sources. Some historians adopt an acritical posi-
tion (tashayyu‘) in favour of specific schools or opinions. Others manifest a
blind trust in the authority of the transmitters (al-thiqa bi al-nāqilīna).
Others do not understand the real ‘purposes’ (maqāṣid) of the events. Yet
others, as we have already seen, are bent on the adulation of the powerful
since they esteem wealth rather than virtue (faḍīla). Finally, still others are
ignorant of the ‘nature of the circumstances’ (ṭabī‘at al-aḥwāl) in history.
‫و لما كان الكذب متطرقا ً للخبر بطبعته و له األسباب تقتضيه فمنها التشيعات لآلراء و … (و‬
‫ (و منها) الذهول عن‬.… ‫من) األسباب المقتضية للكذب في األخبار أيضا ً الثقة بالناقلين‬
‫ (و منها) توهم الصدق و هو كثير و إنما يجيء في األكثر من جهة الثقة‬.… ‫المقاصد‬
‫ (منها) تقرب الناس في األكثر‬.… ‫بالناقلين (و منها) الجهل بتطبيق األحوال على الوقائع‬
‫ألصحاب التجلة و المراتب بالثناء و المدح و تحسين األحوال … فالنفوس مولعة بحب‬
‫الثناء و الناس متطلعون إلى الدنيا و أسبابها من جاه أو ثروة و ليسوا في األكثر براغبين‬
‫في الفضائل … و من األسباب المقتضية له أيضا ً و هي سابقة على جميع ما تقدم الجهل‬
‫بطبائع األحوال في العمران فإن كل حادث من الحوادث ذاتا ً كان أو فعالً ال بد له من طبيعة‬
… ‫تخصه في ذاته و فيما يعرض له من أحواله فإذا كان السامع عارفا ً بطبائع الحوادث و األحوال‬
3
‫أعانه ذلك في تمحيص الخبر على تمييز الصدق من الكذب‬
Falsehood naturally affects historical information, and this for
different, inevitable reasons. The first reason is due to a bias regarding
Knowledge and beauty in history 35
opinions and beliefs … Another reason why lies necessarily affect
historiography is our trust in those who transmit [information] …

Another reason is ignorance of the purpose [or meaning] of events …
Yet another reason are false conjectures about the veracity of something.
This occurs frequently and mostly derives from trust in transmitters.
Another reason is that [people] do not know that there must be a
perfect correspondence between [historical] circumstances and facts …
Another reason is that people mostly approach persons of high social
position with praise and encomium, and attempt to present their
situation in a most attractive light … Human souls are inclined to
love praise and people aspire to the wealth and standing of this low
world … and most of the time do not seek virtue … Another reason
why falsehood inevitably [affects historical information], and this
reason prevails over the other reasons mentioned, is ignorance of the
nature of circumstances in [the history] of civilisation. Every event, be
it an essence or a fact, necessarily has a specific nature inherent in its
essence and in the circumstances that affect it. If the historian is aware
of the nature of events and circumstances … this awareness will assist
him in distinguishing truth from falsehood in the analysis of that
[historical] information.4
Among the cases listed above, those in which the relationship between
historiography and aesthetics is most obvious, is indeed that of the adulation
of the powerful. In this instance, historiographic discourse becomes a pane-
gyric. The ‘praise’ speech then appears as a kind of qaṣīda (Arabic panegyric),
namely, empty, degenerate adulation. On closer inspection, however, there are
also other cases among those listed which contain an aesthetic dimension.
The ‘purpose’ (maqṣad) of the events derives from qaṣd, which also
means moderation, the right measurement, the right means. The purpose
of an art form is to attain its objective (hadaf, gharaḍ), the fulfilment of its
specific function, the realisation of its utility which is in harmony with its
specific perfection (kamāl). In the sense of the right means, the meaning of
the root qaṣd can be used in what appears to modern scholarship as very
diverse fields such as morality, theology and art theory. For example, the
theological work of al-Ghazālī (1058–1111), Al-iqtṣad fī al-i‘tiqād (The
Right Means in the Faith), was written with the aim of illustrating Sunnite
orthodoxy at a time when it was under threat from Ismā‘īlī’5 attacks, con-
sidered as ‘those who exaggerate’ (ghulāt) because they attributed a divine
nature to the imām.6 Other objects of criticism for al-Ghazālī are the
immoderate forms of unorthodoxy such as the Hellenising philosophy
(falsafa) and Mu‘tazilism (mu‘tazila). According to al-Ghazālī, these also
go beyond the purpose (qaṣd) of the Sunnite faith and in so doing wander
from the truth.
It is then possible to identify an aesthetic dimension even in the technique
with which the historian, like a land-surveyor, ‘superimposes circumstances
onto events’ (taṭbīq al-aḥwāl ‘alā al-waqā’i‘), and measures them. If the
two levels correspond perfectly, then the event is real and true. Historio-
graphic science has a theoretical content that requires empirical and tech-
nical verification in order to produce certainty. The beauty of historical
science stems from the clarity and the precision of the measurement of the
two types of basic factors: circumstances and events. This is the meaning
of muṭābaqa.
Finally, the ‘nature’ (ṭabī‘a) of things, which has been recovered by the
historian through critical examination (tamḥīṣ) of facts and circumstances,
might be interpreted as an abstract form of that same original nature
(ṭabī‘a, fiṭra) which has been rediscovered a posteriori. A nature from
which the sophisticated arts and sciences of sedentary civilisation at its
height and, even more so, in its decline, distance themselves. In grasping
the nature of the events, the historian strips them of all artifice and lies and
restores their original beauty. Let us remember that the Prophet’s know-
ledge was simplicity and clarity, thanks to his ‘nature’ (fiṭra), a gift of God,
and that he, like the primitive Bedouins, was still close to the original and
uncorrupted nature (ṭabī‘a).
Although it is the fruit of complex and sophisticated knowledge, the
beauty of historical science is wisdom (ḥikma), which is able to understand
the ‘nature’ (ṭabī‘a) of things, with precision, simplicity and clarity. Beauty
is truth, clear and distinct. Ugliness is untruth, obscure and confused.
What is certain is that in presenting his own historiographic method Ibn
Khaldūn does not raise the problem of what constitutes the beautiful. His
problem is what constitutes the true, in the immanent sense of the real (al-
wāqi‘). The historical reality that he sets out to discover is not the external
description of events but rather, a profound understanding of their causes
and significance. Nevertheless, he is constantly faced with the problem of
the beautiful, especially when he must strip history of external embellish-
ments and restore the ‘nature’ of the circumstances and facts. This under-
taking requires rational effort to set against the influence of sensual beauty
on the soul, which would confuse and obscure reason. His ‘new’
(muḥdath) science, which is original and different from all the others,
enables him to unequivocally distinguish the truth of historical facts from
untruth (al-khaṭā’ min al-ṣawāb). Untruth is also vice, evil and ugliness in
different degrees according to the individual case. Truth is also virtue,
goodness and utter beauty in different degrees according to the individual
case. Within the science of history of Ibn Khaldūn, the epistemological,
ethical, aesthetic, ontological and existential dimensions are inextricably
linked.
Historians often inflate the numbers of regular soldiers in the armies of
the past, or the wealth at the disposal of the opulent (mutrafīna) who are
in power at a certain time, with the aim of producing a sense of stupefac-
tion (ighrāb) and in this way they persuade their readers or listeners.
However, history is not rhetoric (khiṭāba) aimed at persuasion. It is inter-
esting to note that, while the adjective gharīb (extraordinary, sensational)
has a negative connotation when it concerns accounts which are intent on
stupefying by using falsehood, the same adjective has a positive connota-
tion when it defines the new historical science of Ibn Khaldūn, as ‘extra-
ordinary’ (gharīb) and ‘powerful’ (‘azīz). History is not an entertainment
interspersed with anecdotes, nor is it rhetorical artifice, a dissimulation of
the truth through stylistic and literary devices of various types. History is
the investigation into the causes of things and the knowledge of how and
why things have happened. History is not as it appears from the outside (fī
ẓāhirihi). History is what is inside (fī bāṭinihi): a branch of wisdom
(ḥikma).
‫وفي باطنه نظر وتحقيق وتعليل للكائنات ومبادئها دقيق وعلم بكيفيات الوقائع وأسبابها عميق‬
7
‫فهو لذلك أصل في الحكمة عريق‬
The inner nature of history is its being an attentive study, an accurate
investigation and an explanation of existing things and their origins,
and a profound knowledge of the characters and causes of events.
Therefore history is an ancient branch of wisdom.8
Franz Rosenthal’s translation of ḥikma as ‘philosophy’ in the passage just

cited can give rise to confusion. Here, it is not a case of the Hellenistic
philosophy of Islam (falsafa or ḥikma), but of philosophy in the etymologi-
cal sense of wisdom, an eternal wisdom not necessarily in relationship with
religious truths but which expresses an ethical-epistemological notion of
wisdom of an ancient Mesopotamian origin that was then integrated by
means of complex encounters and contaminations by historic Islam. It is
no coincidence that, immediately after stating that history is rooted in
wisdom, Ibn Khaldūn wonders if perhaps one of the peoples of ancient
Mesopotamia had not already invented historical science, as he under-
stands it.
There is a whole world behind the opposition between ẓāhir and bāṭin.
There is mysticism and its distinction between the external and internal
way of understanding the divine Law. There is Averroes of Cordoba
(1126–1198) and his fatwā in defence of philosophy (ḥikma), in which
he presents the difference between the external and internal under-
standing of the Law (shar‘). Moreover, it seems that Ibn Khaldūn had a
rationalist philosopher Abelli among his masters, who introduced him to
logic and philosophy.9 According to the philosopher from Cordoba,
seeing that there cannot be contradictions between philosophy and the
Law, philosophers must grasp the profound sense (bāṭin) of the Scrip-
tures when their literal sense (ẓāhir) contrasts with philosophy. In fact,
God expressed himself in an allegorical way in the Qur’ān so as to be
understood by the simple and ignorant, who do not belong to the people
of demonstration (ahl al-burhān) and cannot accept the veracity of a
reasoning (taṣdīq) but by means of what they can physically imagine.
They need something that appeals to their senses and imagination.
Therefore, they need to believe that God is really seated ‘on the throne’,10
and that He ‘is in the Sky’.11
Averroes insists that whenever there is opposition between the result of
demonstration and the literal sense of the Law, the latter shall be interpreted
allegorically, according to the rules of the allegorical interpretation (ta’wīl)
in the Arabic language.12 In the same way, Ibn Khaldūn applies criteria of
Arabic stylistics to history, and criticises those who adorn discourses with
embellishments and tales which are but the fruit of vain imaginings.
In the twentieth century, postmodern currents of philosophy have
defended the existence of a rhetorical dimension in historiography and the
relevance of applying rhetorical criteria to historiography, maintaining that
our understanding of history is totally conditioned by the rules of a literary
genre.13 Ibn Khaldūn proceeds in the opposite direction. He applies the instru-
ments of literary rhetoric to historiography in order to show that this does not
make for good history but for bad literature. When judging hyperboles and
exaggerations as ugly and inadequate, he is merely respecting the canons of
Arabic poetry according to which metaphors and similes must abide by estab-
lished limits and adhere to precise linguistic rules when making comparisons.
Mir Shams al-Din Faqir of Delhi (fl. eighteenth century), author of the
rhetorical treatise in Persian Ḥadā’iq al-balāgha (The Gardens of Elo-
quence), quotes as an example of ‘ghuluw’ (type of ‘hyperbole’, mubālagha)
a verse (perhaps) of Abū Nuwās (756–815) which describes something
impossible: a Muslim who scares the polytheists so much that even those
among them who are still in the wombs of their mothers fear him.14
Another eloquent example of disapproval of excessive hyperbole in lit-
erary rhetoric is offered us in a passage of the Persian treatise on poetics
and rhetoric by Shams-e Qays, Lexicon of the Rules of Poetry of the
Persians (Al-mu‘jam fī ma‘āyīr ash‘ār al-‘Ajam, compiled c.1217), which
mentions the fact that the Zoroastrian priests had admonished the Sassanid
King Bahrām Gur (420–438) for his practice of poetry. According to the
Arabic and Persian traditions, Bahrām was the initiator of Neopersian
poetry thanks to his upbringing among the Lakhmids, an Arab kingdom of
Syria and vassal of the Sassanian Empire. Poetry is based on falsehood,
foul exaggeration and excessive hyperbole. This is why, says the treatise,
the Zoroastrian priests maintained that philosophers of various religions
considered poetry reprehensible and the cause of the ruin of former king-
doms and nations. Moreover, all the heretics (zanādeqeh) have expressed
themselves in verses (naẓm-e sokhan) and the devil was the first creature to
praise himself in poetry.15
Considering historiography of bad quality as bad literature, Ibn
Khaldūn presents history as a non-poetic discourse, which is purely conno-
tative and scientific, with only one level of meaning and a stranger to both
embellishments and metaphors. At the same time, his straightforwardness,
clarity and simplicity assume an aesthetic dimension precisely because he
opposes the blameworthy lies of poetry, the confused, obscure mumbling
of the devil. By inventing non-existent stories, contemporary bad histor-
ians inflate figures (tawaghghalū fī al-‘adad) when they report on the
excessive expenditure of the ruler and opulent men (nafaqāt al-mutrafīna),
because they are tempted by the desire to cause a sensation (wasāwis
al-ighrāb). In so doing, they neglect to practise rigorous historical research
and enquiry (al-baḥth wa al-taftīsh).
…‫و قد نجد الكافة من أهل العصر إذا أفاضوا في الحديث عن عساكر الدول التي لعهدهم… و‬
‫عن جيوش المسلمين أو النصارى أو أخذوا في إحصاء أموال الجبايات و خرج السلطان و نفقات‬
16
‫المترفين … تجاوزوا حدود العوائد و طاوعوا وساوس اإلغراب‬
When contemporaries report on the armies of dynasties of their epoch …
on Muslim and Christian soldiers, or they calculate the tax revenues
and expenditures of the ruler and men of wealth … they mostly exceed
the limit of the ordinary and are tempted by the desire to cause a
sensation.17
The word wasāwis, translated above as temptation, recalls the Qur’ānic

‘whispering’ (waswās) of the devil in the hearts of men. God exhorts the
Prophet to take refuge from that evil whispering in His Lord.

‫َّحيم‬
ِ َّ‫قُ ۡل أَعُو ُذ بِ َربِّ ٱلن‬

(١( ‫اس‬
ِ َّ‫َملِ ِك الن‬
(٢( ‫اس‬
ِ َّ‫إِلَ ٰـ ِه ٱلن‬
(٣( ‫اس‬
ۡ ۡ
ِ َّ‫اس ٱل َخن‬
(٤( ‫اس‬ ِ ‫ِمن َشرِّ ٱل َو ۡس َو‬
ِ َّ‫ُور ٱلن‬
(٥( ‫اس‬ ِ ‫صد‬ُ ‫ٱلَّ ِذى يُ َو ۡس ِوسُ فِى‬
ۡ
ِ َّ‫ِمنَ ٱل ِجنَّ ِة َوٱلن‬
(٦( ‫اس‬
Say! I take refuge in the Lord of people (1)
The King of people (2)
The God of people (3)
From the evil of the one who whispers then withdraws (4)
The one who whispers in the heart of men (5)
Of jinns and men (6)
(Qur’ān, Al-Nās [Men], 114)
To remain in the Qur’ān, Ibn Khaldūn also gives an example of hyperbole
and erroneous conjectures in the way some of the greatest exegetes such as
Ṭabarī (839–923) and the already mentioned Zamakhsharī, interpreted a
passage, the sūra of The Dawn, about the ‘Ād, the ancient inhabitants of
the legendary city of Iram of the high columns. According to Islamic tradi-
tion, these people had been destroyed by God as a punishment for their
overweening idolatry.
َ ُّ‫أَلَمۡ تَ َر ك َۡيفَ فَ َع َل َرب‬

(٦( ‫ك بِ َعا ٍد‬
(٧) ‫ت ۡٱل ِع َما ِد‬
ِ ‫إِ َر َم َذا‬
(٨) ‫ٱلَّتِى لَمۡ ي ُۡخلَ ۡق ِم ۡثلُهَا فِى ۡٱلبِلَ ٰـ ِد‬
Don’t you see what your Lord has done with the descendants of
‘Ᾱd (6)
Iram, city of the columns (7)
The like of which had never before been created in the land (8)
(Qur’ān, Al-Fajr [The Dawn], 89:6–8)
The commentators deduce from these verses the existence of an immense

city, with palaces of silver and gold and columns of emeralds and rubies,
and all sorts of trees and perennial rivers, says Ibn Khaldūn.
‫وأنها مدينة عظيمة قصورها من الذهب والفضة وأساطينها من الزبرجد والياقوت وفيها‬
18
‫أصناف الشجر واألنهار المطردة‬
It was a great city, with castles of gold and silver and columns of
emerald and hyacinths, all kinds of trees and ever-flowing rivers.19
It is however, explains Ibn Khaldūn, a question of fantasies that are far

from the truth, the fruit of false conjectures (wahm), that stem from
the attraction beauty has over us, from the temptation to surrender to the
marvellous and the sensational. Ibn Khaldūn shows here that even the
Qur’ān can be read as a historical source, provided that it is subject to a
historical and philological method and not mere imaginings. To return to
Averroes’ point of view, the allegorical interpretation of the Qur’ān must
respect the precise rules of the tropes permitted by the Arabic language.
Wahm (conjecture) is a technical term from Aristotelian Arabic psychology.
In the Psychology of Avicenna, to cite a philosopher who has had an
important influence, direct or indirect, on the Muqaddima, wahm indicates
both the particular ideas and the estimative faculty (al-quwwa al-wahmiyya)
that draws those particular ideas from perceptible things in order to then
store them in the imagination (mutakhayyila). They are not necessarily
erroneous but require the help of the intellect which verifies the veracity of
judgment (ḥukm).20
The mystical al-Ghazālī of the Mishkāt al-anwār (The Niche of Lights)
declares that the intellect is free of error when it casts off the veil of conjec-
tures and imaginings (al-wahm wa al-khayāl). In so doing, it can see things
exactly as they are. However, continues al-Ghazālī, only after death can
the intellect free itself completely (yukmal tajrīduhu) from chimeras and
fantasies. Only then is error disclosed and only then do secrets become
manifest (tatajallā al-asrār).21
In Chapter 2, we have seen that for Ibn Khaldūn the natural attraction
of lovers for the beauty of the beloved is due to the soul’s desire to quit the
chimeras of the world of imagination (wahm) for reality and be united to
God.22 The absolute necessity of the historian to free himself from chime-
ras and conjectures is rich in philosophical and spiritual echoes which, in
its total immanence, contribute to lending it a profoundly aesthetic
dimension.
Garcin De Tassy (1873) also mentions a metaphor reported in the treatise
of Mir Shams al-Din Faqir of Delhi, who recalls the ‘pillars of ruby’ of the
fanciful commentators of The Dawn sūra. It refers to banners of rubies
(a‘lām yāqūt), mentioned as an example of chimerical (wahmī) similitude,
which, unlike imaginative similitude, can be nothing but implausible.23 If
in the field of the knowledge of the Unseen, Ibn Khaldūn conceives of the
imagination as something similar to its meaning in mysticism and Neopla-
tonism (al-Fārābī, Avicenna and al-Ghazālī), in the sense that it enables
one to see the truth, in history, in the absence of the intervention of the
intellect, it is only a lower grade of knowledge.
And yet, the ‘facts’ (al-waqā’i‘) of Khaldunian historiography are too
immersed in the universe of classical Arabic culture to be reduced to the
unadorned ‘facts’ of nineteenth-century positivist historiography.24 The
more Ibn Khaldūn insists on defining historiographic discourse as being in
opposition to poetic discourse, historical facts as opposed to towers of
silver and walls of rubies, artifice as against the purity of the ‘nature’ of
things, the more his history assumes an aesthetic dimension. It is a ques-
tion of a negative aesthetic, in the shade, far from the dazzling light of
what seems to be beauty but which in fact is not. Yet it is also a positive
aesthetic, described in terms of a perfect muṭābaqa, correspondence
between events and circumstances (aḥwāl), a precise measurement of their
size, shape and relative position (not exaggerated to your liking), balance
(‘adāla), simplicity, clarity and harmony (talā’um). No wonder that some
scholars have rather regretfully observed that the other books of the Kitāb
al-‘ibar do not live up to the programmatic pages of the Muqaddima. Indeed,
in some of these pages, Ibn Khaldūn aspires to such perfection as to make
of historiography an aesthetic ideal rather than a scientific method applic-
able to experience.
Correspondence between facts and the historical circumstances is the
only valid criterion (mi‘iyār ṣaḥīḥ) by which the historian can judge
whether they could have really happened (imkān wuqū‘ihi). It prevails over
the authority of transmitters. Therefore, the scientific rule (qānūn) for
separating reality from vanity (al-ḥaqq min al-bāṭil) in history is an ana-
lysis of civilisations (‘umrān), which distinguishes between three kinds of
circumstances: those that are necessary because they are inherent in the
essence of civilisation; those that are accidental to it; and those that are
impossible for it. The application of this logical demonstrative method (bi
wajhin burhānin) is the very purpose of the Muqaddima (gharaḍ hādhā
al-kitāb).
‫أما األخبار عن الواقعات فال بد في صدقها و صحتها من اعتبار المطابقة فلذلك وجب أن‬
‫ إذا كان ذلك فالقانون في تمييز الحق من الباطل في األخبار‬.… ‫ننظر في إمكان وقوعه‬
‫باإلمكان و االستحالة أن ننظر في االجتماع البشري الذي هو العمران و نميز ما يلحقه من‬
‫األحوال لذاته و بمقتضى طبعه و ما يكون عارضا ً ال يعتد به و ما ال يمكن أن يعرض له و‬
‫إذا فعلنا ذلك كان لنا قانونا ً في تمييز الحق من الباطل في األخبار و الصدق من الكذب بوجه‬
‫برهاني ال مدخل للشك فيه و حينئذ فإذا سمعنا عن شيىء من األحوال الواقعة في العمران‬
‫علمنا ما نحكم بقبوله مما نحكم بتزييفه و كان لنا ذلك معياراً صحيحا ً يتحرى به المؤرخون‬
25
‫طريق الصدق و الصواب فيماينقلونه و هذا هو غرض هذا الكتاب األول من تأليفنا‬
As far as information about [historical] facts is concerned, it is neces-

sary to consider their veracity and exactitude from the point of view of
the correspondence [between them and their circumstances]. One must
carefully consider whether they can possibly have happened … There-
fore the norm for the distinction between reality and vanity in histor-
ical information consists in a careful study of human society (that is to
say, civilisation) and in the distinction between [historical] circum-
stances that are inherent in the essence of the society, in conformity
with its nature, other circumstances that are accidental and should not
be taken into consideration, and [yet other circumstances] that cannot
have existed at all.
In so doing, we have an unfailing norm based on a demonstra-
tive [method] for distinguishing reality from vanity and veracity
from falsehood in historical information. Thus, when we hear
about circumstances in which facts have taken place in the [history
of] civilisation, we shall know which ones we can accept and
which ones we must consider fictitious. We shall have a valid cri-
terion by which historians can pursue the path of truth and exacti-
tude in what they hand down to us. This is the very purpose of
this first book.26
We shall now conclude our analysis of beauty in history understood as

science (‘ilm al-tārīkh) in the Muqaddima, a beauty that we have called
‘epistemological’. In the following section, we shall analyse beauty in
history understood as the real development of civilisations and human
affairs over time, a beauty that we shall call ‘phenomenological’.
The phenomenological beauty in the history of
civilisations
In this section, we shall analyse the way in which Ibn Khaldūn describes
the manifestation of beauty in history understood as the actual develop-
ment of civilisations over ‘time’ (zaman, ayyām). We shall return to these
aspects in a specific way in the following chapters, considering beauty in
human geography, in primitive Bedouin society, at the dawn of Islam and
in advanced sedentary society. Ibn Khaldūn offers us history on two levels:
the level of the longue durée, that is to say the long passage of time and the
major transformations that take place within historical cycles; and the
level of single events which in the Muqaddima have the role of examples
that confirm the pertinence of his historiographic theory.
The longue durée

The level that is immediately obvious and where the aesthetic dimension of
history is clearly visible is that of the long passage of time. First of all, the
cycle of history is a physical and perceptible reality, civilisations are living
beings that are born, grow, flourish, decline and die, in accordance with that
naturalistic and organicistic vision of History, which has been much noted
by the scholars of the Muqaddima. The culture produced by civilisations,
including the crafts and the sciences, and all kinds of historical conditions
(aḥwāl), belongs in turn entirely to the ‘physical world of the elements’
(al-ālam al-‘unṣurī), that are born and die. The prestige of lineage (ḥasab),
much vaunted by men, is in turn an ephemeral accident (‘araḍ) of civilisations.
‫إعلم أن العالم العنصري بما فيه كائن فاسد ال من ذواته و ال من أحواله و المكونات من‬
‫المعدن و النبات و جميع الحيوانات اإلنسان و غيره كائنة فاسدة بالمعاينة و كذلك ما يعرض‬
‫لها من األحوال و خصوصا اإلنسانية فالعلوم تنشأ ثم تدرس و كذلك الصنائع و أمثالها و‬
27
‫الحسب من العوارض التي تعرض لآلدميين فهو كائن فاسد ال محالة‬
You should know that the world of the elements and all that is in it, as
far as its essence and its conditions are concerned, its constitutive ele-
ments, minerals, plants and all animals, including human beings and
all other creatures, are also perishable, as you can see. The same
applies to all their conditions and particularly that of the human
being. Indeed, the sciences develop, then people try to learn them. The
same happens to the crafts and to similar things. Noble lineage, like all
kinds of accidents that occur to men, cannot but be perishable.28
There are a maximum of five historical stages (ṭawr, pl. aṭwār) of dynasties
and they follow a recurrent pattern of seizing power from the State, power
which is subsequently consolidated thanks to the support of the military-
tribal base. There follows the third stage of their economic and cultural
peak, then the stage of conflict between a State, which has become des-
potic and predatory and its tribal base. Finally, there is the fifth stage, that
of their decline. At this stage, the ruler gives himself to immoderate
expenditure, desires and pleasures. He depletes the wealth of the State,
harms his greatest clients and becomes inaccessible to its soldiers, whose
allowances he refuses to pay. It is the stage of financial bankruptcy, of
social and cultural decrepitude (haram). Civilisation has been affected by
an incurable chronic disease (al-maraḍ al-muzmin).
‫ه‬‎‫ الطور الخامس) طور اإلسراف و التبذير و يكون صاحب الدولة في هذا الطور متلفا ً لما جمع أولو‬‎)
‫ و في هذا الطور‬.…‫في سبيل الشهوات و المالذ و الكرم على بطانتها و في مجالسها‬
‫تحصل في الدولة طبيعة الهرم و يستولي عليها المرض المزمن الذي ال يكاد يخلص‬
‫منه و ال يكون لها معه برء إلى أن تنقرض كما نبينه في األحوال التي نسردها و هللا خير‬
29
‫الرازقين‬
The fifth stage is the stage of waste and dissipation. The ruler fritters
away what his predecessors had accumulated in the satisfaction of his
appetites and pleasures, in immoderate generosity towards his frivo-
lous entourage and gatherings … At this stage the State is affected by
decrepitude and seized by an incurable chronic disease from which it
can barely recover. It finally perishes in circumstances that we shall
explain later. God is the best inheritor.
(Qur’ān, Al-Anbiyā’ [The Prophets], 21:89)30
Lacoste (1998) observes that this descriptive model of the rise and fall of
the States, focusing on internal causes, is an effective account of the devel-
opment of the States of the Maghreb. Albeit originally a tribal chief, once
he has ascended the throne, the sovereign must destroy those same forces
that had supported him in order to protect his own privileges. In doing so,
he often relies on foreign mercenaries. Subsequently, it is his clan which is
now engaged in conflict with the State apparatus that causes ruin of the
State. According to Lacoste, Ibn Khaldūn perfectly understands this
blocked structure of the societies of the Maghreb, which prevents the
establishment of a stable State and the evolution towards a new system of
production. Lacoste also observes that in explaining the causes of the vul-
nerability of the States, Ibn Khaldūn only considers internal causes, inher-
ent in the social structure, but not external causes that are inherent in
international trade.
From a sociological point of view, the silence of Ibn Khaldūn regarding
the international, external causes of the decline of the Arab world consti-
tutes a limit to his historical analysis. However, from the point of view of
our reading of the Muqaddima, this omission enriches the aesthetic vision
insomuch as it denotes a conception of history in terms of a self-sufficient
ontology, which studies fundamental characters both in the development
of human affairs over time and in single events. Such characters, precisely
because they are ontologically self-sufficient and not dependent, save acci-
dentally, on external causes, bestow an aesthetic dimension on history,
which is, we dare say, self-illuminating. By developing Aristotelian ideas in
an original manner,31 Ibn Khaldūn states that the historian must rely upon
his sources (yarja‘ ilā al-uṣūl) and evaluate the facts by analysing them
empirically, stripping them of any false and exaggerated beauty or historio-
graphic lies so as to identify their ontological reality (genus, specific differ-
ence, measure, importance, power …) which, alone, defines the limits of its
being and its becoming. In so doing, he distinguishes with a clear mind (bi
ṣarīḥ ‘aqlihi) between the ‘possible’ (mumkin) and the ‘impossible’
(mumtani‘). All that follows in the domain of the ‘impossible’ shall be
rejected. All that follows in the domain of the ‘possible’ shall be considered.
The ‘possible’, explains Ibn Khaldūn, is larger than what is logically neces-
sary (al-imkān al-‘aqlī al-muṭlaq). It comprehends all possibilities inherent
in a certain matter: its essence (aṣl), genus (jins), property (ṣinf), size
(miqdār wa ‘iẓamihi) and power (quwwa);
‫كثيراً ما يعتري الناس في األخبار كما يعتريهم الوسواس في الزيادة عند قصد اإلغراب كما‬
‫قدمناه أول الكتاب فليرجع اإلنسان إلى أصوله و ليكن مهيمنا ً على نفسه و مميزاً بين طبيعة‬
‫الممكن و الممتنع بصريح عقله و مستقيم فطرته فما دخل في نطاق اإلمكان قبله و ما خرج‬
‫عنه رفضه و ليس مرادنا اإلمكان العقلي المطلق فإن نطاقه أوسع شيء فال يفرض حداً بين‬
‫الواقعات و أنما مرادنا اإلمكان بحسب المادة التي للشيء فإنا إذا نظرنا أصل الشيء و جنسه‬
‫و صنفه و مقدار عظمه و قوته أجرينا الحكم في نسبة ذلك على أحواله و حكمنا باالمتناع على‬
32
‫ما خرج من نطاقه‬
With regard to historical information, people are often tempted to
exaggerate with the purpose of reporting something amazing, as we
mentioned at the beginning of this book. Therefore, one must refer to
one’s sources and [think] independently. He must distinguish with a
clear mind and a sound instinct between what is naturally possible and
what is naturally impossible. What falls within the domain of the possible
should be accepted. What falls within the domain of the impossible
should be rejected. By ‘possible’, we do not mean what is intellectually
possible in an absolute sense, because its domain is too large and
historical facts cannot be precisely delimited within it. By ‘possible’ we
mean what could be possible if we take into account the matter that
pertains to a certain thing. When we carefully consider the essence of a
thing, its genus, property, size and power, we can judge its conditions
on those grounds and conclude that all that falls outside this domain is
impossible.33
As well as describing States and dynasties as living beings, in terms that are
not allegorical but realistic, Ibn Khaldūn uses images of a distinctly poetic
flavour to describe the decline, like that of a lamp which is slowly going
out. On several occasions, he uses the Arabic root ‘wahama’ (meaning: to
make erroneous conjectures, to have illusions and chimeras) with reference
to the impression of pomp and beauty given by the State at the end of its
life cycle. At times, in a fleeting return to pomp and circumstance
(ubbaha), the dying State seems to regain its former splendour, as if it were
managing to triumph over old age, but it is only the last flicker of the
lighted wick (al-dhubāl al-mushta‘al) which shines more brightly just
before going out.
‫و ربما تحدث عند آخر الدولة قوة توهم أن الهرم قد ارتفع عنها و يومض ذبالها إيماضة‬
‫الخمود كما يقع في الذبال المشتعل فإنه عند مقاربة انطفائه يومض يماضة توهم أنها اشتعال و‬
34
‫هي انطفاء فاعتبر ذلك و ال تغفل سر هللا و حكمته في اطراد وجوده على ما قدر فيه‬
At the end of [the life cycle] of a State it appears to have an outward
form of power that gives the illusion of senility having disappeared. It
shines with the brightness that precedes extinction, as happens to a
lighted wick which flares up and give the impression of a new flame
even while it is dying. You should consider that and do not forget the
secret plans of God and His wisdom: all existing things flow continu-
ously according to God’s decree.35
The simile of the lamp conjures up two types of images: the lamps of pre-
Islamic poetry that twinkled in the desert night, revealing the presence of
convents of Christian monks, a refuge for the wayfarers where they could
enjoy drinking wine; and the lamp in which the light of God shines, in the
Qur’ān.36
In his ode (mu‘allaqa), Imru’ al-Qays (fl. sixth century), the most
famous pre-Islamic Arab poet, says that his lover illuminates the darkness
of the night like the nocturnal lamp (manāra) of a hermit monk, or else
that she shines from afar like the lamps of a monk whose wicks have been
impregnated with oil.37
In the Bacchic current of the Umayyad and ‘Abbāsid era, represented by
poets such as al-Walīd ibn Yazīd (707–744) and Abū Nuwās (756–815),
we find this motif in a libertine and at times blasphemous context, in direct
contrast with Muslim religious piety, as in the verses of the caliph and poet
al-Walīd ibn Yazīd. The latter describes himself and other guests as having
taken part in a nocturnal feast in a monastery with dance, singing and
wine, in the company of perfumed women. In that crazy party, says
al-Walīd, they took communion and prostrated themselves in front of the
cross like heretics.38
When Ibn Khaldūn compares the physical and moral degeneration of
the dynasties to a lamp that is going out, the classical Arab imagination is
easily able to conjure up these poetic motifs. At the same time, and in
opposition to these images, we find the motif of a true light, which does
not go out, namely, that of the ‘lamp’ (miṣbāḥ) of God, who is the light of
the heavens and the earth, described in the most beautiful Qur’ānic verse
of light and on which The Niche of Lights by al-Ghazālī is a comment.
The light of God is in a niche, the niche is in a lamp which is like an ever-
shining star. God is light upon light.
ُ‫الز َجا َجة‬ ُّ ۖ ‫ور ِه َك ِم ْشكَا ٍة فِيهَا ِمصْ بَا ٌح ۖ ْال ِمصْ بَا ُح فِي ُز َجا َج ٍة‬ ِ ُ‫ض ۚ َمثَ ُل ن‬ ِ ْ‫ت َو ْالَر‬ ِ ‫للاُ نُو ُر ال َّس َما َوا‬ َّ
َْ‫ُضي ُء َولو‬ ُ َ َ ُ َ َ ْ َ َ
ِ ‫كَأنهَا كوْ كَبٌ دُرِّيٌّ يُوق ُد ِمن ش َج َر ٍة ُمبَا َرك ٍة َز ْيتونَ ٍة ل شَرْ قِيَّ ٍة َول غَرْ بِيَّ ٍة يَكَا ُد َز ْيتهَا ي‬ َّ َ
ِّ‫للاُ بِ ُكل‬ ِ َّ‫للاُ ْالَ ْمثَا َل لِلن‬
َّ ‫اس ۗ َو‬ َّ ُ‫ور ِه َم ْن يَشَا ُء ۚ َويَضْ ِرب‬ َّ ‫ور ۗ يَ ْه ِدي‬
ِ ُ‫للاُ لِن‬ ٍ ُ‫لَ ْم تَ ْم َس ْسهُ نَا ٌر ۚ نُو ٌر َعلَ ٰى ن‬
(٣٥( ‫َي ٍء َعلِي ٌم‬ ْ ‫ش‬
God is the light of the skies and the earth. His light is similar to a
niche, in which there is a lamp, and the lamp is in a glass, which is like
a brilliant star, lit from a blessed tree, an olive tree which is neither
Easterner nor Westerner, the lighted oil of which shines although fire
hardly touches it. Light upon light, God guides to His light whomso-
ever He wants, God tells parables to the human beings and God
knows all things (35).
(Qur’ān, Al-Nūr [Light], 24:35)
Unlike God, the world of the elements is within time (zaman, ayyām). Ibn
Khaldūn states that many historians do not grasp the significance of histor-
ical circumstances (aḥwāl) precisely because they do not grasp their con-
tinual becoming and changing (tabaddul al-aḥwāl). This ceaseless process
of transformation, this being within time, is opposed in theological terms
to the pre-eternity (azal),39 preceding creation. Between pre-eternity and
time there exists an infinitesimal moment: nature (ṭabī‘a) in its purest and
uncorrupted form. Yet it is but a fleeting moment, given that the process of
corruption begins immediately. Herein lies the aesthetic dimension of
history, in its being unceasing becoming and in its distancing itself from
nature as it was at the very beginning, the one true beauty. Historical
science, with its aim of understanding the nature of facts in their precision
and clarity, succeeds in part in recovering that nature, isolating it
abstractly from the physical world. Yet not even historical science endures.
Like all sciences, like all the arts of civilisation, this too is destined to dis-
appear. Does not Ibn Khaldūn himself say, having just claimed the abso-
lute novelty of his ‘great’ and ‘powerful’ science, that, who knows, perhaps
a similar science had already been invented by the flourishing civilisations
of the past that have now disappeared forever?
The level of the longue durée is not a disordered and chaotic flow of
events that rushes towards its ruin. It conforms to precise rules that Ibn
Khaldūn describes both in terms of economic-social laws, according to the
structure already cited in this chapter and in Chapter 2, and in terms of
natural laws, in accordance with his organicistic vision of history.
Nobody, not even God All Mighty and All Knowing, can change them.
This vision of history is accompanied by a permanent nostalgia and melan-
choly in the Muqaddima, which recall the poetic motifs of the ‘ubi sunt’ of
Arabic poetry (and of universal poetry), like the lament of the poet over
the ruins of the dismantled camp of his beloved, verses which open the
famous qaṣīda of Imru’ al-Qays, where the poet addresses his fellow trav-
eller and exhorts him to stop and weep over the remembrance of a
beloved-one and a dwelling,40 or in the verses of ‘Ādī ibn Zayd (fl. sixth
century), which are in harmony with the spirit of Ibn Khaldūn when they
ask where the Persian king Khosrow Anūshirwān is now, where Shābūr is
and what has become of all the magnificent emperors who came before
them.41
Single events
In this final section of the present chapter, we examine the manifestation
of beauty in the single events, which are used in the Muqaddima as
examples to confirm the validity of Ibn Khaldūn’s historical method.
Although it is not the problem of beauty to determine the choice of several
examples mentioned by Ibn Khaldūn, sensual beauty is present in many of
these illustrations, with either a positive or a negative connotation.
We have already mentioned in Chapter 2, the anecdote of the ‘basket’
attributed to al-Ma’mūn is an example of a historical falsehood which
shows the powerful hold that beauty has over the human soul. In that
case, it was a question of the insidious and insinuating sensual beauty
(jamāl), which appears from behind the curtains (min khalal al-sutūr) of a
woman of disturbing features (fattānat al-maḥasin), who takes possession
of the soul (yamluk al-nafs). What could be more senseless than to attrib-
ute to the upright and virtuous al-Ma’mūn the erotic adventures of a
Bedouin (‘ushshāq al-A‘rāb)? Yet it would appear that the readers/listeners
are fascinated by the tale and fall for it.
Even the erotic adventures of the Bedouins have a literary flavour and
are reminiscent of poets like Imru’ al-Qays, with the difference that
al-Ma’mūn is described as the prey of the amorous snares of the beauty,
while in the verses of Imru’ al-Qays, it is the beauties who are the prey of a
poet’s love which is neither insidious or insinuating but explicitly carnal.
In the same ode that we have mentioned before, he boasts of having
sneaked at night into the tents of many a beautiful girl, despite the sentries
who watched them.42
A similar anecdote to that of the basket concerns the pious caliph
Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 786–809), a predecessor of al-Ma’mūn, and recounts
how he got rid of the Barmecid family who had become too influential at
court. The Barmecids were an Iranian dynasty, founded by a Buddhist
priest who had converted to Islam from Bactria (modern Afghanistan).
They entered into the service of the ‘Abbāsids at the time of their anti-
Umayyad revolution (mid-eighth century). One of them, Ja‘far, had
become an intimate companion of Hārūn al-Rashīd and of his sister
al-‘Abbāsa. Hārūn, in order to be able to enjoy both their company during
feasts and banquets, he had made them celebrate a purely formal marriage,
that is one that need not be consummated. However, al-‘Abbāsa had fallen
in love with Ja‘far. While he was drunk and unaware, she let him take
advantage of her during a banquet so that she might fall pregnant by him.
Angered by this turn of events, Hārūn ordered the destruction of the entire
Barmecid family.
As in the case of the anecdote of the ‘basket’, so here Ibn Khaldūn points
out that feasts and banquets in no way correspond to the religious piety of
Hārūn nor to the chastity and virtue of al-‘Abbāsa. In this case as well,
sensual beauty (although no mention of the term ‘jamāl’ is made here) is
associated with luxury (‘awā’id al-taraf), sin (fawāḥish), wine and feasts
made merry by music and song. This wickedness is in stark opposition to the
primitive beauty of the Bedouin Arab way of life (badāwat al-‘arabiyya), the
simplicity of the religion (sadhājat al-dīn) of the caliph. The descent and
morals of a Persian client (mawlā min mawālī al-‘Ajam) like Ja‘far are in
analogous opposition to the morality (ṣawn), the purity (ṭahāra), the virtuous
chastity (‘afāf), and the Arab honour (sharafuhā al-‘arabī) of al-‘Abbāsa.
‫)ومن الحكايات المدخولة للمؤرخين) ما ينقلونه كافة في سبب نكبة الرشيد للبرامكة من قصة‬
‎‫العباسة أخته مع جعفر بن يحيى بن خالد … وهيهات ذلك من منصب العباسة في دينها و‬
‫ قريبة عهد ببداوة العربية و سذاجة الذين البعيدة عن عوائد الترف‬.… ‫أبوتها و جاللها و أنها‬
‫و مراتع الفواحش فأين يطلب الصون و العفاف إذا ذهب عنها أو أين توجد الطهارة و‬
‫الذكاء إذا فقدا من بيتها أو كيف تلحم نسبها بجعفر بن يحيى و تدنس شرفها العربي بمولى من‬
43
‫موالي العجم‬
Another story told by the historians is the one that many of them relate
concerning ‘Abbāsa, al-Rashīd’s sister, and Ja‘far Ibn Yaḥyia Ibn Khālid,
al-Rashīd’s client, in order to explain how al-Rashīd provoked the ruin
of the Barmecids … This story could never apply to al-‘Abbāsa, her rank,
her piety, her lineage and her high position … She was still close to the
epoch of the Bedouin Arab way of life, far from the habits of luxury
and the fertile terrain of sin. Where else should one seek chastity and
morality if she no longer had them? Where would moral cleanness and
purity be if her house had lost them? And how could she partake in the
fall of Ja‘far Ibn Yaḥyia and soil her Arab honour with a Persian client?44
Ibn Khaldūn refuses to accept this romanticised version of events. The

truth is quite different, he explains. By means of their influence at court,
the Barmecids were attempting to seize the power and wealth of the State.
As a further proof of the integrity of Hārūn al-Rashīd, Ibn Khaldūn
reminds us that he had the poet-courtier Abū Nuwās thrown into prison
on the charge of drunkenness.
Traditionally associated with music and song, poetry, like every form of
beauty and sensual pleasure, is not bad in itself. It depends on its ‘purpose’
(qaṣd, gharaḍ). If its aim is lust and lasciviousness, it is then blameworthy
as emerges from an autobiographical anecdote of Ibn Khaldūn’s saying
that he once reproved a prince of royal descent for being keen on learning
to sing and play the strings (fī kalafihi bi ta‘līm al-ghinā’ wa law‘ihi bi
al-awtār).45 However, if the aim of poetry is good, even if it is associated
with music and song, it is good. It is worth noting one instance in the
anecdote cited above concerning Hārūn al-Rashīd: the eye-opener for him
were the verses that the poet-courtiers (mughannīna) were given to recite
by the enemies of the Barmecids at court in order to provoke resentment
(ḥafā’iẓ) in the caliph and unleash his terrible revenge.
We have already mentioned the notion of ‘aim’ (qaṣd), for which a
counterpart can be traced in Greek and Latin aesthetics in the adjectives
‘harmotton’ (which have the same origin as ‘harmony’) and ‘prépon’ in
Greek and above all ‘aptum’ (or the noun ‘decorum’) in Latin.46 In the
Muqaddima, the specific function of sensual beauty is to take possession of
the soul, as in the case of the warriors who were so emboldened by the
songs of their poets as to face death undaunted. A similar function is
found in the verses of the courtiers who were enemies of the Barmecids at
the court of al-Rashīd because they were able to make his angry soul grasp
what his rational mind failed to understand. In these cases, beauty has a
positive connotation because its aim is virtuous.
Resentment (ḥafīẓa) or anger (ghaḍab) is considered reprehensible by
Muslim ethics. A ḥadīth reports that the Prophet replied to a man who
asked him for advice saying that he should not give way to anger (lā
taghḍab). And when the man insisted in asking for advice, the Prophet
would always repeat the same phrase.47 However, even anger, like all the
movements of the irascible soul, is beautiful if used in the service of virtue,
truth and justice. The same is true of the movements of the concupiscent
soul like the passions (shahawāt). If associated with lasciviousness and
blasphemy they are reprehensible, but if associated with virtue and truth
they are praiseworthy. Ibn Khaldūn reminds us that it was the same
Muḥammad who taught that anger (ghaḍab) and the passions must be dir-
ected to ends that are useful (maṣlaḥa) for the community as a whole and
for the triumph of the Word of God. This world, said Muḥammad, is a
mount (maṭiya) we ride to get to the afterlife. In saying so, he meant to
forbid reprehensible actions, but he did not intend to inhibit the passions
(qiwā) that have provoked such actions. Instead, he wanted those passions
to be used for righteous purposes (aghrāḍ). If a man loses his capacity to
feel anger, he loses his capacity to make efforts for the victory of truth.
Anger in the service of the devil is reprehensible, but anger in the service of
God is praiseworthy. The same applies to ardent desires (al-shahawāt).
The Prophet never intended to inhibit them. He meant that they should be
used in the service of licit purposes (mā ubīḥa lahu) and of public interest
(maṣāliḥ).
‫فلم يذم الغضب و هو يقصد نزعه من اإلنسان فإنه لو زالت منه قوة الغضب لفقد‬
‫منه االنتصار للحق و بطل الجهاد و إعالء كلمة هللا و إنما يذم الغضب للشيطان و‬
‫األغراض الذميمة فإذا كان الغصب في هللا و هلل كان ممدوحا ً و هو من شمائله صلى‬
‫هللا عليه و سلم و كذا ذم الشهوات أيضا ً ليس المراد إبطالها بالكلية فإن من بطلت‬
‫شهوته كان نقصا ً في حقه و إنما المراد تصريفها فيما أبيح له باشتماله على المصالح‬
48
‫ليكون اإلنسان عبداً متصرفا ً طوع األوامر اإللهية‬
[The Prophet] did not consider anger blameworthy in the sense that
[its feeling] should be removed from the human soul. If man ceased to
be able to feel anger, he would lose the ability to help truth to
triumph, and the holy war and the exaltation of the world of God
would fall into disuse. [The Prophet] condemned anger in the service
of the devil and for blameworthy purposes. If anger is in God and in
the service of God then it is praiseworthy. [This kind of feeling]
belonged to the Prophet. In the same way, [Muḥammad] did not con-
sider desires blameworthy in the sense that he wanted to neutralise
them. A total abolition of desires would make man imperfect. [The
Prophet] meant that desires should be spent on licit purposes in the
service of the public interest, so that man can be a servant who
behaves willingly in compliance with the commands of God.49
With regard to sensual beauty in the service of noble purposes, Ibn

Khaldūn cites an anecdote attributed to the caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb
(r. 634–644), the second of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (rāshidūn), who,
upon leaving for the recently conquered Syria, found the Arab governor
Mu‘āwiya (the future Umayyad caliph) in royal pomp (fī ubbahāt al-
malik), as displayed both in his outward appearance and in the number
of his attendants.50 ‘Umar, who was renowned for his moral rectitude
and sobriety (tradition portrays him as similar to Marcus Aurelius51),
expresses his disapproval (istankara) of this Persian-style ostentation.
Mu‘āwiya explained to him that this luxury was important for the
victory of Islam. In suppressing the splendour to which the Persians were
so susceptible, the Arabs would never succeed in conquering them. On
hearing these words, ‘Umar said nothing more. In 642, the Persian
Empire, with its splendid capital Ctesiphon, fell into the hands of the
Arab armies.
True beauty in the Muqaddima emerges in opposition to the false
beauty of the senses and is always unsaid. If we want to find it, we must
look for it where it is not or else in the unsaid, in the silence. If we want to
see it, we must look elsewhere. If we want to find it, we must turn our
backs on it. Keeping silence, covering your face and turning your back are
all gestures that are present in the aesthetics of both the Gospel and the
Qur’ān.
In the Gospel, the rich young man asked Jesus what he must do to
gain eternal life. Keep the commandments, said Jesus to which he
replied: I have kept them all from my youth. Leave everything and
follow me, Jesus answered him. Then the rich man became sad because
he had much wealth. He said nothing more but turned his back and
went away. How difficult it is for wealthy people to enter the kingdom
of God!52
In the silence of the rich man, in his inner turmoil and in turning his
back we intuit the beauty of the treasures (thēsaurón) in heaven as
opposed to the false beauty of the treasures on earth.
Silence is also a stylistic device in order to obtain an effect of grandeur
in poetry, as we are told in the Hellenistic treatise On the Sublime (Perì
Hýpsous), which was probably written around the first century. The
anonymous author of this famous treatise mentions the silence of Ajax in
the Odyssey as an example of the sublime in literature. On his journey into
the kingdom of the dead, Ulysses addressed the shade of Ajax, who har-
bours rancour against Ulysses because the latter had shrewdly deprived
him of the arms of the deceased Achilles, which the Greek assembly had
promised to the most valiant warrior. Don’t you forgive, not even after
death, said Ulysses to him. The shade of Ajax did not reply and simply
walked away.53
Ajax’s silence is more eloquent than any words would be, comments the
author of the treatise.
Sublimity (ýpsos) is the resonance of greatness of soul (megalophrosynē).
Sometimes a thought, even without voice, can arouse marvellous astonish-
ment, like the silence of Ajax, which is more sublime than any other
discourse.54
Different again but still sublime in our opinion, is the silence of the
Prophet Muḥammad in the sūra ‘He frowned’ (‘Abasa, Qur’ān 80), a
seemingly most ordinary silence but precisely for that reason all the more
deeply moving and one of the rare autobiographical episodes of the life
of the Prophet in the Qur’ān. Muḥammad was engaged in a discussion
with the notables of Mecca, the rich and powerful Qurayshite merchants,
when a poor blind man came and asked him for an audience. Irritated by
the disturbance, he frowned and turned away, dismissing him. God will
reprove the Prophet in the sūra revealed after this very episode. If a rich
man arrives, you make haste to welcome him, but if a poor, God-fearing
man arrives, you turn your back on him, said God to the Prophet. With
the immediacy and free imaginative logical connections typical of the
Qur’ānic style, the sūra continues saying that these words are a divine
reminder (tadhkira) of the Day of Judgement to the unthankful human
beings, a reminder written on sublime, most pure pages by most noble
scribes. Man is ungrateful to God who has provided him with all kinds
of beauty and the goodness of nature: nourishment, gardens, fruits and
pastures. Yet, on the Day of Judgement, the faces of the good ones will
be laughing, full of gladness, but the faces of the unbelievers will be dark
and dusty.
‫َّح ِيم‬
‫ى‬ٓ ٰ ‫) أَ ۡو يَ َّذ َّك ُر فَتَنفَ َعهُ ٱل ِّذ ۡك َر‬٣( ‫ك لَ َعلَّهُ ۥ يَ َّز َّك ٰ ٓى‬ َ ‫) َو َما ي ُۡد ِري‬٢( ‫) أَن َجآ َءهُ ۡٱلَ ۡع َم ٰى‬١( ‫س َوتَ َولَّ ٰ ٓى‬ َ َ‫َعب‬
(٨( ‫ك يَ ۡس َع ٰى‬ ‫ء‬ ٓ ‫ا‬‫ج‬
َ َ َ َ َّ َ‫ن‬ ‫م‬ ‫ا‬ ‫م‬ َ ‫أ‬ ‫و‬ )٧( ‫ى‬
ٰ ََّ
‫ك‬ ‫ز‬ َّ ‫ي‬ ‫ل‬َّ َ ‫أ‬ ‫ك‬ ۡ
‫ي‬ َ
َ َ َ َ‫ل‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ا‬ ‫م‬ ‫و‬ )٦( ‫ى‬ ٰ َّ
‫د‬ ‫ص‬َ َ ‫ت‬ ‫ۥ‬ ُ ‫ه‬ َ ‫ل‬ َ‫نت‬ َ ‫أ‬َ ‫ف‬ )٥( ‫َى‬ ٰ ‫ن‬ ‫َغ‬ۡ ‫ت‬ ۡ
‫ٱس‬ ‫ن‬ ِ َ َّ )٤)
‫م‬ ‫ا‬ ‫م‬َ ‫أ‬
‫ُف‬ٍ۬ ‫صح‬ ُ ‫) فِى‬١٢( ‫) فَ َمن َشآ َء َذ َك َرهُ ۥ‬١١( ٌ‫َل إِ َّنہَا ت َۡذ ِك َر ۬ة‬ ٓ َّ ‫) ك‬١٠( ‫) فَأَنتَ ع َۡنهُ تَلَه َّٰى‬٩( ‫َوهُ َو يَ ۡخش َٰى‬
ٓ‫ٱلن َس ٰـنُ َما‬ ِ ۡ ‫) قُتِ َل‬١٦( ‫) ِك َر ۭ ِام بَ َر َر ۬ ٍة‬١٥( ‫) بِأ َ ۡي ِدى َسفَ َر ۬ ٍة‬١٤( ‫) َّم ۡرفُو َع ۬ ٍة ُّمطَهَّ َر ۭ ِة‬١٣( ‫ُّم َك َّر َم ۬ ٍة‬
)٢٠( ‫) ثُ َّم ٱل َّسبِي َل يَ َّس َرهُ ۥ‬١٩( ‫) ِمن نُّ ۡطفَ ٍة َخلَقَهُ ۥ فَقَ َّد َرهُ ۥ‬١٨( ‫) ِم ۡن أَىِّ ش َۡى ٍء َخلَقَهُ ۥ‬١٧( ‫أَ ۡكفَ َرهُ ۥ‬
ُ‫ٱلن َس ٰـن‬ ِ ۡ ‫) فَ ۡليَنظُ ِر‬٢٣( ‫ض َمآ أَ َم ۬ َرهُ ۥ‬ ۡ
ِ ‫) ك ََّل لَ َّما يَق‬٢٢( ‫) ثُ َّم إِ َذا َشآ َء أَن َش ۬ َرهُ ۥ‬٢١( ‫ثُ َّم أَ َماتَهُ ۥ فَأَقبَ َرهُ ۥ‬
ۡ
‫) فَأ َ ۢنبَ ۡتنَا فِيہَا َح ۬بًّا‬٢٦( ‫ض َشقًّا‬ َ ‫ر‬ ۡ َ ‫ٱل‬ ۡ ‫َا‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ق‬ۡ َ ‫ق‬ َ
‫ش‬ ‫م‬
َّ ُ ‫ث‬ )٢٥( ‫ا‬ ً ّ ‫ب‬ ‫ص‬
َ َ َ ‫ء‬ ٓ ‫ا‬ ‫م‬ ۡ
‫ٱل‬ ‫َا‬ ‫ن‬ ۡ
‫ب‬ ‫ب‬
ََ ‫ص‬ ‫ا‬َّ ‫ن‬ َ ‫أ‬ )٢٤( ‫إِلَ ٰى طَ َعا ِم ِۤۦه‬
)٣١( ‫) َوفَ ٰـ ِكهَ ۬ةً َوأَ ۬بًّا‬٣٠( ‫ق ُغ ۡل ۬بًا‬ ‫ٮ‬ ٓ
‫ا‬
َ ِٕ َ َ َ ‫د‬ ‫ح‬ ‫و‬ )٢٩( ً ‫ال‬۬ ۡ
‫َخ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫و‬
َ ‫ا‬ ً ۬
‫ن‬ ‫و‬ ُ ‫ت‬ ۡ
‫َي‬‫ز‬ ‫و‬ َ )٢٨( ‫ا‬ ۬ ۡ َ
ً َ ً ‫) َو ِع‬٢٧(
‫ب‬ ‫ض‬ ‫ق‬‫و‬ ‫ا‬ ۬
‫ب‬ َ ‫ن‬
‫) َوأُ ِّمِۦه‬٣٤( ‫) يَ ۡو َم يَفِرُّ ۡٱل َم ۡر ُء ِم ۡن أَ ِخي ِه‬٣٣( ُ‫صآ َّخة‬ َّ ‫ت ٱل‬ ‫ء‬
ِ َ َ ِ ٓ ‫ا‬‫ج‬ ‫ا‬ َ
‫ذ‬ ‫إ‬َ ‫ف‬ )٣٢( ۡ‫َّمتَ ٰـ ۬ ًعا لَّ ُكمۡ َو ِلَ ۡن َع ٰـ ِم ُكم‬
‫) ُوجُو ۬هٌ يَ ۡو َم ِٕٮ ۬ ٍذ‬٣٧( ‫ى ِّم ۡنہُمۡ يَ ۡو َم ِٕٮ ۬ ٍذ ش َۡأ ۬ ٌن ي ُۡغنِي ِه‬ ٍٕ۬ ‫) لِ ُكلِّ ٱمۡ ِر‬٣٦( ‫ص ٰـ ِحبَتِِۦه َوبَنِي ِه‬ َ ‫) َو‬٣٥( ‫َوأَبِي ِه‬
٤١( ٌ‫) ت َۡرهَقُهَا قَتَ َرة‬٤٠( ٌ‫) َو ُوجُو ۬هٌ يَ ۡو َم ِٕٮ ٍذ َعلَ ۡيہَا َغبَ َر ۬ة‬٣٩( ٌ‫اح َك ۬ةٌ ُّم ۡست َۡب ِش َر ۬ة‬ ِ َ )٣٨( ٌ‫) ُّم ۡسفِ َرة‬
‫ض‬ ۬
(٤٢( ُ‫ك هُ ُم ۡٱل َكفَ َرةُ ۡٱلفَ َج َرة‬ َ ‫)أُوْ لَ ٰـ ٓ ِٕٮ‬
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
He frowned and turned away (1) when the blind man came to him (2).
Who could tell you, perhaps he wanted to purify himself (3) and was
ready to receive admonition, and admonition would be beneficial to him
(4). But if a rich man (5) comes to you, you welcome him (6) and you
do not worry if he does not purify himself (7). Instead, the one who
comes with great efforts (8) and with fear (9), you do not pay attention
to (10). No, indeed, this is an admonition (11) and whomsoever wants
shall remember it (12), written on honoured (13), elevated and most
pure pages (14) by the hands of scribes (15) who are noble and innocent
(16). Woe to man, who does not believe (17). From what has He
created him? (18) From a drop of sperm, then He gave him the right
proportions (19). He made the way easy for him (20). He makes him
die and buries him (21), but when He wants, He raises him again (22).
No, indeed, man has not accomplished what God has commanded him
(23). Let man look at his nourishment (24). We poured plenty of rain-
water (25). We split the earth into pieces (26) and made seeds grow (27)
and grapes and plants (28) and olive trees and palms (29) and luxuriant
gardens (30) and fruits and pasture lands (31) for your joy, the joy of
your cattle (32). When the deafening cry comes (33), on the day in
which man will flee from his brother (34), from his own mother and
father (35), from his spouse and children (36), and everyone will be
fully occupied with their own affairs (37), on that day some faces will
be shining (38), laughing and glad (39), whilst others on that same day
will be full of dust (40) and covered in darkness (41). These will be the
unbelievers and the sinful ones (42).
(Qur’ān, ‘Abasa [He Frowned], 80)
At the beginning of this sūra the frown, the silence and the turning away is
an act of non-being which is full of beauty and which stands out on
account of the contrast with what it is not: the purification of self and the
fear of God, the revered and sublime pages, the radiant, joyous faces. The
beauty of paradise mingles with that of the creation: wines and reeds, olive
trees and palms, leafy gardens, fruits and pastures. In contrast to all this,
there are the dusty faces (‘alayhā ghabara), veiled in darkness (tarhaquhā
qatara), the silence, the frown and the turning away.
Also, at the time of the Qur’ānic revelation, as is reported in the
Muqaddima, men were silent at first and refrained from composing verses
as if rendered mute by so much beauty.
To conclude, the silence of the Muqaddima is perfectly consistent with the
way Ibn Khaldūn speaks to us of beauty. Looking more closely, Ibn Khaldūn
hardly ever speaks of intelligible beauty, save in rare cases and in a clearly alle-
gorical way. For him, beauty (jamāl) is sensual, whether it be a beauty defined
by contrast, or whether it be in the harmony of forms, colours and sounds,
whether it be ethical and perceptible beauty because composed of concrete
actions or whether it be a beauty composed of a palpable silence.
In the course of this book, we have at times stated that although Ibn
Khaldūn does not directly and explicitly pose the problem of the beautiful,
the Muqaddima can be read from an aesthetic perspective. The analysis of
beauty in history presented in this third chapter takes us even further. It
allows us to affirm that thanks to the fact that Ibn Khaldūn does not put
the problem of the beautiful explicitly and directly, the Muqaddima can be
read in an aesthetic way. If Ibn Khaldūn had openly posed the problem of
the beautiful, he would probably have given a rigid and doctrinal exposi-
tion similar to the way in which he presents the contents of the diverse arts
and sciences. Precisely because he does not pose this problem explicitly, he
manages to speak freely of beauty to us, without the restrictions of ideo-
logy, reason and awareness.
Notes
1 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, edited by Etienne Quatremère, Prolégomènes d’Ebn
Khaldoun, Vols I–III (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1970 [1858]), Vol. I, 2.
2 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, translated by Franz Rosenthal, The Muqaddi-
mah: An Introduction to History, Vols I–III (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1980 [1967]), Vol. I, 6.
3 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 56–58. Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. I, 71–73.
5 The Ismā‘īlīs are a Shiite community. An Iranian Ismā‘īlī sect, known as the
ḥashīshīyūna, represented a serious political threat for the Seljuk Sultanate in
the eleventh century.
6 Imām, literally, he who leads the believers in prayer, comes to mean, by exten-
sion, the political leader of the Muslim community, the caliph. The Shiite and
even more so the Ismā‘īlī tradition, bestowed supernatural and sometimes semi-
divine status on the imam.
(Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 55–56. Al-Ābilī? We have not found confirm-
ation of this information in the sources.
ْ َ ‫ت َو‬
10 ٥٤ … ‫ش‬ ِ ْ‫ض فِي ِستَّ ِة أَي ٍَّام ثُ َّم ا ْستَ َو ٰى َعلَى ْال َعر‬
َ ْ‫الر‬ َ َ‫إِنَّ َربَّ ُك ُم َُّللا الَّ ِذي َخل‬, (Qur’ān, Al-A‘rāf
ِ ‫ق ال َّس َما َوا‬
[The Battlements], 7:54).
11 [Ibn Rushd] Averroes, Kitāb faṣl al-maqāl wa taqrīr mā bayna al-sharī ‘a wa
al-ḥikma min al-ittiṣāl, translated by Marc Geoffroy, Averroës, Discours décisif
(Paris: Flammarion, 1996), 140–142.
12 [Ibn Rushd] Averroes (1996), 120–121. It refers to the rules of construction for
metaphors (majāz), [Ibn Rushd] Averroes (1996), 118.
13 Gianni Vattimo, La fine della modernità [The End of Modernity] (Milan:
Garzanti, 1985), 16.
14 Garcin de Tassy, Rhétorique et prosodie des langues de l’orient musulman (Paris:
Maisonneuve & Larose, 1873), 102. The essential unity of the rules of Arabic,
Turkish and Persian rhetoric and the fact of having been conserved intact until
the modern era, allows us to cite this late work written in Muslim India where
Persian was the literary and administrative language until the nineteenth century.
15 Shams-e Qays, Al-Mu‘jam fi ma‘āyīr ash‘ār al-‘ajam, edited by Sirus Shamisā
(Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Ferdows, 1373/1995), 190.
16 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 11–12.
20 [Ibn Sīnā], Avicenne, ‘Ilm al-nafs, edited by Ján Bakoš, Psychologie d’Ibn Sīnā
(Avicenne) d’après son oeuvre ash-Shifāʼ, Vols I–II (Prague: Editions de
l’Académie Tchécoslovaque des Sciences, 1956a), I, 177. [Ibn Sīnā], Avicenne),
‘Ilm al-nafs, translated by Ján Bakoš, Psychologie d’Ibn Sīnā (Avicenne) d’après son
oeuvre ash-Shifāʼ, Vols I–II (Prague: Editions de l’Académie Tchécoslovaque des
Sciences, 1956b), II, 129.
21 Al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-anwār (Cairo: s.n., 1964). Al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt
al-anwār, translated by William Henry Temple Gairdner, Mishkāt Al-Anwar
(‘The Niche for Lights’) (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1924), n.p.
22 Cf. Chapter 2, n. 8.
23 De Tassy (1873), 9.
24 For example, Auguste Comte, Cours de Philosophie Positive [1830–1842]
(Paris, Nathan, 1989).
27 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 247–248.
29 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 316–317.
31 We are thinking of Aristotelian logic and, in particular, Topics, where Aristotle
expounds the attributes of a substance or the predicates: definition (hóros),
property (ídion), genus (génos) and accident (sunbebêkòs). A ‘definition’ is a
sentence signifying the essence of a thing. A ‘property’ belongs exclusively to a
thing but is not inherent in its essence. A ‘genus’ is a character that distin-
guishes a thing from other things that all belong to the same kind. An ‘accident’
may belong or not belong to a thing; see Aristotle, Topics, translated by
J. Barnes, The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vols I–III (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1995), Vol. I, Book I, 4–5, 101b11–102b5, n.p. We are also
thinking of the Metaphysics, with regard to ‘capacity’ (dynamis), ‘incapacity’,
the ‘possible’ (dynatón) and the ‘impossible’ (adynatón). Aristotle distinguishes
between three types of possible: that which is not of necessity false’; that which
is true; and that which is incapable of being true. The possible of which Ibn
Khaldūn speaks concerning true historical facts belongs, in our opinion, to the
Aristotelian category of that which is true. Aristotle, Metaphysics, translated by
W. D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), Book V, 12, 1610. Greek text
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, edited by W. David Ross, Vols I–II (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1924), Vol. I, Book Δ, 1019b, n.p.
32 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 329. The text mentions faṣl instead of ṣinf.
36 Qur’ān, Nūr [Light], 24:35.
37 Imru’ al-Qays, Mu‘allaqa, in ‘The Hanged Poems: The Poem of Imru ul-Quais’,
translated by F.E. Johnson, in The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the
East, Vols I–XIV, Ancient Arabia, edited by C.F. Horne (New York: Park,
Austin and Lipscomb, 1917), Vol. V, n.p.. Arabic text: Imru’ al-Qays,
‘Mu‘allaqa’, translated by and commentary Simon Gandz, Die Mu‘allaqa des
Imrulqais (Vienna: Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, 1913).
38 Al-Walīd Ibn Yazīd, Dīwān, edited by Francesco Gabrieli, Dīwān Al-Walīd Ibn
Yazīd (s.l: s.n., 1937), 56, poem n. 91.
39 ‘Azal’, pre-eternity, a theological and philosophical term, does not appear
explicitly in the Muqaddima.
40 Imru’ al-Qays (1917).
41 Quoted by Francesco Gabrieli, La letteratura araba (Florence/Milan: Sansoni/
Accademia, 1967), 57.
42 Imru’ al-Qays (1913), 114; and Imru’ al-Qays (1917), n.p.
43 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 18–19.
44 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn, (1980), Vol. I, 28–29.
45 Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. I, 40; and Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 29.
46 On the meaning of these terms in ancient Greek and Roman aesthetics and that
of medieval Europe, cf. Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz Storia dell’estetica, Vols I–III
(Torino: Einaudi, 1979, 1st Polish edn 1970).
47 Ḥadīth XVI, in Al-Nawawī (1233–1277), Al-Arba‘īna, translated by M.A.
Sabri, Quaranta ḥadīth, (Rome: Centro Editoriale Studi Islamici, 1982), 70–71.
Arabic parallel text.
51 The Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) is the
author of the Meditations (Tà eis heautón, ‘To one’s self’), Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations (London: Erebus Society, 2017).
52 Mark 10:17–23, Christian Standard Bible (CSB) (Nashville: B&H Publishing
Group, 2017).
53 Homer, Odyssey, XI, 541–547, translated by S. Butler (s.l., s.n., 1898),
196–197.
54 Longinus, Perì Hýpsous, translated by H.L. Havell, On the Sublime (London:
Macmillan, 1990). For the Greek text: Longinus, Perì Hýpsous, translated by
Giulio Guidorizzi: Anonimo, Il Sublime (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1991), 57.
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Aristotle (1970) Metaphysics, trans. W. David Ross Aristotle’s Metaphysics,
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Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori. Greek parallel text.
Shams-e Qays (Shams al-Din Moḥammad Ebn Qeys al-Razi) (1373/1995) Al-Mu‘jam
fi ma‘āyīr ash‘ār al-‘ajam, ed. Sirus Shamisā. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Ferdows.
Tatarkiewicz, Wladyslaw (1979 [1970]) Storia dell’estetica, Vols I–III. Torino: Einaudi.
Vattimo, Gianni (1985) La fine della modernità. Milan: Garzanti.
4 Human geography and
the Unseen world
Knowledge and beauty in human
geography and in the perceptions
of the Unseen (ghayb)
In this chapter, we continue our journey through the Muqaddima by ana-

lysing the first chapter of the first book of the Kitāb al-‘Ibar,1 or the section
of the Muqaddima on ‘Human civilisation’ (fī al-‘umrān al-basharī),
divided into six ‘prefaces’ (muqaddimāt). The first five prefaces deal with
the physical and human geography of the world, while the sixth preface
deals with the perceptions (idrāk) that allow us access to the knowledge of
the Unseen or Supernatural world (ghayb).
In the first section of this chapter, we shall analyse the way in which Ibn
Khaldūn describes the manifestation of beauty in physical and human geo-
graphy. We shall see that the type of climate and physical environment of
the temperate (mu‘tadil) regions of the globe are at the origin of the well-
proportioned bodies of their inhabitants, of their moral and intellectual
virtues, which are in turn defined as ‘temperate’, and of the harmonious
development of the civilisations, arts and sciences. The central aesthetic
notion in the treatment of human geography is precisely that of ‘i‘tidāl’ (from
which comes the adjective mu‘tadil), which means to be symmetric, accurately
measured, well proportioned, harmonious, temperate and tempering. It shares
part of its semantic field with ‘tawassuṭ’ (the right means) and ‘tanāsub’ (pro-
portion), containing in itself a meaning which is at once ethical, aesthetic,
anthropological and geographical. The theme of the first section of this
chapter is thus phenomenological beauty in human geography.
In the second section, we shall deal with the perceptions of the Unseen
(ghayb), which indicates in this case a world that is adjacent and superior
to the human world and which we have already alluded to in the previous
chapters. In this context, the word ‘perception’ (idrāk) indicates both
man’s difficulty in penetrating the Unseen world and the importance of
images and sounds since it is in this way that the Supernatural presents
itself not to the intellect but also to the imaginative faculty. From this
point of view, the perceptions of the Unseen are aesthetic perceptions in
the literal sense of the term (from the Greek aísthēsis, sensation). From the
analysis of the way Ibn Khaldūn speaks of prophecy (nubuwwa), the most
noble of the perceptions of the Supernatural, there emerges a great affinity
between the latter and poetry. Both are manifestations of knowledge of an
Human geography and the Unseen world 59
imaginative rather than intellectual type. The theme of this second section
is the epistemological beauty of prophecy.
Phenomenological beauty in human geography

The first five sections (muqaddimāt) of the first book of the Kitāb al-‘ibar
give a geographical description of the earth based on the Book of Roger
(Kitāb Rujār), a geographical work written by al-Idrīsī for the Norman
King Roger of Sicily in 1154.2 The earth is round and divided into two
equal parts by the equator. The part which is not covered by water consti-
tutes half of the globe. The inhabited part of the earth is divided into seven
zones or climates (aqālīm). In the first and second zone, there is ‘less civili-
sation’ (aqall ‘umrān), it is less inhabited and less civilised. The number of
inhabitants and the level of civilisation increases from the third zone
onwards, reaching its peak in the fourth zone which corresponds to Spain,
the Maghreb, Syria, Iraq, Western India (Sind) and China. The most tem-
perate (aqrab min al-i‘tidāl) of the peoples who inhabit these zones are the
inhabitants of Iraq and Syria. The temperate nature of the climate of these
regions is reflected in the fact that everything is well proportioned, from
the bodies of the inhabitants, their dress, their tools, their food, their s ciences,
their crafts and their buildings (al-‘ulūm, al-ṣanā’i‘ wa al-mabānī) to their
nature and their behaviour. Among them, we find prophecy (nubuwwāt),
political authority (mulk), an organised State (duwal), religious laws (sharā’i‘)
and crafts and sciences. This is a further proof of their harmonious and tem-
perate nature. All these characteristics are defined in terms of i‘tidāl.
‫ فلهذا‬.… ‫فاإلقليم الرابع أعدل العمران و الذي حفافيه من الثالث و الخامس أقرب إلى االعتدال‬
‫كانت العلوم و الصنائع و المباني و المالبس و األقوات و الفواكه و الحيوانات و جميع ما يتكون‬
‫في هذه األقاليم الثالثة المتوسطة مخصوصة باالعتدال و سكانها من البشر أعدل أجساما ً و‬
‫ألوانا ً و أخالقا ً و أحوالهم فتجدهم على غاية من التوسط في مساكنهم و مالبسهم و أقواتهم‬
‫ و يبعدون عن االنحراف في عامة أحوالهم و هؤالء أهل المغرب و الشام‬.… ‫صنائعهم‬
‫ و لهذا كان العراق و الشام أعدل هذه‬.… ‫و العراقين و السند و الصين و كذلك األندلس‬
3
‫كلها‬
In the fourth zone we find the most temperate civilisation, and the bor-
dering third and fifth zones are closer to being temperate [than the other
parts of the world] … Therefore the sciences, the crafts, the buildings,
the clothes, the food, the fruits, the animals and all that exists in these
three middle-regions is temperate. In the same manner, their inhabitants
and peoples are more harmonious [a‘dal] in their bodies, colour, charac-
ter and [all] conditions. Their houses, dresses, alimentation and crafts
are extremely well proportionated … [These people] avoid deviating
[from the golden mean] in all their conditions. They are the peoples of
the Maghreb, Syria, Iraq, Sind, China and Andalusia … with Iraq and
Syria being the most temperate of all.4
60 Human geography and the Unseen world
In this geographical and anthropological context, the notion of i‘tidāl, in
its literal sense of ‘being equal on both sides’, thus ‘in equilibrium’, ‘sym-
metrical’, and the notion of tawassuṭ, the right means and the right
measurement, occupies a semantic field which is at the same time aesthetic,
moral, epistemological and religious. The inhabitants of the temperate
regions of the globe attain the goal of achieving balance and the right pro-
portions in every aspect of their existence, taking it to the utmost limit
(ghāya) of their specific perfection (kamāl). The perfection of something is
not an abstract and unattainable ideal but the concrete realisation of its
goal and of its specific purpose. Imperfection is falling beneath that limit,
by defect, or going beyond it, by excess. Ibn Khaldūn’s description of the
aesthetic beauty of civilisations at their peak, with their marvellous
(‘ajā’ib) buildings, their imposing (‘aẓīma) cities, their arts, sciences, the
religions revealed by the prophets and the States whose laws exercise a
restraining influence (wāzi‘) on man’s natural aggressivity contrasts starkly
with the idea of degeneration and decadence to which these same civilisa-
tions are doomed. Indeed, the seeds of the final destruction of civilisations
are already visible in the love of luxury and in the self-indulgence of highly
civilised peoples, in accordance with the leitmotiv which runs throughout
the entire Muqaddima. On closer inspection, however, the descriptions of
the men and civilisations of temperate regions in terms of harmonious pro-
portions and temperance is similar to a portrait or a photo that captures
them in their prime. Like photographs, this is an image without movement
and lifeless. The real life of men and civilisations is to be found in time
which inexorably devours them.
We could imagine that, even if civilisations were to perish, the beauty of
balance and of the right proportions (i‘tidāl) would endure in the physical
world, in the climate and in the landscape. But the physical beauty of
nature is almost totally absent in Muqaddima, where the focus is exclu-
sively on man and history. Nature was very much present in ancient aes-
thetics, as in the De rerum natura of Lucretius, the great Epicurean Roman
poet of the first century bce. Lucretius shares with Ibn Khaldūn a grandi-
ose vision of the universe as a place of unceasing birth, growth and
destruction of bodies and their elements.
Benignant Venus! thou, the sail-clad main

And fruitful earth, as round the seasons roll,
With life who swellest, for by thee all live,
And, living, hail the cheerful light of day: –
Thee, goddess, at thy glad approach, the winds,
The tempests fly: dedalian Earth to thee
Pours forth her sweetest flow’rets: Ocean laughs,
And the blue heavens in cloudless splendour decked.
For, when the Spring first opes her frolic eye,
And genial zephyrs long locked up respire,
Thee, goddess, then, th’ aerial birds confess,
To rapture stung through every shivering plume:
Thee, the wild herds; hence, o’er the joyous glebe
Bounding at large; or, with undaunted chest,
Stemming the torrent tides. Through all that lives
So, by thy charms, thy blandishments o’erpowered,
Springs the warm wish thy footsteps to pursue:
Till through the seas, the mountains, and the floods.
The verdant meads, and woodlands filled with song,
Spurred by desire each palpitating tribe
Hastes, at thy shrine, to plant the future race.5
Lucretius’ atomism, of Epicurean origin, expresses a grandiose vision of

the cosmos whose beauty partly consoles the poet for the destiny of all
mortals. The atomism of Ibn Khaldūn, slight in terms of explicit references
but nevertheless present in the Muqaddima, is the result of his purely
formal adherence to the Ash‘ari theology (‘ilm al-kalām). It is found within
a vision which is still grandiose, albeit on a lesser scale, since it is not
cosmic but historical- anthropocentric, and which renders it desolate due
to the absence of any authentic religious faith.
Although barely present in the Muqaddima, the beauty of nature is no
stranger to Arab culture. We find it again in the descriptive pseudorealism of
pre-Islamic Arab poetry. It is especially present in the Qur’ān, where it has
the peculiarity of being indistinct from man-made products, which are con-
sidered on the same plane as the beauty of the creation, the handiwork of
God. As Bausani observes, the Greek notion of a universe regulated by
natural laws is totally alien to the Qur’ān. In the Holy Book of Islam, there
are no secondary causes: everything is the immediate work of God. In this
respect, Bausani refers to an eloquent verse of the sūra of ‘The Cow’, where
the ships skimming over the oceans are on the same plane as natural phe-
nomena. There is no difference between the world of human activities and
the world of nature: they are both the direct work of the person of God.6
‫ار َو ْالفُ ْل ِك الَّتِي تَجْ ِري فِي ْالبَحْ ِر بِ َما‬ِ َ‫ف اللَّي ِْل َوالنَّه‬ِ ‫اختِ َل‬ْ ‫ض َو‬ِ ْ‫ت َو ْالَر‬ ِ ‫ق ال َّس َما َوا‬ ِ ‫إِ َّن فِي خ َْل‬
ُ ْ َّ
‫ض بَ ْع َد َموْ تِهَا َوبَث فِيهَا ِمن كلِّ دَابَّ ٍة‬ َ ْ َ َ ْ َّ ْ َ
َ ْ‫اس َو َما أن َز َل للاُ ِمنَ ال َّس َما ِء ِمن َما ٍء فأحْ يَا بِ ِه الر‬ َ َّ‫يَ ْنفَ ُع الن‬
ُ
(۱۶٤( َ‫ت لِقوْ ٍم يَ ْعقِلون‬ َ ٍ ‫ض َليَا‬ َ ْ َّ ْ
ِ ْ‫ب ال ُم َسخ ِر بَيْنَ ال َّس َما ِء َوالر‬
ِ ‫اح َوال َّس َحا‬ ِ َ‫يف الرِّ ي‬ ِ ‫َوتَصْ ِر‬
In the creation of the skies and the earth, in the alternation of the
night and the day, in the ships that run on the water for the benefit of
the human beings, in the rain that God makes descend from the sky
and through which He gives new life to the dead earth, and spreads on
the earth all sorts of beasts, in the changing winds and the clouds con-
strained by them between the sky and the earth, certainly there are
signs for a people who understand (164).
(Qur’ān, Baqara [The Cow], 2:164)
In this context, it is clear that we understand by ‘nature’ not the ṭabī‘a or
fiṭra, in the sense of the original principle of things just created by God,
which however is a fundamental element in the aesthetics of the Muqad-
dima. In this context, we understand by nature the cosmos, and, on
earth, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms which will become
landscape in modern Romantic aesthetics. Nature in the sense of the
cosmos plays a very important part in the Qur’ān and is portrayed with
a sensitivity that makes the Holy Book of Islam, a unique example of
Romanticism in Arab-Islamic literature.7 In contrast, nature provides
only the most bare and faint background to the Muqaddima. Yet, the
Qur’ānic text, read, recited and meditated on by Muslims for genera-
tions, could not but be present in all its entirety in the memory and
culture of Ibn Khaldūn. It is as if he had translated the vivid picture of
nature present in the Qur’ān into a few photographic shots within this
great historical-anthropological panorama of Arab civilisation which is
the Muqaddima.
But let us return to the notion of i‘tidāl in physical and human geo-
graphy. Just as Averroes believes that human nature is the same for men
and women, so Ibn Khaldūn says that the anthropological differences of
the inhabitants of the non-temperate zones is not due to their different
nature (ṭabī‘a), but to the climate. The irrational part of the soul is
dominant in Black Africans (khuluq al-Sūdān) and is revealed in their incli-
nation for dancing, music and song which gives rise to a state that is
similar to intoxication. They are excessive in their eating habits and favour
foods that are extremely spicy (gharīb). Their joyous and euphoric temper-
ament is due to the heat which, in the opinion of philosophers, produces
an expansion of the animal spirit (intishār al-rūḥ al-ḥayawānī).8 This is why
we experience a sensation of happiness and begin to sing when we take a
hot bath. But excessive heat creates intemperance. Because they have
strayed from the path of right proportions (al-inḥirāf min al-i‘tidāl), Black
people are not open to that primitive and original knowledge (‘ilm) which
predisposes men from temperate zones to embrace religion (dīn) and
prophecy (nubuwwa).
Ibn Khaldūn contrasts Blacks with the inhabitants of temperate zones
and among these not so much the peoples of the fertile zones but the
Bedouins of the desert whose frugality and temperance predispose them to
embrace revelation and prophecy. Speaking of their character, he says it is
far from deviating (ab‘ad min al-inḥirāf), where he means ‘from temper-
ance’. Frugality renders the inhabitants of the desert stronger in body and
spirit than the inhabitants of the fertile hills who live in the midst of abun-
dance. They are fat, with washed-out complexions (inkisāf al-alwān) and
ugly figures (qubḥ al-ashkāl). The Bedouins of the desert eat plain food
and have clear complexions and lively minds. Experience (tajruba) proves
that they are sharper in their intelligence and perception (al-ma‘ārif wa
al-idrāk).
They resemble the wild gazelles, cows, ostriches, giraffes and onagers
with their shiny coats, graceful gait, well-proportioned bodies and keen
senses (ṣafā’ adīmihā, ḥusn rawnaqihā wa ashkālihā wa tanāsub a‘ḍa’ihā
wa ḥiddat madārikihā).
‫هؤالء الفاقدين للحبوب و األدم من أهل القفار أحسن حاالً في جسومهم و أخالقهم من أهل‬
‫ فألوانهم أصفى و أبدانهم أنقى و أشكالهم أتم و أحسن و أخالقهم‬... ‫التلول المنغمسين في العيش‬
‫ فكثير ما بين العرب و البربر‬.… ‫أبعد من االنحراف و أذهانهم أثقب في المعارف و اإلدراكات‬
‫فيما وصفناه و بين الملثمين و أهل التلول … و السبب في ذلك و هللا أعلم أن كثرة األغذية و‬
‫ ويتبع ذلك انكساف األلوان و قبح األشكال من كثرة اللحم‬.… ‫رطوبتاها تولد في الجسم فضالت رديئة‬
‫ فتجيء البالدة و الغفلة و االنحراف عن االعتدال بالجملة و اعتبر ذلك في حيوان القفر و‬.…
‫مواطن الجدب من الغزال و الهمى و النعام و الزرافة و الحمر الوحشية و البقر مع أمثالها من‬
‫حيوان التلول و الهمى و المراعي الخصبة كيف تجد بينها بونا ً بعيداً في صفاء أديمها و حسن‬
9
‫رونقها و أشكالها و تناسب أعضائها و حدة مداركها‬
The Bedouins of the desert who lack of grains and condiment have
healthier bodies and characters than the peoples of the hills who have
all they want in life. The Bedouins of the desert have a brighter colour,
a purer body, a more perfect and beautiful physical structure. Their
character is farther from deviating [from being temperate]. Their
minds are sharper in knowledge and perceptions … There is a great
difference between the Arabs and the Berbers on one side, and the
[veiled] Berbers and the peoples of the hills on the other side. The
reason for that, God knows better! is that abundance of food and its
humidity which produces harmful residual substances in the body …
As a consequence, they have a pale complexion, an ugly physical struc-
ture, because they have too much flesh … Stupidity, negligence and a
general deviation from temperance affect them. The same phenomenon
can be observed in the animals of desert and waste lands, such as
gazelles, wild cows, ostriches, giraffes, onagers and wild buffaloes who
differ from the animals of the hills, the plains and fertile lands. There is
a great difference in the former with respect to the purity, the beauty
and the brilliance of their coat, their structure, the harmonious propor-
tion of their limbs and the sharpness of their perception.10
Notwithstanding the beautiful photograph that immortalises sedentary

citizens at the perfectly well-proportioned (i‘tidāl) peak of their sophistic-
ated civilisation, as if they have escaped the corrosion of time, it is the
frugal Bedouins of the desert who are the champions of virtue and beauty.
These qualities stem from a non-being, a lack and a hunger (jaw‘), which
render them even more disposed to worship God (‘ibāda). This is why
ascetics (ahl al-ryāḍa), who are used to fasting, accomplish extraordinary
things (gharība). This non-being is also the idea of a not yet being, given
that it is precisely the Bedouins gifted with ‘aṣabiyya who are predisposed
to found States and civilisations.
All these elements come together and meet in the negative aesthetics of
the Muqaddima, or rather a notion of beauty which is defined above all
else by contrast. The comparison between the Bedouins of the desert and
wild animals is one of the rare cases in which the Muqaddima offers us a
positive (in the sense of explicit) description of beauty, one of the rare
cases in which we are told, albeit in a simile, what beauty really is. The
comparison between the Bedouins of the desert and wild animals conjures
up another recurrent motif in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, in addition to
those already seen in the ubi sunt and in the light of a nocturnal lamp of a
hermit in the desert. It is the motif which consists of a detailed and realistic
description of animals and in particular of the camel. The mu‘allaqa (ode)
by Ṭarafa (fl. sixth century) gives us a most detailed description of his
handsome camel, which reflects all the beauty of the wild animals evoked
by Ibn Khaldūn: the strength and beauty of her thighs, her ribs, her flanks,
her spine, her forearms, the sharpness of her ears, the purity of her dust-
free eyes.11
If the descriptions of the sensual beauty of nature are rare in the
Muqaddima, descriptions of the beauty of God are totally absent. If any-
thing, this is called ‘the greatness of God’, (‘uẓmat-Allāh), and never
‘jamāl’.12
In an eloquent passage, which illustrates what the beauty of God is not,
Ibn Khaldūn speaks of a bare land which he contrasts with gold, brocade,
silk and horses that trample the harvest of the fields underfoot. In fact, Ibn
Khaldūn records an anecdote taken from the Murūj al-dhahab (The
Meadows of Gold) by the historian al-Mas‘ūdī (896–956), concerning the
‘Abbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 754–775). The latter had the son of the last
Umayyad caliph, ‘Abdallāh ibn Marwān, brought to him. ‘Abdallāh had
fled to Nubia after the fall of the Umayyads and the caliph made him
recount his meeting with the King of Nubia. ‘Abdallāh reported to him
that the King had received him sitting on the bare ground and had
reproved the Muslims because they drank wine, dressed in precious gar-
ments, brocade, gold and silk, and let their horses trample the harvest, all
of which were contrary to the principles of their religion. When ‘Abdallāh
tried to justify himself, the Nubian King made no reply but lowered his
head in silence (fa aṭraqa). He then enjoined ibn Marwān to leave for fear
of being struck down by divine punishment himself.
Having heard this tale, al-Manṣūr fell silent and bowed his head too,
full of wonder (fa ta‘ajjaba al-Manṣūr wa aṭraqa).
ً‫)ثم) استحضر[المنصور] عبد هللا ابن مروان فقصّ عليه خبره مع ملك النوبة لما دخل أرضهم فارا‬
‫أمام بني العباس قال أقمت مليا ً ثم أتاني ملكهم فقعد على األرض و قد بسطت له فرش ذات‬
‫قيمة فقلت ما منعك عن القعود على ثيابنا قال إني ملك و حق لكل ملك أن يتواضع لعظمة هللا‬
‫إذ رفعه هللا ثم قال لي لم تشربون الخمر و هي محرمة عليكم في كتابكم قلت فعل ذلك عبيدنا‬
‫و أتباعنا قال فلم تطؤون الزرع بدوابكم و الفساد محرم عليكم في كتابكم قلت فعل ذلك‬
‫عبيدنا و أتباعنا بجهلهم قال لم تلبسون الديباج و الذهب و الحرير و هو محرم عليكم في‬
‫كتابك قلت ذهب منا الملك و انتصرنا بقوم من العجم دخلوا في ديننا فلبسوا ذلك على‬
‫ بيده في األرض و يقول عبيدنا و أتباعنا و أعاجم دخلوا في ديننا ثم‬13‫الكره منا فأطرق ينكث‬
‫رفع رأسه إلي و قال ليس كما ذكرت بل أنتم قوم استحللتم ما حرّم هللا عليكم … و أنا خائف‬
‫أن يحل بكم العذاب أنتم ببلدي فينالني معكم و إنما الضيافة ثالث فتزوّد ما احتجت إليه و‬
14
‫ارتحل عن أرضي فتعجب المنصور و أطرق‬
[The ‘Abbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr] had ‘Abdallāh Ibn Marwān brought
to him. [‘Abdallāh] informed him about his meeting with the king of
Nubia and telling that he entered his land when fleeing from the
‘Abbāsids. ‘I had been there for a certain time, when the king of Nubia
came to me and sat on the [bare] ground, while precious carpets had
been spread out for him’. I asked him: ‘What does prevent you from
sitting on our woven materials?’. He said: ‘I am a king and a king
must be humble before the greatness of God, since God has elevated
him’. Then he asked me: ‘Why do you drink wine, while it is forbid-
den to you in your Book?’ I answered: ‘Our slaves and followers do so
in their ignorance’. He asked: ‘Why do you wear brocade, gold and
silk, while they are forbidden to you in your Book?’ I answered: ‘We
lost the [reins of] political power [mulk] and we triumphed with the
help of non-Arabs who converted to our religion and were used to
wearing such [clothes] against our will’. [The king] lowered his head
in silence. He drew signs on the ground, murmuring: ‘ “Our slaves” …
“our followers converted to our religion” …’ Then he raised his head
to me and said: ‘Things are not as you tell them. You are a people
who have regarded as permissible what God has forbidden to you … I
fear that the punishment [that God has reserved to you] may fall on
me too if you remain in my country. The [duty of] hospitality is of
three days. Thus prepare your provisions and leave!’
At this tale, [the ‘Abbāsid caliph] al-Manṣūr fell silent and bowed
his head, full of wonder.15
In the silence of the King of Nubia, where the verb ‘aṭraqa’ expresses the
idea of bowing the head while falling silent, collecting oneself, as in the
silence of al-Manṣūr accompanied by a sense of wonder (ta‘ajjaba), we
again find the aesthetics of non-being and of silence of which we spoke in
Chapter 3 concerning the silence of ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and the frowning
of the Prophet when the blind man came to him. As we continue our
aesthetic journey through the Muqaddima, more and more elements

concur to create its vision of beauty, a vision that stems above all from a
negative aesthetics.
To conclude this section on phenomenological beauty in human geo-
graphy, we note that the notion of i‘tidāl has a double meaning. Its most
obvious meaning is that of the proportion, symmetry and harmony pro-
duced by advanced sedentary civilisations, with their sophisticated arts and
sciences, their stupendous buildings and their grandiose cities (al-mudun
al-‘aẓīma). But it is a beauty which is lifeless and without movement like a
photograph which immortalises human beings at the peak of their vigour
and in the prime of life. It is for this photograph that Ibn Khaldūn
expresses appreciation and admiration, not for concrete civilisations which
time inevitably devours and destroys.
In its other meaning, the term i‘tidāl is not mentioned explicitly but is
inferred in the phrase that attributes to the desert Bedouins ‘the absence of
deviation’, meaning ‘the absence of deviation from temperance’ (‘adam
al-iḥtirāf min al-i‘tidāl). This semantic gap fits perfectly with the beauty
and the virtue of the desert Bedouins, which is described in terms of a lack,
frugality, hunger and the absence of excess. In this second meaning, the
term i‘tidāl refers to something that is not (an absence of deviation from
temperance) or which is yet to come (the harmonious proportions of the
urban civilisation that the Bedouins will found). It is precisely in this
context that Ibn Khaldūn offers us a rare description of the physical, moral
and intellectual beauty of the Bedouins, comparing them to the gazelles
and other wild animals of the desert. In this case, the weight of Arabic
poetic tradition was probably too strong not to make itself felt naturally
through the simile evoked by the author of the Muqaddima.
If the notion of i‘tidāl in relation to human geography is a feature that
enriches the picture of phenomenological beauty in the Muqaddima, in the
next section of this chapter we shall analyse the intelligible dimension of
beauty, understood by means of the incursions that human beings can make
into the Unseen (ghayb), thanks to a particular type of perceptions (idrākāt).
Our analysis will focus on the epistemological beauty of prophecy.
The epistemological beauty of prophecy

The sixth preface (muqaddima) of the first chapter of the Kitāb al-‘ibar
concerns different types of supernatural perceptions. The perceptions of
the Unseen can be accomplished thanks to a natural, God-given disposition
(fiṭra) (as in the case of the prophets), through spiritual exercises (as in the
case of the mystics), or through dreamlike visions. Notwithstanding the
influence of philosophical Neoplatonism and mysticism on Ibn Khaldūn, in
the Muqaddima he is far from expressing himself with the profusion of a
Dionysius the Areopagite (fl. fifth century) for the beauty of God and the
universe, a style that had attracted the aesthetic sensitivity of a medieval
Aristotelian theologian like Thomas Aquinas. In his commentary on the
mystical treatise On Divine Names by Dionysius the Areopagite, Thomas
Aquinas mentions the supersensible beauty (pulchritudo) of God, source of
the harmony (consonantia) and brilliant splendour (claritas) of all things in
the universe.16
If we wish to find traces of divine beauty in Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddima
we must sift it with care, precisely because of the author’s way of under-
standing the beauty of historiography in terms of a science able to grasp
the ‘nature’ of facts simply and clearly. In so doing, we shall treasure the
hints and rare suggestions of this beauty, as well as the presence of the
entire system of Arabic culture contained within the world of the Muqaddima.
Above all, in the case of prophecy, the perceptions of the Supernatural
acquire a dimension of aesthetic beauty because of their analogy with the
process of poetic composition. Poetry and prophecy in the Muqaddima are
cognitive processes and reflect the Aristotelian theory of knowledge
(psychology).
Ibn Khaldūn opens the section on supernatural perceptions with a cos-
mological description similar to the one we find in the Psychology of
Avicenna and in The Niche for Lights of al-Ghazālī, which are, to be

precise, of Aristotelian origin. The world is ordered hierarchically. At the
lowest level, there is the sensory and corporeal world (al-‘ālam al-ḥissī
al-jismānī), at the very top there is the world of the spheres (‘ālam al-aflāk)
and of the angels. Human beings find themselves on the border between
these two worlds, and are able, in particular circumstances, to raise them-
selves from the sensory to the angelic world. The perceptions of the
Unseen are those of the prophets (anbiyā’), of the mystical saints (awliyā’),
of the soothsayers (kuhhān), of those who have waking dreams (ru’ya), of
the mad (majānīn), of the idiots (al-bahālī), of the diviners (‘arrāfūna), of the
astrologers and of those who practise various types of divination. Yet
among these, some are genuine, like those of the prophets and saints and the
dreamlike visions of divine origin while others are false or even of diabolical
origin. What they have in common is the fact that they are fruit of the imagi-
native faculty of the soul (al-quwwa al-mutakhayyala), which reproduces
(tumaththil) the images of sensual things, abstracted from matter.
‫و أما المدركة و إن كانت قوى اإلدراك مرتبة و مرتقيةً إلى القوة العليا منها و هي المفكرة التي‬
‫ من السمع و البصر و سائرها يرتقي‬17‫يعبرون عنها بالناطقة فقوى الحس الظاهرة بآالته‬
‫إلى الباطن و أوله الحس المشترك…ثم يؤديه الحس المشترك إلى الخيال و هو قوة تمثل‬
18
‫الشي المحسوس في النفس كما هو مجرداً عن المواد الخارجة فقط‬
The powers of the perceptive faculty are ordered hierarchically
towards the highest of them, which is the cogitative faculty [mufakkira],
also called the rational faculty. Accordingly, the powers of the external
sense, with its organs of vision, hearing and all the others, ascend to
the inner senses, the first of which is the common sense … Then the
common sense leads up to the imagination, which is a faculty that
reproduces in the soul the things perceived [in the external world],
abstracted from all external matter.19
But let us consider what the characteristics of prophecy are, which is essen-
tially the prophecy of Muḥammad, and in which way they are similar to
poetry. The superiority of the prophets is proved by the fact that they do
not acquire their capacity to receive revelation from a technique but rather
they possess it naturally, as a gift from God. Ibn Khaldūn describes proph-
ecy as a particular type of cognitive process in which the imaginative
faculty is not at a lower level than intellectual knowledge, as is the case for
ordinary people. In the prophets, the imagination becomes a faculty that is
superior to the intellect and enables them, through their senses, to perceive
what the intellect cannot know: the angelic world.
There are three kinds of human souls, says Ibn Khaldūn: ordinary
people, saints and prophets. Prophets alone are capable of acquiring a
totally angelical state, though only for a brief moment. They receive reve-
lation in the form of an indistinct sound (dawiyy), as if it were a symbol of
words (ka’annahu ramz min al-kalām) from which they draw the meaning
(ma‘nā) intended by God; or else in the form of a visual image of an angel
who is speaking to them. All this takes place in the space of a second
(laḥẓa wāḥida), or rather, in the twinkling of an eye (aqrab min lamḥ
al-baṣar).
…‫النفوس البشرية في ذلك على ثالثة أصناف‬

‫صنف مفطور على االنسالخ من البشرية جملة جسمانيها و روحانيها إلى الملكية‬
‫من األفق األعلى ليصير في لمحة من اللمحات ملكا ً بالفعل و يحصل له شهود المالء‬
‫األعلى في أفقهم و سماع الكالم النفساني و الخطاب اإللهي في تلك اللمحة و هؤالء هم األنبياء‬
‫صلوات هللا عليهم جعل هللا لهم االنسالخ من البشرية في تلك اللمحة و هي حالة الوحي فطرة‬
20
‫فطرهم عليها‬
The human souls are of three kinds … [The third kind] is natur-
ally gifted for being stripped of physical and spiritual humanity all
together and ascending to the highest horizon of angelicality. In the
space of an instant they become real angels, they become able to see
the highest angels and to hear the psychic word and the divine speech,
in that precise single instant.
These are the prophets, God bless them! To them God has granted
the natural [power] to strip off humanity. This is the state of [divine]
inspiration.21
This description takes us back to the Psychology of Avicenna, who

describes the prophets as extraordinary beings, in whom the imaginative
faculty is very strong and free of the senses, allowing them to unite directly
with the Agent Intellect through a process of knowledge of an intuitive or
illuminating type.22
Similarly, al-Ghazālī in The Niche for Lights tells us that the Prophets
turn the gross, sensual world of the imagination into a niche for lights, a
filter of mysteries and a stepping-stone (mirqā) to the Upper World.23
In order to grasp the analogy between poetry and prophecy, we must
highlight the connection between the writings on psychology of the Arab-
Islamic philosophers with those on logic. A characteristic feature of the
reception of Greek Hellenistic philosophy by the Islamic philosophers
(falāsifa) is that they considered Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics to be the
last two branches of logic. Instead, Aristotle held that rhetoric belonged to
the practical sciences and poetics to the poetic or productive sciences (from
poiéō, to make). This shift in the Arab-Islamic philosophical culture
confers a decidedly epistemological role on poetry, despite it being an infe-
rior type of knowledge since it is characterised by imaginative syllogism. In
our opinion, when Averroes admits the allegorical interpretation (ta’wīl) of
the Qur’ān according to the rules of allegorical interpretation in Arabic, he
is referring at one and the same time to both the laws of logic and the rules
of metaphor in poetry.24
Precisely because of the imaginative, rhyming and cadenced nature of
the Qur’ān, some of its verses insist on the fact that the Prophet is not a
poet or a lying magician (sāḥir kadhdhāb) while others state that poets are
delirious liars.
ُ ‫) أَلَمۡ تَ َر أَنَّهُمۡ فِى‬٢٢٤( َ‫َوٱل ُّش َع َر ٓا ُء يَتَّبِ ُعهُ ُم ۡٱلغَا ُو ۥن‬

‫) َوأَ َّنہُمۡ يَقُولُونَ َما َل‬٢٢٥( َ‫ڪلِّ َوا ۬ ٍد يَ ِهي ُمون‬
(٢٢٦( َ‫يَ ۡف َعلُون‬
And the poets, it is those who go astray who follow them (224). Don’t
you see that they wander in every valley (225) and say what they do
not do? (226)
(Qur’ān, Al-Shu‘arā’ [The Poets], 26: 224–226)
ِ ‫) أَ َج َع َل ۡٱلَلِهَةَ إِلَ ٰـ ۬هًا َو‬٤( ٌ‫َوع َِجب ُٓو ْا أَن َجآ َءهُم ُّمن ِذ ۬ ٌر ِّم ۡنہُمۡ‌ۖ َوقَا َل ۡٱل َك ٰـفِرُونَ هَ ٰـ َذا َس ٰـ ِح ۬ ٌر ك ََّذاب‬
ۖ‌‫ٲح ًدا‬
(٥( ٌ‫اب‬ ۬ ‫إ َّن هَ ٰـ َذا لَش َۡى ٌء ُع َج‬
ِ
They are amazed that a warner has come to them, from among them-
selves, and the unbelievers say: ‘This is a lying sorcerer (4) who pretends
that the gods are a unique God. Indeed, this is an amazing thing!’ (5)
(Qur’ān Ṣād [Ṣād], 38:4–5)
Due to a series of historical and anthropological circumstances which are

more complex and more profound than a simple change in the classification
of the sciences,25 the Qur’ānic condemnation of poetry underwent an
important aesthetic and epistemological upset in Avicenna’s theory of proph-
ecy but also, and earlier, in that of al-Fārābī. The latter describes prophetic
knowledge in an explicitly aesthetic manner, the most perfect stage attainable
to man owing to his powers of imagination. Prophets, whose imaginative
faculty has attained the highest perfection possible in the waking state,
receive the sensual representations of the intelligibles and other noble entities
from the Agent Intellect. They see marvellous things while awake and reveal
the beautiful and extraordinary greatness of God. This is the highest degree
of perfection attainable to man through his imaginative faculty.26
In order to grasp what we have called the epistemological beauty of
prophecy in the Muqaddima, it is necessary to take into consideration this
cultural and religious hinterland: the Qur’ānic condemnation of poetry, to
which the motif of the inimitable beauty of the Sacred Book is linked (i‘jāz);
the meaning of ‘imagination’ in the theory of knowledge in general and in
prophetic knowledge in particular; the classification of poetics among the arts
of logic, with its imaginative syllogism producer of pleasure and wonders;27
the complexity of sensual beauty (jamāl) which can be harmony and propor-
tion but also lasciviousness and immorality; poetry as ‘the archive of the
Arabs’ but also as a practice that is associated with singing and debauchery.
The Muqaddima speaks of poetry but does not include it in the classifi-
cation of the arts. Like history, poetry is also an unclassifiable discipline.
In an interesting chapter of the Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldūn speaks of the
difficulties of explaining what poetry is and of the difficulty of learning it
(ta‘allum). In order to write poetry, it is necessary to master the poetic
models (asālīb), it is not enough to conform to the rules of eloquence
(balāgha) and literary rhetoric (bayān).
Poetic models, explains Ibn Khaldūn, do not rely upon analogical rea-
soning (qiyās). They are forms (hay’a) rooted in the soul, which come from
the continual use of word combinations in Arabic poetry which are
repeated over and over until they become a model. The scientific rules of
linguistics and rhetoric are of no use for those who want to learn poetry.
‫و هذه األساليب التي نحن نقررها ليست من القياس في شيء إنما هي هيئة ترسخ في النفس‬
‫ على اللسان حتى تستحكم صورتها فيستفيد بها‬28‫من تتبع التراكيب في شعر العرب لجريانها‬
‫ من الشعر كما قدمنا ذلك في الكالم بإطالق‬29‫العمل على مثالها و االحتذاء بها في كل تركيب‬
30
‫و إن القوانين العلمية من اإلعراب و البيان ال تفيد تعليمه بوجه‬
The models we are defining here have nothing to do with the analogi-
cal reasoning. They are rather a structure rooted in the soul, deriving
from the continual linguistic use of word combinations in the Arabic
poetry. Eventually, their forms become firmly consolidated and [the
poets] learn to apply them to similar cases and to imitate them in all
the word combinations of their poetry, as we have mentioned before
when referring to speech in general. The scientific norms of desinential
inflection and literary rhetoric do not help at all to learn them.31
Ibn Khaldūn describes poetic composition as a process of knowledge of an

imaginative type of its own, with its own ‘universals’, if we can thus inter-
pret what Ibn Khaldūn calls the poetical ‘methods’ or ‘models’ (asālīb). He
defines the latter as ‘moulds’ (qawālib) into which the mind packs word
combinations and sounds that correspond to the poetical Arabic linguistic
tradition. Poetry cannot be learnt from books of poetry or prose, but
through reading the verses of great poets. Very few succeed. Poetry is not
imitation or representation but rather the fruit of lived experience and a
constant empirical practice. On this subject, it should be said that be it in
the field of history or poetry, Ibn Khaldūn’s work is based on his personal
experience. A protagonist of the ‘history’ of his time in the sense that he
was a diplomat and a political figure, Ibn Khaldūn was also a refined poet
as can be seen from some autobiographical anecdotes in the Muqaddima.
Like Ibn Khaldūn, al-Ghazālī in The Niche for Lights underlines the
analogy between poetry and prophecy and the non-scientific dimension of
poetry. He compares prophets to people who are gifted with poetic and
musical sensibility. If the most able connoisseurs of music were to
assemble in order to explain to somebody who lacks this sensibility why
music is moving, they would not succeed. In just the same way, it is diffi-
cult to explain how imagination works in the prophets to ordinary people
who have nothing to do with prophecy.
It is only by considering all these elements which are present in the uni-
verse of the Muqaddima and held together by invisible threads that weave
its multifaceted unity and cohesion that we can grasp the meaning of the
epistemological beauty of prophecy according to Ibn Khaldūn. In modern
terms, but also banally, it could be said that prophecy is the highest form
of poetry, that the Prophet is a sublime poet inspired by God and that the
Qur’ān is his literary work of an inimitable beauty. We will return to this
association between poetry and prophecy in Chapter 6 of this book.
Notes
1 The first book of the Kitāb al-‘ibar coincides with the Muqaddima itself, but
does not include the introductory part in which Ibn Khaldūn illustrates his
historiographic method in a systematic way.
2 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, translated by Vincent Monteil, Discours sur
l’histoire universelle (Paris: Sindbad, 1967–1968), 72, n. 1.
Khaldoun, Vols I–III (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1970 [1858]), Vol. I, 148–149.
4 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, translated by Franz Rosenthal, The Muqaddimah:
An Introduction to History, Vols I–III (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1980 [1967]), Vol. I, 167–168, 172.
5 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, translated by John Selby Watson, On the Nature of
Things, poetical version by J.M. Good (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1851), n.p. The
passage cited is the well-known beginning of the poem. For the Latin text: Lucrezio,
La Natura delle Cose, translated by Luca Canali (Milan: BUR, 1996), 68, 70, based
on the edition by Cyril Bayley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1922).
6 Al-Qur’ān, translated by Alesaandro Bausani, Il Corano (Milan: Rizzoli, 1992),
lviii, hereafter quoted as Bausani (1992).
7 Bausani (1992), lxv.
9 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 158–159.
11 Ṭarafa, ‘Mu’allaqa’, in A. al-Hāshimī, Jawāhir al-adab fī adabiyāt wa inshā’al-
lugha al-‘arabiyya (Beirut: Dār al-Ma‘rifa, 2015), 489–490; and Michael Sells,
‘The Mu‘allaqa of Tarafa’, Journal of Arabic Literature 17 (1986): 25–27.
12 However, let us note that Ibn Khaldūn uses the adjective ‘aẓīm several times
with reference to the sensual and imposing beauty of the cities as we saw in
Chapter 3 concerning a Qur’ānic verse which commentators wrongly construed
as implying the existence of an immense city with palaces of silver and gold and
columns of emeralds and rubies (Qur’ān, Al-Fajr [The Dawn], 89:6–8).
13 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 374: ‫نيكث‬
14 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 373–374.
16 Thomas Aquinas, In Librum Beati Dionysi de Divinis Nomibus Expositio
Vol. IV, 5, 135, quoted in Umberto Eco, Le problème esthétique chez Thomas
d’Aquin (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993), 39, Latin parallel text.
In the original Italian edition, Eco (1982) the passage from Dionysius is given
solely in Latin; see Umberto Eco, Il problema estetico in Tommaso d’Aquino
(Milan: Bompiani, 1982).
17 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 175, I read ‫بآالنها‬.
18 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 175–176.
20 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 176–178.
22 [Ibn Sīnā], Avicenne, ‘Ilm al-nafs, edited by Ján Bakoš, Psychologie d’Ibn Sīnā
l’Académie Tchécoslovaque des Sciences, 1956a), Vol. I, 167–168; and [Ibn
Sīnā], Avicenne, ‘Ilm al-nafs, translated by Ján Bakoš, Psychologie d’Ibn Sīnā
l’Académie Tchécoslovaque des Sciences, 1956b), Vol. II, 122.
23 Al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-anwār (Cairo: s.n., 1964), n.p.; and al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt
al-anwār, translated by William Henry Temple Gairdner, Mishkāt Al-Anwar
(The Niche for Lights) (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1924).
al-ḥikma min al-ittiṣāl, translated by Marc Geoffroy, Averroës. Discours décisif
(Paris, Flammarion, 1996). Arabic parallel text. Cf. Chapter 3.
25 We are thinking, for example, of the conception of the poet as inspired by
the gods in ancient Greece, and of the association between poetry and magic
in archaic societies. Regarding a comparison between the condemnation of
poetry in Plato and in the Qur’ān, cf. Giovanna Lelli, ‘Pour une méthodolo-
gie du comparatisme. La fonction du poète en Grèce et en terre d’Islam’,
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 62(2) (June 2009):
231–240. See also the introduction of Diego Lanza to the Poetics of
Aristotle in Aristotele, Poetica, translated by Diego Lanza (Milan: Rizzoli,
1990).
26 Al-Fārābī, Kitāb arā’ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, translated by Massimo Campanini,
La citttà virtuosa (Milan: Rizzoli, 1996), 198, 200; and Arabic text: Kitāb arā’ ahl
al-madīna al-fāḍila, edited by Albert Nader (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1985).
27 [Ibn Sīnā] Avicenna, Kitāb al-Shi‘r, edited by ‘A. Badawī (Cairo: s.n., 1966).
Ismail M. Dahiyat, Avicenna’s Commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle, a crit-
ical study with an annotated translation of the text (Leiden: Brill, 1974).
28 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. III, 333: ‫يجريانها‬.
29 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. III, 333: twice ‫تركيب تركيب‬.
30 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. III, 332–333.
References
Aristotele (1990) Poetica, trans. Diego Lanza. Milan: Rizzoli. Greek parallel text.
Bausani (1992) cf. Al-Qur’ān, trans. Alessandro Bausani, Il Corano. Milan:
Rizzoli.
Dahiyat, Ismail M. (1974) Avicenna’s Commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle, a
critical study with an annotated translation of the text. Leiden: Brill.
Eco, Umberto (1993) Le problème esthétique chez Thomas d’Aquin. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France.
Al-Fārābī (1985) Kitāb arā’ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, ed. Albert Nader. Beirut: Dār
al-Mashriq.
Al-Fārābī (1996) Kitāb arā’ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, trans. Massimo Campanini, La
città virtuosa. Milan: Rizzoli.
Al-Ghazālī (1924) Mishkāt al-Anwār [The Niche for Lights], trans. William Henry
Temple Gairdner. London: Royal Asiatic Society.
An Introduction to History, Vols I–III. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
al-ḥikma min al-ittiṣāl, trans. Marc Geoffroy, Averroës. Discours décisif. Paris:
[Ibn Sīnā] Avicenne (1956b) ‘Ilm al-nafs, transl. Ján Bakoš, Psychologie d’Ibn Sīnā
Ibn Sīnā (1966) Kitāb al-Shi‘r, ed. by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Badawī. Cairo.
Lelli, Giovanna (2009) ‘Pour une méthodologie du comparatisme. La fonction du
poète en Grèce et en terre d’Islam’. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum
Hungaricae 62(2) (June): 231–240.
Lucretius (1851) De Rerum Natura, trans. John Selby Watson, On the Nature of
Things, poetical version by John Mason Good. London: Henry G. Bohn.
Lucretius (1922) Lucreti de Rerum Natura, ed. Cyril Bayley. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lucrezio (1996) La Natura delle Cose, trans. Luca Canali. Milan: BUR.
Al-Qur’ān (1992) trans. Alessandro Bausani, Il Corano. Milan: Rizzoli.
Sells, Michael (1986) ‘The Mu‘allaqa of Tarafa’. Journal of Arabic Literature 17:
21–33.
Ṭarafa (2015) ‘Mu’allaqa’. In Aḥmad al-Hāshimī, Jawāhir al-adab fī adabiyāt wa
inshā’al-lugha al-‘arabiyya. Beirut: Dār al-Ma’rifa.
5 Bedouin society
Knowledge and beauty in the
Bedouin society of Arab paganism
(jāhiliyya)
In this chapter, we shall consider the aesthetic dimension of Arab paganism

(jāhiliyya) in the Muqaddima, and the relationship between such a dimen-
sion and knowledge, in order to highlight how the pre-Islamic Bedouin
society constitutes a central element in the aesthetic vision of history of Ibn
Khaldūn. We shall draw several comparisons in this undertaking:
1 The comparison between the notion of ‘destiny’ (dahr) and of ‘time’

(zaman, ayyām) in the Muqaddima and in the pre-Islamic Arab religion.
2 The comparison between the archaising and antimetaphysical attitude
of Ibn Khaldūn in his way of considering the jāhiliyya, and that of
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) in his way of considering ancient Greece.
3 The comparison between Ibn Khaldūn and the epic Persian poet
Ferdowsi (935–1020), who made Time-Destiny (zamān, ruzegār) into
the real protagonist of the Book of the Kings (Shāhnāmeh).
4 The comparison between the Persian poet-scientist ‘Omar Khayyām
and Ibn Khaldūn, both of whom were passionately attached to the life
of the body and incapable of drawing any real comfort from religion.
5 Finally, the comparison between the aesthetics of the Muqaddima and
the aesthetics of late Chinese Taoism as interpreted by François Jullien.1
Although some of these comparisons may seem irrelevant on account of

their chronological or geographical or cultural distance, they are in fact most
useful. This is not only because they seem pertinent to us, as we shall explain
in the course of this chapter, but also because they help to free the study of
Arab culture from the narrow and exclusive comparison with certain aspects
of European culture, aspects which could be summed up as the question of
modernity. All the more so because the comparison between Islam and the
West is often distorted, even in academic literature, by metahistorical con-
siderations which conceive of civilisations as abstract, rigid and impermea-
ble. Instead, in our opinion, it is important to compare human civilisations
in a universal manner, which is both synchronic and diachronic, in accord-
ance with the spirit of fraternity wished for by Joseph Needham regarding
the history of science in his Science and Civilisation in China.2
Bedouin society 75
Of course, these comparisons do not intend to flatten out any differences
between human civilisations or their different stages of social development.
The purpose of foreign travel, as Fernand Braudel would say, is not so
much to discover other countries as to understand our own better. In the
same way, the incursions we shall make in the course of this chapter, into
The Birth of Tragedy and into Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche, into
Shāhnāmeh by Ferdowsi, into the quatrains by Khayyām and into the
aesthetics of Chinese Taoism allow us above all to gain a better under-
standing of the complexity of the aesthetic dimension of the Muqaddima
and of its relationship with knowledge.
The notion of khayr (good/beauty) in the aesthetics

of the jāhiliyya
When Ibn Khaldūn describes Bedouin society as a model of virtue and
beauty, he is referring to two situations.
The first situation is concrete. It deals with the tribal society of the
Maghreb, characterised by the presence of a well-organised, military
democracy, built around a leader who was a primus inter pares, with a
strong esprit de corps and naturally predisposed to found centralised States
with a well-functioning political authority. This was effectively the case in
so many predominantly Berber dynasties that governed the Maghreb (the
Almoravids, Almohads, Hafsids and Marinids). We have seen that Ibn
Khaldūn identifies the ‘aṣabiyya as being both the driving force behind the
States and the cause of their ruin.
The second situation to which Ibn Khaldūn refers is partly concrete and
partly idealised by his aesthetic vision of history, as well as by his cultural
and religious tradition. It concerns the Arab society of the jāhiliyya of the
Arab peninsula. Unlike the virtuous Bedouin Berbers of the Maghreb, Ibn
Khaldūn describes the desert Arabs as individualistic and primitive brig-
ands who raided for a living and were incapable of founding stable and
productive States. In Chapter 3, we saw that Ibn Khaldūn refused to lend
credence to the erotic adventures of the ‘Abbāsid caliph al-Ma’mūn,
reported by some historians, because the behaviour of Bedouin Arab lovers
(‘ushshāq al-A‘rāb), of the type described by Imru’ al-Qays in his odes,
was unbecoming in such a morally upright figure as al-Ma’mūn.
Among the Bedouin Arabs, the ‘aṣabiyya is rough and primitive and
does not allow for the emergence of a leadership able to become the
ruling class of a centralised State. Yet, their particularity is that they can
be transformed by religion when a prophet or a saint reveals himself
among them and acts as a restraint (wāzi‘) for their impulses. Then they
become socially cohesive (ijtimā‘) and able to be ruled by a political
authority (mulk). The Bedouin Arabs are among the quickest people to
accept religious truth (ḥaqq) and to believe in it, precisely because their
primitive nature is unsullied by bad habits (salāmat ṭibā‘ihim min ‘awj
76 Bedouin society
al-‘awā’id) and without any vices. When prophecy appears among them,
the savagery of their nature (khalq al-tawaḥḥush) can be easily dealt with,
because it is still in its original natural state (al-fiṭra al-ūlā). Their souls
are uncontaminated and disposed to fully embrace virtue and beauty
(khayr).
‫… أنهم لخلق التوحش الذي فيهم أصعب األمم انقياداً بعضهم لبعض للغلظة و األنفة و بعد الهمة و‬
‫المنافسة في الرئاسة … فإذا كان فيهم النبي أو الولي الذي يبعثهم على القيام بأمر هللا يذهب‬
‫ و حصل لهم التغلب و الملك‬... ‫عنهم مذمومات األخالق و يأخذهم بمحمودها‬
‫و هم مع ذلك أسرع الناس قبوالً للحق و الهدى لسالمة طباعهم من عوج‬
‫الملكات و براءتها من ذميم األخالق إال ما كان من خلق التوحش القريب المعاناة‬
3
‫المتهيء لقبول الخير ببقائه على الفطرة األولى‬
[The Bedouin Arabs] are savage people and there are among the
nations which find most difficult to accept subordination, because of
their roughness, their pride and their rivalry for leadership …
However, if a prophet appears among them, or a saint, who incites
them to behave according to the commandments of God, they lose
their blameworthy qualities and acquire praiseworthy ones ... So, they
become able to unite and exercise political domination and authority.
They turn into the quickest people to accept religious truth and divine
guidance, because their nature is unsullied by distorted habits and
their purity is [untouched] by blameworthy qualities. Their savage
nature is still in its original primitive state, therefore it can easily be
dealt with, because they are disposed to accept goodness [khayr].4
It was Islam that conferred a particular type of ‘aṣabiyya, religious

‘aṣabiyya, on these savage Arabs which, in turn, enabled them to found an
empire. But later they regressed to a nomadic and primitive state as soon
as their civilisation declined and the reins of power were taken by foreign-
ers (Persians and Turks).
In the Khaldunian descriptions of the jāhiliyya, we find knowledge
based on a direct experience of the nomads of the Maghreb, along with
idealised elements of the Muslim tradition. A series of attributes jostle to
illustrate Bedouin virtues: simplicity (sadhāja), the roughness of an unpol-
ished and savage state (khushūna), vigour (ghaḍāḍa), courage (shujā‘a,
ba’s) and honour (sharaf). These attributes characterise the esprit de
corps, ‘aṣabiyya, from ‘aṣab (nerve), which makes one think of a ganglion
of nerve cells and lymphatic vessels of the tribal body. Such virtues
acquire their ethical and aesthetic dimensions insofar as they express a
non-being, a non-possessing: frugality, ignorance, hunger, an absence of
sciences and techniques, the sole exception being the art of poetry.
It is poetry, moreover, that maintains that complex and unresolved
relationship with prophecy of which we spoke in Chapter 4. The Arab
camel-drivers of the desert, says Ibn Khaldūn, went quite naturally from
Bedouin society 77
droning the pagan litanies (tarannum) while driving their camels to recit-
ing the psalmody of divine oneness (tahlīl) and the Qur’ān.
‫إال أنهم لم يشعروا بما سواه [فن الشعر] ألنهم حينئذ لم ينتحلوا علما ً و ال عرفوا صناعةً و‬
‫كانت البداوة أغلب محلهم ثم تغنى الحداة منهم في حداء إبلهم و الفتيان في قضاء خلواتهم‬
‫فرجعوا األصوات و ترنّموا و كانوا يسمون الترنم إذا كان بالشعر غناء و إذا كان بالتهليل أو‬
‫نوع القراءة تغبيراً … و عللها أبو إسحاق الزجاج بأنها تذكر بالغابر و هو الباقي أي بأحوال‬
5
‫اآلخرة‬
[The Arabs] only composed poetry, because at that time they did not
practice any science or craft. They were dominated by the Bedouin
way of life. Camel drivers were used to singing while they drove
camels, and so did the young men, who sang in solitude, repeating
sounds in litanies. If in the form of poetry, those litanies were called
‘songs’, while in the form of praise to God or a sort of recitation of the
Qur’ān, they were called ‘taghbīr’ … Abū Isḥāq al-Zajāj explains this
term as ‘reminding the ghābir’, which means the afterlife.6
The idealisation of the Bedouin society of the jāhiliyya is not an inven-

tion of Ibn Khaldūn. Moreover, the greatness of the Muqaddima does
not lie so much in inventing as in injecting the already-existing elements
of classical Arab culture into an overall picture which embraces them
all, without distinction and with or without judgement. From the
complex relations that establish themselves between all these elements,
there emerges that aesthetic vision of history which we describe in this
book.
According to the tradition, the Qurayshite clan, to which Muḥammad
belonged, used to entrust the new-born infants to a Bedouin wet-nurse, so
that the desert air would make them more vigorous.7 This was also the
case with the little Muḥammad. In an episode from his childhood narrated
by Ibn Hishām (d. 833), in the biography of the Prophet, we learn that one
day two angels opened the child’s chest and washed it with snow, thus
making it pure forever. Muḥammad’s state of purity is associated with his
being a desert Arab.8
The story continues reporting the words of Muḥammad saying that
prophets always shepherded livestock and that he was the most Arab
among his people (anā A‘rabukum).9
This vision that lay somewhere between the historical and a wish to
idealise was reinforced by the prestige enjoyed by the Arab poetic heritage
of the jāhiliyya until the modern era. It is borne out by the scandal created
by the Egyptian writer Ṭaha Ḥusayn in 1926 when he published the book
On Pre-Islamic Poetry (Fī al-shi‘r al-jāhilī), in which he put forward the
thesis that the greatest part of pre-Islamic Arab poetry was spurious.10
According to Ṭaha Ḥusayn, the pre-Islamic poetic heritage was in fact the
result of a forgery carried out in the Umayyad and the ‘Abbāsid eras
78 Bedouin society
within the framework of political rivalries between the Arab tribes, desir-
ous to ascribe to themselves glorious ancestors.
Despite their wild character, Ibn Khaldūn explains that the Bedouin
Arabs of the jāhiliyya possessed a most sophisticated poetic art and shared
a simplicity with the Bedouins of the Maghreb which is in stark contrast to
the entirely external beauty of the luxury that causes the decline of urban
civilisations. Once over, however, the Muslim State founded by the
Bedouin Arabs would not rise again, unlike what happened in the
Maghreb, where new Bedouin dynasties were always succeeding one
another. The Bedouin Arabs, explains Ibn Khaldūn, regressed to a primi-
tive stage, leaving the power in the hands of foreign dynasties and losing
even the historical memory of ever having been at the head of an empire.
Of this version of the facts which highlights a historical phenomenon
that is not readily explicable, namely, that the Arabs renounced political
power and let themselves be governed by non-Arab dynasties, what inter-
ests us is the aesthetic dimension that the jāhiliyya assumes, of which
khayr (good, beauty) is a fundamental attribute.
We have already recalled that khayr in the Qur’ān is associated with
‘the other life’ (al-ākhira), ‘which will be more beautiful than the first for
you’ (khayrun laka min al-ūlā). The other life is described in the Qur’ān
with startlingly vivid images that follow one another with a logic which is
not demonstrative but emotional, poetic and imaginative. Values are
turned upside down in the other life. What the Muqaddima and Muslim
morality consider to be luxury, vice and pleasures that corrupt customs
and the soul become instead supreme good (khayr) and sublime beauty.
The poetic and imaginative character of the language of the Qur’ān is
particularly evident in the sūras revealed in Mecca, in the first period of
the Islamic revelation. As we have seen in Chapter 3 with the sūra ‘He
frowned’ (`Abasa, 80), so the sūra ‘The Enveloper’ (al-Ghāshiya) evokes
the afterlife with intense, contrasting images: on the one hand, the
humbled and exhausted faces of the damned dwelling in boiling springs;
and on the other hand, the joyful faces of the saved dwelling in beautiful,
hilltop gardens, with fresh, running water, lofty beds, cups, cushions and
carpets. The proof that this is true is the beauty of the universe: the camel,
the sky, the rains, the mountains and the earth.

‫َّح ِيم‬
ً۬‫َصلَ ٰى نَارًا حامية‬ ۬ ۬
َِ َ ۡ ‫) ت‬٣( ٌ‫اصبَة‬ِ َّ‫) عَا ِملَةٌ ن‬٢( ٌ‫) ُوجُو ۬هٌ يَ ۡو َم ِٕٮ ٍذ َخ ٰـ ِش َعة‬١( ‫يث ۡٱل َغ ٰـ ِشيَ ِة‬ ُ ‫ك َح ِد‬ َ ‫ه َۡل أَتَ ٰٮ‬
ٍ۬ ‫) َّل ي ُۡس ِمنُ َو َل ي ُۡغنِى ِمن ج‬٦( ‫يع‬
‫ُوع‬ ٍ۬ ‫ض ِر‬َ ‫ن‬ ‫م‬ ‫ل‬َّ ‫إ‬
ِ ِ ٌ َ ‫م‬‫ا‬ ‫ع‬ َ ‫ط‬ ۡ‫ُم‬ ‫ه‬ َ ‫ل‬ ‫س‬َ ۡ
‫ي‬ َّ ‫ل‬ )٥( ‫ة‬۬ ‫ي‬ ‫ن‬
ٍ َِ َ ٍ ‫ا‬ ‫ء‬ ‫ن‬ ۡ
‫َي‬‫ع‬ ‫ن‬ ۡ ِ َ‫) تُ ۡسق‬٤(
‫م‬ ‫ى‬ٰ
ً‫) َّل ت َۡس َم ُع فِيہَا لَ ٰـ ِغيَ ۬ة‬١٠( ‫) فِى َجنَّ ٍة عَالِيَ ۬ ٍة‬٩( ٌ‫اضيَ ۬ة‬ ‫ر‬
ِ َ َِ َ ‫ا‬ ‫ہ‬ ‫ي‬ ۡ
‫ع‬ ‫س‬ ِّ ‫ل‬ )٨( ٌ ۬ ‫) وجُو ۬ه ي ۡومٮ ۬ذ نَّاعم‬٧(
‫ة‬ َ ِ ٍَٕ َ ٌ ُ
۬ ۬ ۬ ۬ ۬ ‫) فيہا ع َۡي ۬ ِ ٌن ج‬١١(
‫ق‬ُ ‫ار‬ِ ‫) َونَ َم‬١٤( ٌ‫) َوأَ ۡك َوابٌ َّم ۡوضُو َعة‬١٣( ٌ‫) فِيہَا ُس ُر ٌر َّم ۡرفُو َعة‬١٢( ٌ‫اريَة‬ ِ َ َ ِ
۬ ۡ ‫م‬
‫) َوإِلَى‬١٧( ‫ٱلبِ ِل ڪ َۡيفَ ُخلِقَ ۡت‬ ِ ۡ ‫) أَفَ َل يَنظُرُونَ إِلَى‬١٦( ٌ‫) َو َز َرابِ ُّى َم ۡبثُوثَة‬١٥( ٌ‫صفُوفَة‬ َ
‫ُط َح ۡت‬ ِ ‫ض ك َۡيفَ س‬ ۡ
ِ ‫) َوإِلَى ٱلَ ۡر‬١٩( ‫صبَ ۡت‬ ِ ُ‫ال ك َۡيفَ ن‬ ِ َ‫) َوإِلَى ۡٱل ِجب‬١٨( ‫ٱل َّس َمآ ِء ڪ َۡيفَ ُرفِ َع ۡت‬
(٢٠)
Bedouin society 79
Have you heard the story of the enveloper? (1) On that day there will
be humbled faces (2), tired, distressed (3). Those will be burning in a
blazing fire (4), they will drink the water of boiling springs (5), they
will not have other nourishment but ḍarī‘11 (6), which will not make
them fat nor appease their hunger (7). And on that day there will be
joyful faces (8), satisfied by their deployed efforts (9), dwelling in high
gardens (10), where you wouldn’t hear a single futility (11), where
there will be running sources (12) and lofty beds (13) and ready cups
(14) and cushions in rows (15) and carpets spread out (16). Don’t
[men] look at the camel, how it has been created (17) and to the sky,
how it has been raised (18) and to the mountains, how they have been
erected (19) and to the earth, how it has been levelled? (20)
(Qur’ān, al-Ghāshiya [The Enveloper], 88:1–19)
In a well-known ḥadīth, we are told of the visit of the Archangel Gabriel to

Muḥammad while he was in conversation with his Companions. Gabriel
describes the warning signs (amarāt) of the Day of Judgement (‘The Hour’,
Sā‘a) as one in which ‘barefoot, poor and naked shepherds will compete in
the highest buildings’ (an tarā al-ḥufā al-‘urā al-‘āla ri‘ā’ al-shā’
yataṭāwalūna fī al-buniyān).12 Transposing this image to the Muqaddima,
we could say that the tall buildings of the sophisticated and opulent
sedentary people are devoted to decadence and bordering on evil, while the
tall buildings of the barefoot shepherds will be indestructible and sublime
at the end of time. By contrast, the non-being of these constructions in the
Bedouin society of this earth is full of beauty.
Ibn Khaldūn and the archaic

There is an archaic and antimetaphysical element in the way in which Ibn
Khaldūn considers the jāhiliyya. Reading the Muqaddima, a shrewd reader
perceives that although there are frequent quotations of Qur’ānic verses
and of ḥadīth, God is absent from history, from human affairs and from
nature. There is no sign in the Muqaddima of the religiosity of primitive
Islam as expressed by Qur’ānic sūras like that of ‘The Enveloper’ that has
just been cited. The spiritual attitude of Ibn Khaldūn partly recalls that
of pre-Islamic Arabia, dominated by a deus otiosus or better still a Time-
Destiny (dahr).
In an article on the ‘Notion de Dieu dans l’Arabie anté-islamique’,
Pierre Lory (1988) observed that in the Arabia of the jāhiliyya, as always
in the universe of archaic religions, man cannot be isolated from
the cosmos. The novelty of Islam consisted in the fact that Arabia of the
seventh century passed from a decentralised notion of the order of the
cosmos and a cyclical perception of time to a mono-polarised universe and
80 Bedouin society
an eschatological notion of time.13 In pre-Islamic Arabia man, jinns and
gods had the power to exercise their forces on the cosmos, which origi-
nated in God (Allāh), but was not dominated by Him. In Islam, instead
God becomes external to nature, which turns into a reserve of signs (āyāt)
of His presence. Man acquires a central and privileged place in the cre-
ation, and therefore becomes an autonomous individual detached from all
mythical links with the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdom.
Ibn Khaldūn appreciates the society of the jāhiliyya because it is archaic,
still close to nature, an original unity from which the multiplicity of sciences
and arts has not yet separated, a unity in which man is not an individual but
one with the tribal group. The similarity between the Bedouins and wild
animals indicates that the former are perceived, at least in the simile, as part
of the animal kingdom that surrounds them. However, the theory of history
of Ibn Khaldūn, unlike pre-Islamic Arab religion, embraces the linear time of
eschatology. After the jāhiliyya comes prophecy and then the linear course
of history, in which civilisations succeed each other with a life cycle equal to
that of human beings. Civilisations are living beings and as such they are
born, grow and die. In the linear time of the Muqaddima, the problem is
that in it there is no real finality or final eschatology. Historical time in the
Muqaddima is linear and not cyclical. The tragedy for Ibn Khaldūn is that it
is impossible to return to the jāhiliyya.
The archaic, or rather archaising element, in Ibn Khaldūn’s attitude
towards the jāhiliyya lies precisely in the drama of the impossibility of the
return. Time-Destiny, which is also found in pre-Islamic poetry with the
terms dahr (fate), zamān (time), ayyām (days), is present in the Muqaddima
too, with the same terms (ākhir al-dahr, zaman, ayyām). When the furthest
possible limit of human civilisation has been reached, ‘Time’ devours those
in power (akala al-dahr ‘alayhim wa shariba), their well-being and luxury
sap their strength until another clan that is stronger, younger and more
vigorous takes their place.
‫فإذا استولت على األولين األيام و أباد غضراءهم الهرم و طحنتهم الدولة و أكل الدهر عليهم و‬
‫شرب بما أرهف من النعيم من حدهم و اشتفت غريزة الترف من مائهم و بلغوا غايتهم من‬
14
‫طبيعة التمدن اإلنساني و التغلب السياسي‬
Time overwhelmed ancient peoples and their well-being was annihi-
lated by decrepitude, the State crushed them, Time-Destiny devoured
them and made their prosperity thinner, the impulse of luxury drained
all their lymph and with them civilisation and political power reach
their natural end.15
The term dahr also recurs in the Qur’ān, both in the sense of pre-Islamic
‘destiny’ and in the generic sense of ‘time’. The unbelievers pretend that
only this life exists: we live and then we perish. There is nothing but Time
(dahr) that wipes us out.
Bedouin society 81
‫ك ِم ْن ِع ْل ٍم ۖ إِ ْن هُ ْم‬ ٰ ُ ‫َوقَالُوا َما ِه َي إِ َّل َحيَاتُنَا ال ُّد ْنيَا نَ ُم‬
َ ِ‫وت َونَحْ يَا َو َما يُ ْهلِ ُكنَا إِ َّل ال َّد ْه ُر ۚ َو َما لَهُ ْم بِ َذل‬
(٢٤( َ‫إِلَّ يَظُنُّون‬
They say: ‘There is nothing but this worldly life, we die, we live and
only Time destroys us’. They do not have a clear knowledge about
that, but only conjectures (24).
(Qur’ān, al-Jāthiya [Hobbling], 45:24)
On reading the Muqaddima, we understand that according to Ibn

Khaldūn there are immanent laws that govern history. Therefore, it is
not a question of Neoplatonic laws. They are materialistic, social and
economic laws. However, because of human impotence to change the
course of history, it is not man but Time-Destiny (dahr) that is the real
protagonist of the book. Of course, it is not a destiny established by God
(qadr), but an impersonal fate. It is an archaising rather than archaic
vision, given that Ibn Khaldūn cannot and does not want to erase six
centuries of culture. When he tells us that civilisations belong to the
world of the elements (al-‘ālam al-‘unṣurī) and thus are born, grow and
die, he is not adhering to an archaic vision of the cosmos but to an
archaising vision of history, which is totally demythologised and passed
through the filter of Hellenism. His archaism consists of the painful
knowledge that there is no return to the beauty of the living bodies of the
warriors of the jāhiliyya.
In our opinion, it is possible to interpret this archaising vision in
terms of an antiphilosophical and antimetaphysical reaction. After the
devastations of the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, Arab
civilisation had entered a phase of stagnation that would take several
more centuries to become real decadence but which Ibn Khaldūn seems
to grasp with great clear-sightedness when he says that while civilisation
is declining in the Arab world, the philosophical sciences seem to be
flourishing in the country of the European Francs (bilād al-Firanja), in
the land of Rome, where there are many books, courses and pupils
attending them.
‫كذلك بلغنا لهذا العهد أن هذه العلوم الفلسفية ببالد الفرنجة من أرض رومة و ما إليها من‬
‫العدوة الشمالية نافقة األسواق و أن رسومها هناك متجددة و مجالس تعليمها متعددة و دواوينها‬
‫جامعة و حملتها متوفرون و طلبتها متكثرون و هللا أعلم بما هنالك و هللا يخلق ما يشاء و‬
16
‫يختار‬
We have been informed that these philosophical sciences are wide-
spread in the country of the Francs, in the land of Rome and their
northern side, and that there are a variety of them. People gather to
attend many lessons of them, there are comprehensive collections of
books [exposing them], numerous persons who master them and many
students. God knows better what exists there. He creates what He
wants and He chooses.17
82 Bedouin society
Despite the presence of talented followers, Arab culture would no longer
produce the great works of the past and not even these seemed to provide
Ibn Khaldūn’s heart and mind with the intellectual, spiritual and social
solutions that would be adequate for the problems of his time. More from
ideological choice than from an intimate and total conviction, Ibn Khaldūn
declares himself opposed to Aristotelian and Neoplatonic Islamic philo-
sophy (falsafa), albeit expressing great consideration for its exponents. The
reason for his opposition, he tells us, is that the falsafa claims to be able to
explain this and the other world with a causal connection that from the
world of the senses ascends to God, the Cause of causes (musabbib
al-asbāb).
Philosophers, says Ibn Khaldūn, pretend to explain the sensual world
(al-‘ālam al-ḥissī) and what is beyond it through intellectual reasoning.
Therefore, they argue that the articles of faith (al-‘aqā’id al-īmāniyya) are
established through intellectual insight (naẓar) and not through oral trans-
mission (sam‘) by religious authorities. For this purpose, philosophers have
founded the science of logic as a norm (qānūn) for distinguishing between
true and false, both in the knowledge of the physical world, which relies
upon perception, and in the knowledge of the divine science or metaphys-
ics. However, their claims are totally in vain because the spiritual essences
(dhawāt) of metaphysics are unknown to man and cannot be compre-
hended through demonstration (burhān).
‫و ذلك أن قوما من عقالء النوع اإلنساني زعموا أن الوجود كله الحسي منه و ما وراء الحس‬
‫تدرك ذواته و أحواله بأسبابها و عللها باألنظار الفكرية و األقيسة العقلية و أن تصحيح العقائد‬
‫ و هؤالء يسمون‬.‫اإليمانية من قبل النظر ال من جهة السمع فإنها بعض من مدارك العقل‬
…. ‫الفالسفة‬
‫فبحثوا عن ذلك و شمروا له و حوموا على إصابة الغرض منه و وضعوا قانونا يهتدي به‬
‫العقل في نظره إلى التمييز بين الحق و الباطل و سموه بالمنطق و محصل ذلك أن النظر الذي‬
….. ‫يفيد تمييز الحق من الباطل إنما هو للذهن في المعاني المنتزعة من الموجودات الشخصية‬
‫و أما ما كان منها في الموجودات التي وراء الحس و هي الروحانيات و يسمونه العلم‬
‫اإللهي و علم ما بعد الطبيعة فإن ذواتها مجهولة رأسا و ال يمكن التوصل إليها و ال البرهان‬
18
‫ فأي فائدة لهذه العلوم و االشتغال بها‬.…‫عليها‬
There are human beings of high understanding who pretend that exist-
ence, be it sensual or beyond the senses, can be perceived in its
essence, conditions, reasons and causes by intellect speculation and
reasoning. They also think that the correctness of the articles of faith
can be proved by speculation and not by listening to [what is reported
by religious authority], because [the articles of faith] would be intellec-
tual perceptions …
These people are called the ‘philosophers’ … They have studied
deeply this question. For a long time they have tried to attain their
goal and they have established a norm that would guide the intellect to
Bedouin society 83
make the distinction between truth and falsehood, and they have
called it ‘logic’. It is a speculation that serves the purpose of distin-
guishing truth from vanity, by means of a reflection on ideas extracted
from the individual existing things …
The existing things that fall beyond the senses, that is to say the
spiritual things, belong to what the philosophers call the ‘divine
science’ or ‘metaphysics’. But we totally ignore the essences of them
and it is impossible to understand or demonstrate them … Thus, what
is the use of cultivating these sciences and being busy with them?19
Moreover, in opposition to Mu‘tazilite rationalism,20 Ibn Khaldūn refutes

the idea of free will in human action. What he is left with is the way of the
mystic, enriched by elements of philosophical Neoplatonism which we
analysed when speaking of prophecy in Chapter 4. According to Lacoste
(1998), Ibn Khaldūn refutes the rationalist philosophy of Islam because of
its abstract and metaphysical nature and given that he intends to construct
a historiographical method which is rationalist but also empirical and con-
crete. Without taking anything away from the analysis of the Muqaddima,
which highlights the historiographic materialism and the sociology of
history, what is of interest to us in this book is to understand the aesthetic
dimension of Ibn Khaldūn’s historiography. His archaising vision of the
jāhiliyya is a reaction against philosophical physics and metaphysics,
which claimed to be able to explain everything, the human world and that
of the Unseen, by using the demonstrative method. Ibn Khaldūn opposes
philosophy on the one hand with the science of history, which explains
human and earthly affairs and, on the other, with the perceptions of the
Unseen, of which Prophecy represents the pinnacle.
Another aspect which completes our interpretation of the Muqaddima
as a reaction to rationalist metaphysics, although it is precisely from this
that it draws inspiration, is indeed the importance of the imaginative
dimension both in prophecy and poetry, which are understood as special
forms of knowledge. This dimension, which Ibn Khaldūn separates from
historical knowledge and places in the domain of knowledge of the Super-
natural, opens a space that is alternative to rationalist metaphysics, a space
which is certainly influenced by both Neoplatonism and Sufism, and which
we shall define as aesthetic. The novelty with regard to the Neoplatonic
philosophers, by whom and in spite of himself Ibn Khaldūn is inspired
(directly, or indirectly through the mystical writings of al-Ghazālī), is that
this aesthetic-imaginative space encounters perceptible history which is
partly concrete and partly idealised, when it is placed in relationship with
the archaic, with the jāhiliyya. Imagination and original, primitive know-
ledge (‘ilm) are both attributes of the Bedouin Prophet. It is aesthetics that
is Ibn Khaldūn’s alternative to rationalist metaphysics and the natural sci-
ences: historical aesthetics for the affairs of this world and the imaginative
aesthetics of prophecy for the things of the Unseen world.
84 Bedouin society
Progressive, reactionary and a product of his time, Ibn Khaldūn is also
forward-looking, towards a future that will be finished only when the
Muqaddima ceases to interest us.
Ibn Khaldūn and Friedrich Nietzsche

We would like to compare the archaising vision of Ibn Khaldūn with that
of Friedrich Nietzsche. In the Birth of Tragedy of 1872, the German philo-
sopher considered the model of an ideal harmony and balance with which
his culture defined ancient Greek civilisation as a form of decadence that
led to the degeneration of one of the essential elements of Greek culture:
the Apollonian element. Apollo was the Greek god of the sun and the
light. He fought and vanquished the darkness and he played the lyre.
Nietzsche contrasted this with the explosive force of the passions and
music as expressed by the Dionysian element of Greek culture. Dionysius,
the Greek god of wine, the earth and the forces of nature, played the flute
and orgiastic feasts complete with processions of dancers were celebrated
in his honour. It would seem, in fact, that Greek tragedy had its origins
precisely in these bucolic rites, an element, however, which Nietzsche
developed in an original manner, within the framework of his irrationalist
philosophy. According to Nietzsche, the moment of synthesis between the
Apollonian and the Dionysian was captured by the tragedy of Aeschylus
(525–456 bce) and Sophocles (496–406 bce). The latter were artists of
dream and intoxication. They imitated the artistic forces that spring spon-
taneously from nature: the Apollonian forces, which express a world of
dream images; and the Dionysian forces, which express a world of mys-
tical intoxication.21
A little later, the tragedy of Euripides (480–406 bce) and the triumph of
Socrates’ dialectical philosophy heralded the beginning of the end, the pre-
dominance of reason over the passions, as is demonstrated in the ‘scient-
ific’ (an adjective that Nietzsche intended in a negative sense), ‘erudite’ and
‘senile’ Alexandrine or Hellenistic culture.
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra of 1885, Nietzsche advocates and predicts a
return to Dionysian culture, the first signs of which he detects in the irra-
tionalism of Schopenhauer (1788–1860): the advent of a new tragic era,
which he intends in a reactionary, antisocialist and antidemocratic sense,
and in opposition to the positivist optimism which claims that science can
explain and resolve all problems. Zarathustra, whom Nietzsche presents as
the prophet of Dionysius, expresses the idea of the return not so much as a
return to the archaic and to the circularity of time, but as a rupture in the
linear, finalistic and eschatological time instituted by Judaism and Christianity.
For Zarathustra, the immanent ‘Moment’ contains its whole meaning in
itself and contains eternity. Nietzsche expresses himself in an imaginative
language, through aphorisms. Zarathustra says that the Moment is a gate.
Two paths lead to it: a path going backward to the past, which lasts an
Bedouin society 85
eternity; and a path going forward to the future, which lasts another eter-
nity. All the things that can happen must have already happened before.
All the things are firmly bound together in such a way that the Moment
draws after it past and future, and also itself.22
The analogies we observe between Nietzsche and Ibn Khaldūn (classi-
cality as decadence, antiscientific and/or antimetaphysical reaction, return
to the archaic, valuing of the imaginative process in knowledge) do not
indicate a real analogy between these two thinkers, separated by a great
historical distance but rather the presence of an analogous mental mech-
anism in response to a crisis: the crisis of Arab culture in the case of Ibn
Khaldūn, the crisis of European culture in the case of Nietzsche. Unlike
what Nietzsche does with Zarathustra, Ibn Khaldūn cannot resort to
Muḥammad to institute a return through the eternity of the Moment, or at
least not in history. Muḥammad received the revelation at intermittent
moments (laḥẓa) and in the twinkling of an eye (lamḥ al-baṣar), during
which he heard sounds and saw images in a process of knowledge whose
affinity with that of poetic composition we have already underlined.
If the Prophet of the Muqaddima could be compared with Zarathustra
and the superman of Nietzsche (Übermensch, literally ‘Beyond-man’) given
that he strips (insilākh) himself of his humanity, Muḥammad is however
the Seal of the Prophets, the last prophet, and he is not returning (at least
according to the Sunnite theological beliefs of Ibn Khaldūn). After
Muḥammad there would be saints and mystics, but for the author of the
Muqaddima, these are not supermen but shadows, ghosts as compared to
the Prophet. The objective historical circumstances of Ibn Khaldūn’s age
precluded the emergence of a real humanism from the criticism of ration-
alist metaphysics, as happened instead, in fifteenth-century Europe. For
this reason, the protagonist of the Muqaddima is not man but rather Time-
Destiny (dahr, zaman, ayyām). The Sufism and ascetics that Nietzsche
would have despised as decadent are instead embraced by Ibn Khaldūn as
a substitute for the impossible return to the jāhiliyya. But it is a precarious
refuge on the edges of history, not a solution.
Ibn Khaldūn, Ferdowsi, ‘Omar Khayyām

Time-Destiny, which in the previous pages we have related to the archais-
ing attitude of Ibn Khaldūn with respect to the jāhiliyya, is an element that
can also be found in two other great Persian Muslim writers: Ferdowsi and
‘Omar Khayyām.
Considered by the Iranians as probably their greatest national poet,
Ferdowsi, is the author of the Shāhnāmeh (Book of the Kings), an epic
poem which recounts the mythical deeds of the ancient kings of Iran, from
the Iranian Adam, Kayumārs, to the Arab conquest of Sassanid Persia. As
Bausani observed, the Shāhnāmeh marks the end of the archaic cycle and
the introduction of linear time. The main character of the epic deeds here
86 Bedouin society
related is Time-Destiny (zamān), that ancient Iranian element that will
have such an influence on Islam. The leitmotiv of the Shāhnāmeh is the
fleeting nature of the things of the world, on which Ferdowsi himself
reflects by sometimes intervening directly in the narration as he does in the
following verses. Here, Ferdowsi comments on the happy event of the
birth of the Iranian hero Rostam, but he cannot refrain from recalling,
with an Iranian fatalism, that life is like a caravanserai travelling towards a
faraway country.
… Now let us revel

And put to flight with wine the soul of care,
For this world is a caravanserai,
Old guests depart and new ones take their places.23
However, unlike Ibn Khaldūn, Ferdowsi can say that in this world where
even the most imposing and magnificent of kings’ palaces are destined to
perish, the ‘palace’ of his poetry will never pass away. Such an affirmation
on the part of Ferdowsi was not possible purely on account of his justifi-
able pride in the greatness of his poem but also because of the exceptional
status that poetry enjoyed in the Persian and Arab-Islamic world, in
keeping with the supernatural status it had enjoyed in the archaic world.
The homes that are the dwellings of to-day

Will sink ‘neath shower and sunshine to decay,
But storm and rain shall never mar what I
Have built the palace of my poetry.24
Despite his pride in his subject, Ibn Khaldūn cannot make similar affirma-
tions with regard to the science of history as founded by him, although it
was a new (muḥdath), extraordinary (gharīb) and powerful (‘aẓīm) science.
Without entering into the details of the Shāhnāmeh, we shall content our-
selves with recalling some comments expressed by Bausani, which seem quite
pertinent to us when establishing a comparison between the Shāhnāmeh and
the Muqaddima. According to Bausani, in the Shāhnāmeh, the ancient Iranian
myth becomes history and the almost transcendent heroes of the Avesta25
become human beings. Miraculous deeds are turned into an almost realistic
representation whose main character is Time-Destiny. The ancient Iranian
cyclical time becomes linear. Therefore, observes Bausani, the epic of Ferdowsi
genuinely expresses the original spirit of Islam, which is anti-mythical and
anti-cyclical. Instead, later Persian poetry would move away from it and
become profoundly anti-realistic, Neoplatonic poetry.26
While the Shāhnāmeh comes before the deep assimilation of Neoplato-
nism by the Muslim culture, the Muqaddima comes afterwards and is
imbued with it. However, Time-Destiny, which was a typical conception
of ancient Iran, confers a unity on both these works.
Bedouin society 87
After the Arab conquest of the Sassanian Empire, the ancient Persian
notion of Time-Destiny had a strong and lasting impact on Islam, giving
birth to the what is known as ‘Islamic fatalism’, which originally was in
fact Iranian fatalism.27
This fatalism and an inclination for mysticism, which were widespread
in a society in decline, is in sharp contrast with a strong and powerful
feature in the Muqaddima: history as the science of human affairs over
time, in all its physicality and immanence.
However much Ibn Khaldūn declares his adherence to the Ash‘arite
theology and moderate Sufism of al-Ghazālī, the reader of the Muqaddima
cannot help but have the impression that the ‘other’ life for Ibn Khaldūn is
more similar to the Hades of Homeric heroes than to the gardens of para-
dise evoked by the Qur’ān. His sensibility, intelligence and culture, his
own assimilation of Islamic philosophy could only make it difficult for him
to believe in the resurrection of bodies (al-ḥashr wa al-nashr28) and even if
he had believed it, not even that would have allowed for a return to the
jāhiliyya. In this respect, the tragedy of Ibn Khaldūn is similar to that
which ‘Omar Khayyām expresses in his quatrains (robā‘yāt), that perfect
and refined one in which he sums up the entire world of the elements in
four verses (earth, water, air and fire), which we quote below, or those
more realistic verses in which he expresses his heartfelt attachment to the
lower sensual world.
Pure we came from nothingness and impure we went away

Joyful we entered and full of sorrow we departed
We were the eye’s water in the heart of fire
To the wind we gave our life and dust we became.29
The affinity between Khayyām, mathematician and astronomer, and Ibn

Khaldūn, social scientist, is no coincidence. In his introduction to his trans-
lation of the quatrains of Khayyām, Bausani offers a fine explanation of
the ‘tragedy of Khayyām’, which is in every way analogous to what we
have called the tragedy of the Muqaddima.
In Islam, originally, the laws of nature do not exist. The totally free and
omnipotent Person of God produces all that exists. The causality links of
phenomena are pure appearance and coincidence. As we have already men-
tioned more than once, neither for the Qur’ān nor for the later-established
Ash‘arite predominant Islamic theology, do secondary causes exist. The
God of Khayyām, unlike the God of Hellenistic Islamic philosophy, cannot
be studied or understood rationally. He must be accepted as He is. The
reason why Khayyām, just like Ibn Khaldūn, is unhappy with God, is that
he is aware that he will not survive after death as a flesh and blood being.
Neither the beautiful gardens of the afterlife nor the abstract meditations
of Sufism provide Khayyām with any kind of consolation. He wants the
resurrection of the body, but his profound knowledge and culture prevent
88 Bedouin society
him from believing in it. Therefore, his universe, which remains an Islamic
universe, deprived of the existence of God, is a universe without laws and
dominated by chaos.30
In these pages, we have wanted to illustrate how the attitude of Ibn
Khaldūn towards Arab paganism helps us understand that the tragedy of
the Muqaddima consists in the impossibility of a return to the archaic, and
in the existence of a linear time which is, however, devoid of a true escha-
tological finality and is dominated by Time-Destiny. We have done this
through making comparisons with other Western authors (if we may con-
sider the Near East and Western Europe as Western in a broad sense). In
the next section of this chapter, we shall explore a comparison between the
aesthetics of the Muqaddima and the aesthetics of Chinese Taoism, high-
lighting the role played in both by the notion of original nature.
The aesthetics of the Muqaddima and the aesthetics

of Chinese Taoism
In the course of this book, we have defined the aesthetics of the Muqad-
dima in terms of a negative aesthetic, borrowing this expression from the
negative theology of the Greek Christian author known as Pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite (fl. fifth century). The writings of Pseudo-Dionysius combine
Neoplatonism and Christianity. In Chapter 4, we have already cited his
De divinis nominibus (On the Names of God), commented on by Thomas
Aquinas. Pseudo-Dionysius distinguished between positive theology, which
defines God based on the names of the things created by Him, in terms of
what He is; and a negative theology according to which the transcendent
God can be defined solely in terms of what He is not. Negative theology
maintains a mystical silence before the ineffability of God.
By analogy with the negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius, we have said
that the Muqaddima is dominated by a negative aesthetics inasmuch as
beauty (be it sensual, intelligible or transcendent) is defined above all by
what it is not. The nature of the Arab Bedouins of the jāhiliyya, pristine and
devoid of colour, is simplicity (sadhāja), roughness (khushūna) and vigour
(ghaḍāḍa), which are all terms that suggest a raw material that has not been
fashioned in any way. This acquires a whole new meaning when contrasted
with the luxury of highly wrought garments, carpets, furnishings and refined
foods. The beauty of the Prophet’s knowledge (‘ilm) coincides with his igno-
rance. The beauty of the soul lies in its being as yet devoid of colours
(alwān) and of habits (‘awā’id). The beauty of discourse (kalām) lies in it
being natural (maṭbū‘) and not artificial (maṣnū‘). The beauty of historical
science lies in it being essential, clear and precise, which are all attributes in
direct opposition to redundancy, excess and futile ornamentation.
Pseudo-Dionysius influenced philosophy and theology in Europe until
the period of Humanism-Renaissance, with philosophers like Nicolò
Cusano (1401–1464) and Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499). In the Islamic
Bedouin society 89
Arab world, mysticism and gnosis express ideas that are analogous to
those of Pseudo-Dionysius, deriving from an in-depth meditation on the
unity and oneness of God and of His total transcendence.
Typical of the negative aesthetic of the Muqaddima is the fact that it
combines Neoplatonic elements with materialist and naturalistic ele-
ments, in accordance with Ibn Khaldūn’s materialist and naturalistic con-
ception of history. The Neoplatonic elements are for example those of the
beauty of angelic knowledge. Ibn Khaldūn says that the knowledge of
human beings is composed of forms (ṣūra), which are not part of their
essence but come from the external world, being acquired (muktasab)
through perception. The angels, instead, are essences (dhawāt) and pure
intellect (‘aql ṣarf) in which there is an exact coincidence (muṭābaqa)
between what is known and the act of knowing. Their knowledge is per-
ception and intellect (al-idrāk wa al-‘aql) at one and the same time. This
is why their perfection is unsaid, unexpressed and indistinct inasmuch as
there is a perfect unity between the one who knows, what is known and
the act of knowing.
‫المالئكة الذين ذواتهم من جنس ذواته و هي ذوات مجردة عن الجسمانية و المادة و عقل صرف‬
‫يتحد فيه العقل و العاقل و المعقول و كأنه ذات حقيقتها اإلدراك و العقل فعلومهم حاصلة دائما‬
‫مطابقة بالطبع لمعلوماتهم ال يقع فيها خلل البتة و علم البشر هو حصول صورة المعلوم في ذواتهم‬
31
…‫ فهو كله مكتسب‬.‫بعد أن ال تكون حاصلة‬
The essences of the angels are of the same kind of the essences [of the
intellectual and the spiritual world, ‘ālam al-‘aql wa al-arwāḥ] … They
are essences abstracted from corporeality and matter, they are pure
intellect in which the intellect, the one who knows and the object of
knowing become one. You would say they are essences the reality of
which is perception and intellect [at one and the same time]. Their
knowledge is always characterised by a natural coincidence
[muṭābaqa] with the object of their knowing, without any imperfec-
tion. The knowledge of the human beings, instead, consists in attain-
ing the essential form of the object of knowing. It is a totally acquired
type of knowledge.32
The same unity belongs to the beauty of God, the First Cause (mabda’).
Metaphysical sages (al-ḥukamā’ al-ilāhiyyūna), aspire to a oneness with
Him through sensual beauty which is a reflection of divine beauty and a
way to draw near to a Being that is utterly transcendent.
In order to find allusions to the transcendent beauty of God, it is neces-
sary to sift through the whole of the Muqaddima with care, as they are so
rare while the book is brimming with descriptions of sensual, material and
immanent beauty. We have seen this from Chapter 2, in which we analysed
the diverse meanings of the term jamāl (beauty) in the Muqaddima. However,
the difficulty, even in the case of a term like jamāl, which indicates almost
90 Bedouin society
exclusively sensual beauty, is to give it an unequivocal meaning, given that
it continually evokes something else. In most cases, Ibn Khaldūn alludes to
the fact that jamāl is not true beauty, contrasting it now with a Bedouin
roughness, now with a religious piety, now with discourse free of orna-
mentation, now with clarity and the unequivocal precision of historical
discourse.
As to what concerns the naturalistic elements of the aesthetics of the
Muqaddima, they coincide with Ibn Khaldūn’s conception of history,
underpinned by economic and social laws but also belonging to the ‘world
of the elements’, in which everything, animal, plant and mineral is born,
grows and dies.
Our aesthetic reading of the Muqaddima is a parallel reading and not
alternative to the sociological and materialist readings of the same.
What prompted us to reflect on the affinity between the aesthetics of
Taoism and that of the Muqaddima is the combination in the latter of a
mystical Neoplatonism and a naturalistic materialism. It seems perfectly
legitimate to compare Classical Arab-Islamic to Classical Chinese culture.
The analogies that can be noted between these two cultures may have
different causes: the existence of elements that are common to all cultures
of pre-modern tributary societies, and in particular the advanced tributary
societies like the Arab-Islamic world and the Chinese world; the existence
of a naturalistic substratum in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean and in
China, linked to magic and divination on the one hand, and to the first sci-
entific speculations on the other; the spread of ideas and techniques
between China and the Eastern Mediterranean and subsequently the Arab-
Islamic world; and finally the acceptance of Buddhist asceticism on the
part of both China and the Arab-Islamic world.
Diverse authors have underlined the interest in comparing Chinese and
Arab culture. Samir Amin (1973, 1988), within the context of his theory
of ‘unequal development’, has affirmed that there exists an analogous
mechanism between the Chinese/Japanese system and the Arab/European
world system in the development of modern capitalism. In both cases, it
was the backward peripheries (Japan and Europe) who proved themselves
more malleable and capable of developing a new mode of production,
while advanced centres (China and the Arab world) were more rigid in the
face of change.33 Still in the field of social thought, Georges Corm (2015) is
another author who has recently expressed a desire for the development of
comparative studies between China and the Arab world.34
For his part, Bausani (1971) put forward the hypothesis of a possible
influence of the Sassanid quatrain on both the octave and the Chinese
quatrain of the Tang epoch (seventh–eighth centuries) and on the New
Persian ghazāl (lyrical poem) of the Islamic era. Such an influence, sup-
posed Bausani, would have taken place by means of a ‘stimulus diffusion’,35
and that is an influence that does not consist in consciously integrating
some knowledge or a technique but in receiving an idea or a stimulus that
Bedouin society 91
is then developed autonomously. In the field of the history of Chinese sci-
entific thought, and in general, Needham (1954) maintained that the diffu-
sion of stimuli in ancient and medieval times had played a fundamental
role both in the direction of Europe and the Arab-Islamic world and vice
versa. According to Needham (1954), the simple suggestion of an idea
coming from another civilisation could induce the development of similar
cultural structures, which may appear to be completely autonomous in
origin. For example, the emergence of a system of writing in a certain part
of the world could be the result of an external stimulus, having heard that
in other parts of the world writing exists. The same applies to the sciences
and to techniques in general.36
Finally, in the field of Gnostic and mystical thought, Toshihiko Izutsu
(1983) has conducted a comparative analysis of the key concepts of Taoism,
Sufism and Muslim Gnosis, highlighting their similarities and differences.37
He states that Taoist mysticism, albeit materialist and not founded on the
opposition between sensual and transcendent, presents analogies with the
Gnostic Monism of Ibn al-‘Arabī (1165–1240), for example.
While waiting for more in-depth studies on this subject, we propose
extending the aforementioned observations of Needham to the analysis of
the aesthetics in the Muqaddima and to hypothesise that its similarities
with Taoist aesthetics can also be explained through a diffusion of stimuli.
We must state beforehand that we do not know the Chinese language and
that our analysis is mainly based on a secondary source, L’Éloge de la
fadeur: A partir de la pensée et de l’esthétique chinoise by François Jullien
(1991). Jullien maintains that in the thirteenth–fourteenth century the aes-
thetic principle of ‘fadeur’ (the fact of being flavourless and colourless)
gained ground in Chinese painting and was inspired by Taoist philosophy.
Diverse tendencies of Chinese thought are covered in the name of
Taoism (from Tao, the Way, the teaching). Their common element lies in a
type of materialist and individualistic mysticism. Connected of old to
magical-religious practices that aspired to individual salvation, Taoist specu-
lation produced some texts in the period of the Warring States (453–221 bce),
among which the most ancient and the most famous is the Tao-Tê-King
(The Way and its Virtue), also known as The Book of the Tao, attributed
to Lao Tzeu. Lao Tzeu probably lived in sixth century bce. The most
ancient copy of the Book of the Tao that we have dates from the third
century bce. The Tao, the Way, is presented as a philosophical and spir-
itual goal, which is accessible through the intuition. It is a unity that pre-
cedes and contains in itself the multiplicity, all the definitions, distinctions
and oppositions.
In the wake of the Mongol invasions, China was governed by the
Muslim Mongol dynasty of the Yuan (1279–1368) in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. This period, which was also important in the field of
exchanges between China and the Islamic world, was a period of great
cultural opening which saw both a rebirth of Taoism and Confucianism
92 Bedouin society
and a cohabitation between diverse currents: Buddhism, Islam, Judaism,
Manichaeism and Eastern Christianity. According to Jullien (1991), it is in
this period that the aesthetic value of ‘fadeur’ in Chinese painting and criticism
comes to the fore. Although predominantly of Taoist origin, Confucian
and Buddhist currents of Chinese thought can also be found in it. Jullien
(1991) supposes that the historical context of desolation created during the
Mongol invasions had encouraged the tendency to seek refuge within, thus
favouring the mystical currents and the rebirth of Taoism. According to
the Chinese critics of this epoch, the beauty of a poem, a piece of music or
a painting consisted in it being a mere hint or suggestion, like the allusive
‘fadeur’ (the opaque, flavourless quality) with which a landscape was
painted. A model of this pictorial ideal was Nizan (fourteenth century),
one of the great masters of the Yuan era. Such an aesthetic principle, the
expression of an ethical ideal of moderation and wisdom, reflected and
reinterpreted the values of ancient Taoism contained in the Tao-Tê-King.
Music and dainties will make the passing guest stop (for a time).
But though the Tao as it comes from the mouth, seems insipid and has
no flavour, though it seems not worth being looked at or listened to,
the use of it is inexhaustible.38
Flavour, colour, sound and form represent the finite, the choice that excludes
the endless possibilities of the whole, the becoming which is more and more
restricted with every step taken and inexorably leads to a dead end. All
flavour is attractive but deceiving, just like musical notes which disperse in
the air and vanish. In order to be inexhaustible, flavours and sounds must
remain unexpressed, full of all possible flavours and sounds. All that exists in
actuality creates a limit, which excludes all other possible becoming.39
Yet Jullien (1991) insists on the fundamental difference between China
and the West, inasmuch as, in his opinion, China does not know of the
opposition between being and appearing, between the sensual world and
the intelligible world, between immanence and transcendence, while the
West, from Plato onwards, is founded on this opposition.40 It is only with
the advent of Buddhism that metaphysics penetrated China. In the view of
Jullien (1991), China represents the absolute Other as compared to the
West. If we follow Jullien (1991), we should accept the same utter impossi-
bility of a comparison between China and the Arab-Islamic world.
In our opinion, Jullien’s analysis of ‘fadeur’ is extremely fascinating, but
his opposition between China and the West recalls another fashionable
idea that is even more inadequate regarding the opposition between Islam
and the West. In order to be valid, these oppositions must necessarily take
into consideration only certain aspects of the respective civilisations and
represent them in terms of rigid and stereotypical entities. The West was
not only Platonic nor only Aristotelian but was, instead, richer and more
varied. All civilisations are diverse and varied.
Bedouin society 93
In the field of cosmology, for example, as regards Arab-Islamic civilisa-
tion, it is possible to find three great tendencies:
1 A Neoplatonic and gnostic tendency, well represented by the Ikhwān

al-Ṣafā’ and by philosophers like al-Fārābī and Avicenna.
2 A juridical tendency belonging to literalist orthodoxy, which gives pre-
eminence to the Law rather than to metaphysics.
3 A third scientific-experimental or scientific-philosophical tendency,
represented by scientists like Bīrūnī (973–1050) and rationalist Aristo-
telian philosophers like Averroes.41
As many diverse tendencies can be identified in Islamic literatures (whether

they express themselves in Arabic, Turkish or Persian), as Bausani has
explained calling for the development of ‘A Comparative Literature of the
Islamic Languages’.42
To turn to the comparison between the aesthetics of the Muqaddima
and Taoist aesthetics, the notion of ṭabī‘a to which Ibn Khaldūn refers
both regarding Bedouin beauty and in other contexts, is not a transcendent
notion but one that is sensual and immanent. It is a question of nature
created by God, suspended in an infinitesimal moment between pre-eternity
and time. There have been those who have been close (aqrab) to this. It is
the case of the Bedouins, ‘closer to the good (aqrab min al-khayr)’, and
whose nature is almost untouched by the colour of habits. Unlike Taoism,
in the Muqaddima, there is no real possible return to nature, to jāhiliyya, if
not by means of analogy, through a kind of acting out like that of the
pilgrim who dons a simple tunic so as to draw closer to God, or the mystic
who divests himself of material things, luxuries and pleasures so as to
devote himself to spiritual exercises.
Regarding the analogous way through which a surrogate for primary
nature can be found, it is worth noting that Ibn Khaldūn makes ample use
of a technical Sufi term, the sense of ‘taste’ (dhawq). God is not known
through an act of intelligence and reason but through the intuition of the
senses. The Latin term sapientia has a similar meaning. It is not only
mystics who make use of ‘taste’, but also those who cultivate linguistic and
literary sciences, like eloquence (balāgha) and literary rhetoric (bayān),
and in general all the arts in the broadest sense. It is through a constant
practice of the arts that a certain faculty (malaka) is generated in the soul
and becomes second nature. This malaka provides man with the flair (lit.
dhawq, ‘taste’) necessary to distinguish true from false, good from evil and
beautiful from ugly. This is also the case with the habits acquired by the
mystics through their spiritual exercises.
Instead, for Taoist aesthetics the ‘flavourless’, as opposed to the savour
that Arab ‘taste’ refers to, is the essential ingredient in the Way, in order to
rediscover, physically and materially, the original, indistinct unity of the
Tao, in order to return to this.
94 Bedouin society
In accordance with this opposition between taste and tastelessness, in
the Muqaddima, linear time does not allow for a return to jāhiliyya, a
historical period whose aesthetic dimension is amplified by its connection
with prophecy. ‘Taste’ guides the human being in his discovery of a world
in which the primary nature of things is forever lost, modified as it has
been by habits, colours and savours. Since an authentic faith in eschato-
logy is not really felt in the Muqaddima, ‘taste’ for Ibn Khaldūn allows
man to find only surrogates for the beauty of primary nature. Such surro-
gates vary according to individual cases and include: the beauty of histor-
ical science, of singular events whose true nature is restored by the
historian, of images of civilisation which, like a photographer, the
historian snatches from the passage of time, the beauty of poetry and
prophecy whose cognitive processes reveal similarities and, finally, the
beauty of mysticism whose practices are similar to a kind of acting out in
order to draw closer to God.
Notes
1 François Jullien, L’Éloge de la fadeur: A partir de la pensée et de l’esthétique
chinoise (Paris: Editions Philippe Picquier, 1991).
2 J. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, I: Introductory Orientations,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 9.
Press, 1980 [1967]), Vol. I, 305–306.
7 Maxime Rodinson, Mahomet (Paris: Seuil, 1994), 67.
8 Ibn Hishām, Sīra, edited by Umm Fārūq Cook, Sīrat Ibn Hishām: Biography of
the Prophet, abridged by Abdus-Salām M. Hārūn (Cairo: Al-Falah Foundation,
2000), 23–23.
9 This latter passage is not mentioned in Ibn Hishām (2000). Arabic text: Ibn
Hishām, Sīra, edited by ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salām Tadmurī, Al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya
li-Ibn Hishām (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, n.d.), Vol. I, 190–191.
10 Ṭaha Ḥusayn, Fī al-shi‘r al-jāhilī (Cairo: Dār al-kutub al-maṣriyya, 1926).
11 According to Qur’ān’s commentators, a thorny and dry plant.
12 Al-Nawawī (1233–1277), Al-Arba‘īna [Forty ḥadīth], translated by M.A. Sabri
(Rome: Centro Editoriale Studi Islamici, 1982), 40–41.
13 Pierre Lory, ‘La notion de Dieu dans l’Arabie anté-islamique’, Cahier d’etudes
arabes 2 (1988): 72–107. The author refers, among others, to Mircea Eliade,
Le Mythe de l’eternel retour (Paris: Gallimard, 1966).
14 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 264–265.
16 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. III, 93; and Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. III, 117–118.
18 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. III, 210, 214–215.
20 Cf. Chapter 2.
Bedouin society 95
21 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music [Die
Gebeurt der Tragödie], translated by Ian Johnston (©2003 Blackmask Online,
2000), 14.
22 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra [Also sprach Zarathustra], translated
by Thomas Common (New York: Modern Library, n.d.), 174.
23 Ferdowsi, Shāhnāmeh, translated by Arthur George Warner and Edmond
Warner, The Shāhnāma of Firdausī (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner,
1905), 326: ‘How Sam came to see Rostam’.
24 Ferdowsi (1905), 42 (‘Introduction’).
25 The Avesta is the fundamental collection of religious texts of the ancient
Persian religion, Mazdeism.
26 Antonino Pagliaro and Alessandro Bausani, La letteratura persiana (Florence-Milan:
Sansoni-Accademia, 1968), 368.
27 Pagliaro and Bausani (1968), 380.
28 The faith in the resurrection of bodies is one of the fundamental elements of the
faith according to the orthodox Ash‘arite theology, cf. Al-Ghazālī, Al-Iqtiṣād min
al-I‘tiqād [The Right Means in Belief] (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 1983), 6.
29 Persian text: ‘Omar Khayyām, Robā‘iyāt, edited by Arthur J. Arberry, The
Robā‘iyāt of ‘Omar Khayyām (London: Emery Walker, 1949), edited from a ms.
dated 658 (1259–1260) in the possession of A. Chester Beatty Esq.
30 ‘Omar Khayyām, Robā‘iyāt, translated by Alessandro Bausani, Quartine
(Torino: Einaudi, 1956), xix–xx.
33 Samir Amin, Le développement inégal: Essai sur les formations sociales du
capitalisme périphérique (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1973); and Amin,
L’Eurocentrisme: Critique d’une idéologie (Paris: Anthropos economica, 1988).
From a global history perspective, this author explores even further the com-
parison between China, the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East in pre-
modern times in Le monde arabe dans la longue durée: Le printemps arabe?
(Paris: Le Temps des cerises, 2015).
et problématiques XIXe–XXIe siècle (Paris: La Découverte, 2015).
35 The expression comes from Alfred Louis Kroeber, ‘Stimulus Diffusion’, in
American Anthropologist New Series 42(1) (January–March 1940): 1–20.
36 Needham (1954), 244.
37 Toshihiko Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philo-
sophical Concepts (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983).
38 Lao-Tsu, Tao Te Ching, translated by James Legge, The Tao Teh King, or The
Tao and its Characteristics (s.l.: s.n., 1891). The same passage is quoted by
Jullien (1991), 36, referring to Lao-tzeu, La Voie et sa vertu: Tao-tê-king,
translated by François Houang and Pierre Leyris (Paris: Seuil, 1979), 89.
39 Jullien (1991), 36.
40 The same opinion is shared by Anne Chang, Histoire de la pensée chinoise
(Paris: Seuil, 1997).
41 This tripartition was proposed by Bausani, in a controversy with Henri Corbin
and Hossein Nasr, who tended to reduce Islam to its Gnostic and mystical
dimension in Alessandro Bausani, L’Enciclopedia dei Fratelli della Purità
(Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1978), 21–22, where there is a refer-
ence to Bausani, ‘Cosmologia e religione nell’Islam’ Scientia (1973): 1–24.
42 Alessandro Bausani, ‘Per una letteratura comparata delle lingue islamiche’, in
Atti del terzo Convegno di Studi Arabi e Islamici (Naples: Istituto Universitario
orientale, 1967), 145–156.
96 Bedouin society
References
Amin, Samir (1973) Le développement inégal: Essai sur les formations sociales du
capitalisme périphérique. Paris: Editions de Minuit.
Amin, Samir (1988) L’Eurocentrisme: Critique d’une idéologie. Paris: Anthropos
economica.
Amin, Samir (2015) Le monde arabe dans la longue durée: Le printemps arabe?
Paris: Le Temps des cerises.
Bausani, Alessandro (1967) ‘Per una letteratura comparata delle lingue islamiche’.
In Atti del terzo Convegno di Studi Arabi e Islamici. Naples: Istituto Universitario
orientale 145–156.
Bausani, Alessandro (1971) ‘Considerazioni sull’origine del ghazal’. In Atti del
Convegno Internazionale sul tema: La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome 31 March–5
April 1970), ed. Raoul Manselli. Rome: Accademia Internazionale dei Lincei.
Bausani, Alessandro (1973) ‘Cosmologia e religione nell’Islam. Scientia: 1–24.
Bausani, Alessandro (1978) L’Enciclopedia dei Fratelli della Purità. Naples:
Istituto Universitario Orientale.
Chang, Anne (1997) Histoire de la pensée chinoise. Paris: Seuil.
Corm, Georges (2015) Pensée et politique dans le monde arabe: Contextes histor-
iques et problématiques XIXe–XXIe siècle. Paris: La Découverte.
Eliade, Mircea (1966) Le Mythe de l’éternel retour. Paris: Gallimard.
Ferdowsi (1905) Shāhnāmeh, trans. Arthur George Warner and Edmond Warner,
The Shāhnāma of Firdausī. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.
Al-Ghazālī, (1983) Al-Iqtiṣād min al-I‘tiqād. Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya.
Ḥusayn, Ṭaha (1926) Fī al-shi‘r a-jāhilī. Cairo: Dār al-kutb al-maṣriyya.
Ibn Hishām (n.d.) Sīra, ed. ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salām Tadmurī, Al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya
li-Ibn Hishām, I. Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī.
Ibn Hishām (2000) Sīra, ed. Umm Fārūq Cook, Sīrat Ibn Hishām. Biography of the
Prophet, abridged by Abdus-Salām M. Hārūn. Cairo: Al-Falah Foundation for
Translation, Publication and Distribution.
Izutsu, Toshihiko (1983) Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philo-
sophical Concepts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Jullien, François (1991) L’Éloge de la fadeur: A partir de la pensée et de
l’esthétique chinoise. Paris: Editions Philippe Picquier.
Khayyām, ‘Omar (1949) The Robā‘iyāt of ‘Omar Khayyām, trans. Arthur J.
Arberry. London: Emery Walker.
Khayyām, ‘Omar (1956) Robā‘yāt, trans. Alessandro Bausani, Quartine. Torino:
Einaudi.
Kroeber, Alfred Louis (1940) ‘Stimulus Diffusion’. American Anthropologist New
Series 42(1) (January–March).
Lao-Tsu, Tao Te Ching (1891) trans. James Legge, The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and
its characteristics. s.l.: s.n.
Lao-tzeu (1979) La Voie et sa vertu: Tao-tê-king, trans. François Houang and
Pierre Leyris. Paris: Seuil.
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Lory, Pierre (1988) ‘Notion de Dieu dans l’Arabie anté-islamique’. Cahier d’etudes
arabes 2: 72–107.
Needham, Joseph (1954) Science and Civilisation in China, I: Introductory Orien-
tations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (n.d.) Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Also sprach Zarathustra],
trans. Thomas Common. New York: Modern Library.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (2000) The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music [Die
Gebeurt der Tragödie], trans. Ian Johnston. ©2003 Blackmask Online.
Pagliaro, Antonino and Bausani, Alessandro (1968) La letteratura persiana.
Florence-Milan: Sansoni-Accademia.
Rodinson, Maxime (1994) Mahomet. Paris: Seuil.
6 The dawn of Islam
Knowledge and beauty at the
dawn of Islam
In the course of previous chapters, we have more than once mentioned

that in the Muqaddima the period of the Qur’ānic revelation and the one
immediately afterwards (ṣadr al-Islām, ‘the origins of Islām’)1 assumes a
strong aesthetic dimension. In this chapter, we shall take a closer look at
some aspects that highlight the continuity, from an aesthetic point of view,
between the jāhiliyya and the era of the revelation. In the first section, we
shall deal with the way in which the Muqaddima describes the mani-
festation of beauty in history at the dawn of Islam. This reminds us of the
aesthetics of the revolution in the verses of Vladimir Majakovskij. With an
approach that recalls that of the avant-garde, futurist revolutionaries of
the twentieth century, the Qur’ān breaks with the aesthetics and the lit-
erary style of the pre-Islamic Arab poetry, and sees itself as the herald of a
new ethics. The Qur’ānic sūras display a search for speed, simultaneity,
innovations in logical-syntactical structures, a dispensing with logical,
discursive procedures and a creation of new analogical, spontaneous, imagi-
native and emotional relationships. The Qur’ān, unlike the highly conven-
tional and refined style of pre-Islamic poetry, breaks with Arabic literary
Classicism and favours realism and immediacy.2 Indeed, it was this differ-
ence of style, and not just of content, between the Qur’ān and pre-Islamic
poetry that drove Ṭaha Ḥusayn (1926) to negate the authenticity of the
Arabic poetry of the jāhiliyya and to assert that the Qur’ān is the principal
document to provide us with information about the historical reality of the
life of the Arabs before Islam.3
Just as an example, let us consider the Meccan sūra of ‘The Chargers’
(al-‘Ādiyāt). With the typical imaginative language of the revelation in
Mecca, the sūra opens with an invocation, evoking snorting fillies who in
their dawn charge in the middle of the enemy crowds, make sparks of
fire and raise clouds of dust (fa-atharna bihi naq‘an). Then suddenly,
with a highly poetical effect, the sūra turns into an exclamation, and
cries how unthankful man is to his Lord, with his insatiable love for
wealth (khayr). In the Day of Judgement, God will overthrow the graves
and bring out from the breasts of men what is within them. Doesn’t man
know that?
The dawn of Islam 99
‫َّح ِيم‬
َ‫) فَ َو َس ۡطن‬٤( ‫ن َۡق ۬ ًعا‬ ‫) فَأَثَ ۡرنَ بِ ِهۦ‬٣( ‫ت ص ُۡب ۬ ًحا‬ ‫ٲ‬ ‫ر‬
ِ َ ُِ ‫ي‬ ‫غ‬ ‫م‬ ۡ
‫ٱل‬ َ ‫ف‬ )٢( ‫ا‬ ‫ح‬۬ ‫د‬ ۡ
ً ِ َٰ ِ ُ َ ‫ق‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ـ‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ور‬ ‫م‬ ۡ
‫ٱل‬ َ ‫ف‬ )١( ‫ض ۡب ۬ ًحا‬ َ ‫ت‬ ِ ‫َو ۡٱل َع ٰـ ِديَ ٰـ‬
‫لِحُبِّ ۡٱلخ َۡي ِر لَ َش ِدي ۢ ٌد‬ ‫) َوإِنَّهُ ۥ‬٧( ‫ش ِہي ۬ ٌد‬ َ ‫ل‬ ‫ك‬
َ َ ِ ٰ َ ‫ل‬ ‫ٲ‬ َ
‫ذ‬ ‫ى‬ َ ‫ل‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ۥ‬ ُ ‫ه‬ َّ ‫ن‬ ‫إ‬
َِ ‫و‬ )٦( ٌ
‫د‬ ۬ ‫و‬ ُ ‫ن‬ َ
‫ك‬ َ ‫ل‬ ‫ۦ‬
‫ه‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ل‬
ِ ِّ َ ِ َ‫ِ َ ٰن‬ ‫ـ‬ ‫س‬ ‫ن‬‫ٱل‬ ۡ ‫ن‬ َّ ِ ‫إ‬ )٥( ‫بِ ِهۦ َجمۡ عًا‬
‫ب ِہمۡ يَ ۡو َم ِٕٮ ۬ ٍُذ‬
ِ ‫َربَّ ہُم‬ ‫) إِ َّن‬١٠( ‫ُور‬ ِ ‫د‬ ُّ‫ٱلص‬ ‫ى‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ا‬ ‫م‬
ِ َ َ ِّ‫َ ُص‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ح‬ ‫و‬ )٩( ‫ُور‬
ِ ‫ب‬ُ ‫ق‬ ‫ٱل‬ ۡ ‫ى‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ا‬
ِ َ َِ ‫م‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ث‬ ۡ
‫ُع‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ا‬ َ
‫ذ‬ ِ ُ َ َ َ‫) أَف‬٨)
‫إ‬ ‫م‬َ ‫ل‬ ۡ
‫ع‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ل‬
(١١) ‫لَّ َخبِير‬
By the running, snorting chargers (1), who make sparks of fire! (2), by
the morning-raiders! (3) They raise clouds of dust (4) in the middle of
the enemy crowd! (5). Verily the human being is ungrateful to his
Lord (6), he is himself a witness to that (7), what a great love for
worldly wealth he has! (8). Doesn’t he know that when what is in the
graves shall be scattered abroad (9), when what is in the heart shall
come out (10), on that day their Lord shall know all about them! (11).
(Qur’ān, al-‘Ādiyāt [The Chargers], 100)
Among the avant-garde futurists of the twentieth century, it was Majakovskij

who produced a poetic-political programme in a most authentic and pro-
found way. A programme that broke with petit bourgeois Neoclassicism in
order to replace it with a new style and new revolutionary content.
From the point of view of style and content, the Qur’ān like Futurism
did not appear from nowhere, but from their respective cultural hinter-
lands. In the case of the Qur’ān, it is the hinterland of Near Eastern
Gnosis, which had been penetrated by elements of the Old and New
Testaments, Jewish and Christian Apocrypha, pre-Islamic Arab paganism
as well as Iranian and Zoroastrian elements.4 In the case of Futurism, it is
the intuitionism of Bergson (1859–1941),5 the Irrationalism of Nietzsche
and the French poetry of the late nineteenth century which had prepared
the ground for Futurism by eliminating logical connectors in discourse and
by valuing the vitality of the irrationalist component in the human being.
Unlike the Futurism of the verses of Majakovskij, however, the period
of the revelation is not described in the Muqaddima as projected towards
the future but as closed within itself, in a time and place of its own, with
its own rules, its own criteria and its own measurements. Notwithstanding
the fact that from a doctrinal point of view the revelation founded the
linear time of eschatology, in reality in the Muqaddima early Islam, of
whose historical continuity with jāhiliyya Ibn Khaldūn is fully aware, is a
space similar to a parabola, a mathematical curve symbolised if we like by
the miraculous nocturnal journey of the Prophet (isrā’),6 astride his charger
Burāq, from Mecca to Jerusalem, followed by his ascension into heaven
(mi‘rāj) accompanied by the angel Gabriel, all in the same time it takes to
spill a jug of water.
In the first section of this chapter, we refer to the importance of beauty as
perceived in the Muqaddima as an uninterrupted epiphany at the dawn of
Islam, in terms of ‘phenomenological beauty’. In the second section, we shall
100 The dawn of Islam
return to the question of prophecy and take a closer look at what consti-
tutes prophecy par excellence for Ibn Khaldūn as for all Muslims, namely,
the prophecy of Muḥammad. It is still possible to experience this prophecy,
albeit indirectly, by means of the living proof of its veracity, the Qur’ān. In
this second section, we shall explore the indissoluble link between beauty
and knowledge contained in prophecy, inasmuch as it is the inspired pro-
ducer of the Qur’ān, a book of ‘inimitable beauty’ (i‘jāz). We shall focus
more on the analogies that exist between Qur’ānic revelation and poetic
production, already mentioned in the previous chapters. Finally, in the
third section, we shall demonstrate that Ibn Khaldūn, albeit not systemati-
cally or completely consistently, develops a Qur’ānic poetics, in the sense
of an exposition of the aesthetic characteristics of the Holy Book and its
production.
The phenomenological beauty of the revelation:

the revolutionary phase
Ibn Khaldūn presents the era of the Islamic revelation as one of real con-
tinuity with Arab paganism, of which it represents the height of perfection.
The virtue and the beauty of the jāhiliyya are the same as those of the
Bedouin-Prophet and his Companions, who surround him as a primus inter
pares: simplicity, (sadhāja), Bedouinity (badāwa), roughness (khushūna),
vigour (ghaḍāḍa), honour (sharaf) and courage (shujā‘a, ba’s).
If the Qur’ānic revelation also represents a break with the previous
epoch, introducing a historically new time (despite it being presented in the
Qur’ān as the restoration of the ancient monotheism of Abram), when
reading the Muqaddima, the reader perceives a more profound rupture
between the era of the revelation and the one following it than between the
era of the revelation and that of Arab paganism. The very fact of institut-
ing a linear time means that the revelation transforms the jāhiliyya into the
archaic, an archaic which is close to the Prophet and to his Companions
but very far from the history that will come later, that of the infinite repeti-
tive cycles of civilisations that succeed each other.
The revelation is a dazzling light that blinds all the perceptions of the
Unseen that human beings may previously have had through divination or
dreamlike visions. These are like stars or lamps, the light of which ceases
to be visible in the presence of the sun of Prophecy.
‫هذه المدارك كلها تخمد في زمن النبؤة كما تخمد الكواكب و السرج عند وجود الشمس ألن‬
7
‫النبؤة هي النور األعظم الذي يخفى معه كل نور و يذهب‬
At the time of the prophecy, all the [supernatural] perceptions lose
intensity, like stars or lamps in the presence of the sun, because proph-
ecy is the greatest light before which any other light ceases to be
visible and disappears.8
The soothsayers (kāhin) were not alone in losing their powers of divina-
tion as even the poets refrained from composing verse. In the face of the
sublime beauty of the divine Word, everyone was troubled, frightened, lost
in wonder and lost for words. Here we find once again the aesthetics of
silence, of which we spoke earlier concerning the silence of the Nubian
King, of al-Manṣūr, of ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, that silence which alone can
express truth, justice and beauty.
Ibn Khaldūn insists on the fact that, at the time of the revelation,
Muslims were ready to die (istamāta), as the pagan Arabs had been at
the time of the jāhiliyya. Muslims were ready to give their lives, but not
for their lineage nor in virtue of an ‘aṣabiyya based on blood ties, as
earlier. They were ready to die for Islam, the homeland of all as Majakovskij
would say regarding the new Bolshevik homeland, whose dimension was
now universally human. Revelation interrupts the ordinary course of
history and breaks long-existing habits. The repeated disclosure of heav-
enly messages pushed them to be willing to seek death for it. Their soul
became coloured with obedience and submission. They were filled with
fear and wonder at the continual miracles and other divine occurrences.
‫أمر الدين و اإلسالم كان كله بخوارق العادة من تأليف القلوب عليه و استماتة الناس دونه‬
‫و ذلك من أجل األحوال التي كانوا يشاهدونها في حضور المالئكة لنصرهم و تردد خبر‬
‫السماء بينهم و تجدد خطاب هللا في كل حادثة يتلى عليهم فلم يحتج إلى مراعاة العصبية لما‬
‫شمل الناس من صبغة االنقياد و اإلذعان وما يستفزهم من تتابع المعجزات الخارقة و األحوال‬
9
‫اإللهية الواقعة و المالئكة المترددة التي وجموا منها و دهشوا من تتابعها‬
Piety and Islam were full of miracles that broke long-existing habits
and made hearts docile. People were willing to seek death for [Islam]
because of the circumstances they witnessed, such as the coming of
angels to help them, the frequent revelations from heaven and the
recurrent divine address which was recited to them at every happen-
ing. There was no need to consider group feeling because people’s
[souls] were coloured by docility, obedience and the [emotions] pro-
voked by the repeated miracles, divine circumstances and the frequent
visits of angels, which frightened and astonished them.10
At the time of the revelation, group feeling was not necessary to guarantee
the unitedness of the Muslims, as it would be later on. Moreover, in his
‘farewell speech’ (khuṭbat al-widā‘), on the occasion of his last pilgrimage
to Mecca in 632, a little before dying, the Prophet had addressed words of
advice to his people, transformed by the new brotherhood of Islam. You
have been relieved of all debts prior to Islam, he said. Time turns in a
circle again, according to the order established by God on the day of cre-
ation, all believers are brothers and Arabs are not superior to non-Arabs,
unless it be on the strength of their piety.11
Concerning the institution of the caliphate, Ibn Khaldūn, states that to
be precise at his death, the Prophet designated Abū Bakr, his Companion
and the father of one of his wives, ‘Ā’isha, to succeed him in leading
prayer (imāma), but nothing else. Indeed, neither the Prophet nor his
Companions were worried about organising political power and the laws
of succession (khilāfa, caliphate, literally ‘succession’). For them, the ‘cali-
phate’ was something similar to prayer,12 and all those like the Shiites
who claim that the Prophet appointed ‘Alī as his political successor are
mistaken. The question simply did not exist then and only later would it
acquire importance.
In this too, the dawn of Islam in the exposition of the Muqaddima
raises similar problems to those evoked by Majakovskij concerning the
Russian Revolution and the new Bolshevik State. In the minds of many
Russian revolutionaries, the dissolution of the State represented the distant
goal for which the Socialist revolution was striving. Let us recall the debate
at the heart of the first International Association of Workers (1864)
between the partisans of political parties organised with a view to holding
power, like Marx and Engels, and the anti-authoritarians like Mikhail
Bakunin (1814–1876), who in his Statism and Anarchy (1873) described
the State as a naturally despotic and violent institution and wished for a
society based on the free and fraternal union of men without any coercive
mechanism. The problem will subsequently be faced by Lenin (1870–1924),
who in his The State and Revolution (1917) defined the State as an instrument
of class oppression that was destined to die out.
In the Muqaddima as well, the problem of the State is fundamental.
According to Ibn Khaldūn, in the revolutionary phase of the revelation,
there was no need for a coercive State. But it was a temporary and excep-
tional phase, indeed it was outside the usual course of history. This phase
was followed by real history, in time, in which the coercive State managed
to guarantee the functioning and well-being of society for a certain period.
The epoch of the revelation is defined thus in the Muqaddima as an enthu-
siastic phase of harmonious anarchy,13 in which men had no need of civil
laws or of sanctions.
After the Prophet’s death, the light of the revelation continued to illumi-
nate successive generations, but ever less so, like a far-off star that had
then disappeared. Yet from the Prophet’s death onwards, the mobilisation
of the group feeling was necessary in order to achieve the Arab conquests,
even though it was then a question of a ‘aṣabiyya of a religious nature and
no longer founded on tribal and blood ties. The conquest of the Byzantine
lands and of Sassanid Persia enabled the Arab Empire to accumulate
enormous wealth. However, the first Rightly Guided Caliphs made no
changes to their rough Bedouin lifestyle (wa hum ma‘a dhālika ‘alā
khushūnat ‘ayshihim), nor was their religious piety affected by luxury.
‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb possessed an old cloak that he mended himself with
pieces of leather.
‫حتى إذا اجتمعت عصبية العرب على الدين بما أكرمهم هللا به من نبوة محمد صلى هللا عليه و‬
‫سلم زحفوا إلى أمم فارس و الروم و طلبوا ما كتب هللا لهم من األرض بوعد الصدق فابتزوا‬
‫ملكهم و استباحوا دنياهم فزخرت بحار الرفه لديهم … و هم مع ذلك على خشونة عيشهم‬
14
‫فكان عمر رضى هللا عنه يرقع ثوبه بالجلد‬
The group feeling of the Arabs became a religious kind of solidarity,
thanks to the honour that God had conferred on them through the
prophecy of Muḥammad, God bless him and grant him salvation!
They advanced against the Persians and the Byzantines and claimed
the lands which God had truthfully promised them in the [Holy]
Book. They seized the political authority of the Persians, proscribed
their religion, then they were drowning in a sea of wealth … Notwith-
standing that, they made no changes to their rough way of life. ‘Umar,
may God be pleased with him! mended his cloak himself with [pieces
of] leather.15
The ethical-aesthetic dimension of the ṣadr al-islām (the origins of Islam) is

defined by contrast, according to the model of the negative aesthetic we
presented in Chapter 4. It is more sober compared to the Treasure in
heaven with which Jesus contrasts worldly riches in such an uncompromis-
ing way. The eye of the needle of the ṣadr al-islām is wider in order to get
into paradise. But ‘Umar is a Bedouin and is used to his old cloak. Shiny
gold coins and the luxury of refined garments produce no effect on him.
Ibn Khaldūn reports that after the conquest of Persian Iraq, under the
caliphate of ‘Umar, the Muslim soldiers asked him for permission to
rebuild the city of Kūfa that had been destroyed by flames. ‘Umar accepted
but only on condition that the new buildings did not exceed the appro-
priate dimension (lā yarfa‘ū buniyānan fawqa al-qadr). When they asked
him to be more precise about what he meant by that, he said that the
appropriate dimension is the one that does not depart from the golden
mean (lā yukhrijukum ‘an al-qaṣd). In the following years, the Arabs learnt
the art of the extravagant architecture of the Persians and the Arab Empire
was by then at an end.
‫كما عهد لهم عمر حين استأذنوه في بناء الكوفة بالحجارة و قد وقع الحريق في القصب الذي‬
‫كانوا بنوا به من قبل فقال افعلوا و ال يزيدن أحد على ثالثة أبيات و ال تطاولوا في البنيان‬
‫و ألزموا السنة تلزمكم الدولة و عهد إلى الوفد و تقدم إلى الناس أن ال يرفعوا بنيانا ً فوق القدر‬
‫قالوا و ما القدر قال ال يقربكم من السرف و ال يخرجكم عن القصد فلما بعد العهد بالدين‬
‫و التحرج في أمثال هذه المقاصد و غلبت طبيعة الملك و الترف و استقدم العرب أمة الفرس و‬
16
‫أخذوا عنهم الصنائع و المباني … و كان عهد ذلك قريبا ً بانقراض الدولة‬
When the [Muslims] asked ‘Umar for permission to rebuild Kūfa with
stones, after the reeds they had used before had caught fire, he said:
‘So be it, but no one shall build more than three houses. Do not
compete with each other in building, observe the Sunna, and the reins
of power will be firmly in your hands.’ Umar gave this advice to the
delegation [of Muslims] and ordered the people not to erect a building
that exceeded the appropriate dimension. They asked: ‘What is the
appropriate dimension?’ He answered: ‘What does not lead you to
immoderation and does not depart from the golden mean …’.
[Later] political authority and luxury prevailed. The Arabs con-
quered the Persians and learned crafts from them and [how to erect]
buildings … The Arab empire was about to be destroyed by then.17
The first ‘Abbāsids were the last to enjoy the now distant light of the reve-
lation. We have seen that Hārūn al-Rashīd and al-Ma’mūn are cited by Ibn
Khaldūn for their exemplary morality and piety. But little by little circum-
stances changed and history resumed its course. Primary nature progres-
sively took on the forms and colours of habits, which, like a second
nature, modified mankind. The beauty of miracles, now far-off in time and
no longer enacted close by, ceased to be a source of delight and wonder.
Group feeling and the usual habits, with their harmful or beneficial effects,
re-emerged, therefore political authority (mulk), caliphate and succession
to power (‘ahd) became relevant questions.
‫فلما … آثار الخوارق و صار الحكم للعادة كما كان … و أصبح الخالفة و الملك و العهد‬
18
‫بهما مهما ً من المهمات األكيدة كما زعمواه‬
The miracles ceased and political power reverted to what it had been
before … The questions of the caliphate, political power and succes-
sion became very important, and were considered so.19
In accordance with historical reality, Ibn Khaldūn reflects on the transition

from the revolutionary phase of Islam to the following one in which the
new State must tackle the concrete internal and external problems linked
to its own survival and organisation.
At the dawn of Islam, the Arab leaders were all ready to die for their
new homeland, which was no longer their tribe but their religion, the
homeland of all Muslims. They had the fear of God, but not that fear
which is weakness, a cowardice that makes the person soft and not that
fear that characterises the subjects of organised and coercive States. Their
fear came from admiration and wonder at the inimitable beauty of the
Qur’ān and of the miracles that followed one after another. Their submis-
sion (and this is the meaning of the word ‘Islām’) came from the purest
faith and courage.
Not so differently and full of admiration for the October Revolution,
Majakovskij addressed the rich who, because of their attachment to their
wealth, did not understand the enthusiasm of the revolutionaries who were
possibly ready to die for their new Bolshevik homeland. What are you singing
about, why are you happy, what on earth is this socialist homeland and what
kind of new oranges grow in your Bolshevik paradise? he had them ask.20
The poem ‘Good!’ is dedicated to the October Revolution and to the
economic, social, political and military problems of the following years,
which the Bolshevik State had to face (civil war, an economy devastated by
the First World War and the threat of military intervention by the European
powers), during the period of ‘war communism’ (1918–1921) and then of
the New Economic Policy (1921–1928). After the death of Lenin and with
Stalin’s rise to power, Majakovskij feels that much of the original revolu-
tionary spirit had been lost. With his great sensibility, he expresses his
overwhelming pain at the death of Lenin. He fears that, just like the tsars,
he will be remembered as a ‘leader by divine grace’ and that his simplicity
and humanity will be falsified. Majakovskij fears that processions and
mausoleums will take the place of the authentic revolutionary spirit. Of
the funeral procession that accompanies the remains of Lenin, he says that
it seemed that, ‘as in ancient times, all Russia had become nomadic once
more!’21
Thus, the comparison between Ibn Khaldūn and Majakovskij, between the
aesthetic dimension with which the former represented the revolutionary
phase of the revelation and the enthusiasm of the Russian poet for the
Bolshevik Revolution does not seem too inadequate. The Russia of those
years was in part, culturally speaking, the rural Russia of the tsars, who
believed they had received power directly from God. Only in the big cities
where there was a working class and an intellectual élite had there been a
break with the past. With its Orthodox Christian religion and its Byzantine-
Slav culture, Russia was still partly linked, along with the Arab, Iranian
and Turkish world, to the ancient cultural system of the medieval Eastern
Mediterranean by its common Hellenistic roots.22 In this sense, the shot
from a revolver with which Majakovskij committed suicide in 1930, as has
been said in a way that is clearly too categorical, seems like a symbolic
event marking the turning point between two periods of Russian literature:
it appears that before Majakovskij there was a heroic period of debates,
experiments and creativity, and after him a long-lasting season of conform-
ism, with very few exceptions.23 To this we would add, in the framework of
our analysis: before Majakovskij lies ancient Russia and after him lies
Soviet Russia.
As for Ibn Khaldūn, he observes that after the end of the ṣadr al-islām
the State could do nothing but become coercive and despotic. Its only
recourse was to avail itself of sanctions and penalties that humiliated its
subjects, destroyed their courage and broke their spirit. To this end, the
State had to make a show of pomp and opulence in order to instil fear in
the simple and buy the consensus of the powerful.24
We have already mentioned the Lebanese poet Mikhā’īl Nu‘ayma
(1889–1988), of the Christian Orthodox religion, who gives a nostalgic
account in his autobiography of the years of his youth spent in a seminary
in the Ukraine (1906–1911), where he lived on a study grant provided by
tsarist Russia. In those years, he felt he belonged to the Russian people and
to their culture, whose decadence and fossilisation found an echo in his
own Arab civilisation. He deplored the wicked culture and empty ritualism
of the seminary as well as criticising the enormous social inequalities of
Russia, all problems that were widespread in the Arab societies of that
time too. Nu‘ayma passionately admired Tolstoy, writer and social
reformer, whom the tsarist government of 1908 had punished for his com-
mitment to social reform in his country by forbidding the schools to celeb-
rate his eightieth birthday. My only guide was the same light that guided
Tolstoy, said Nu‘ayma, the light of the Gospel. It annoyed me, as it did
him, that the Church should hide that light from the eyes of the faithful
behind a thick fog of rites and traditions, thus creating a Christianity that
differed in no way from idolatry, except in name, and in which Christ was
no longer present.25
The culture of pre-modern Russia was still alive in the years of the
October Revolution, just as the classic Arab culture survived, albeit fossil-
ised and decadent, right up to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the
end of the First World War. No wonder then that it is easy to see an affin-
ity between Majakovskij and Ibn Khaldūn, between the aesthetics of the
revelation and the aesthetics of the revolution. Ibn Khaldūn, too, deplored
the new leaders who, after the end of the revolutionary period of the ṣadr
al-Islām, adopted the cult of personality in the style of the ancient kings of
Persia. They pursued luxury and wealth and abandoned the ancient simpli-
city of the Bedouins while their subjects were no longer ready to die and
submitted to the authority of the State out of fear of sanctions. Like Ibn
Khaldūn, Majakovskij is deeply attached to the life of the senses, the
bodily life of Lenin with his hard, ironic lips and whose thoughts wrinkle
his skin at the corner of his eyes. The drama of Majakovskij, in reality, is
that Lenin is not immortal nor is he a leader by divine grace but is more
human than every man.
Tradition has it that ‘Umar announced the death of the Prophet to his
Companions saying to those who believed in Muḥammad that the Prophet
was dead, and to those who believed in God, that God is the eternal one
who never dies.26 Unlike Majakovskij, the attachment of Ibn Khaldūn to
the life of the senses is expressed in his relationship to the rough and
vigorous bodies of the Bedouins, not to the human and physical individu-
ality of the Prophet and this is due both to religious motives (a sense of
modesty with regard to the figure of the Prophet) as well as cultural ones
(a different way of conceiving of the ‘individual’). Majakovskij looks to
the future with apprehension. Ibn Khaldūn looks back on the past with
impossible nostalgia.
Revelation and poetry as special forms of knowledge

In this section, we return to the epistemological beauty of prophecy, a
topic we have already considered in Chapter 2 and in Chapter 4 concerning
the perceptions of the Unseen. We now reconnect with some topics previously
presented on prophecy, linking it specifically to the revelation of the
Qur’ān. This will enable us to clarify the analogies that exist between
poetry and prophecy in more detail in terms of special cognitive processes.
Such analogies do not arise so much from an intentional and conscious
wish on the part of Ibn Khaldūn, as from the fact that the Muqaddima-
universe, containing as it does a synthesis of all the elements attributed to
prophecy in Islam as well as the elements that characterise poetry in the
Arab-Muslim culture, naturally produces these objective affinities.
Prophecy and poetry are described by Ibn Khaldūn as cognitive pro-
cesses, whose particularity are that in these the imagination (khayāl) plays
a central role instead of being considered less important on account of its
link to the senses or as inferior compared to the intellect, as in the case of
normal knowledge. Naturally, the word ‘imagination’ is not understood in
the sense of modern Romanticism as the free creativity of the artist, but in
the Aristotelian sense of that faculty of the soul which draws from the
senses the forms of sensual objects from the external world, in the shape of
immaterial images, of which it produces associations and combinations.
The Psychology of Aristotle (Greek Perì Psychēs, Latin De Anima)27
was translated and commentated on by Arab-Muslim philosophers and
many of his concepts spread in a capillary manner even to places outside
the strict confines of the Hellenistic philosophy of Islam (falsafa), suffice it
to think of al-Ghazālī and Ibn Khaldūn himself.
Let us briefly recall the principal ideas of Aristotelian psychology. Aristotle
considers that knowledge starts from the senses, which are able to assume
the forms (éidos) of the particular objects of the external world, without
the material, just like wax receives the imprint of the ring without
receiving the iron or gold from which the ring is made. Such forms are
then transferred to other faculties of the soul, which are arranged in hier-
archical order with the intellect at the top (noūs). The intellect is what the
soul thinks and learns with. The imagination is an intermediary faculty
between the senses and the intellect.
Prophetic inspiration as knowledge of an

imaginative type
Ibn Khaldūn explains that the revelation of the Qur’ān to Muḥammad was
at times preceded by an indistinct sound (dawiyy), whose significance the
Prophet was only able to grasp later. Muḥammad himself said he heard a
sound similar to that of a bell a little while before the revelation (ṣalṣalat al-
jaras), and that as soon as the sound ceased he realised what he had heard.
In a similar way, the poet Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), who is con-
sidered among the founders of German Romanticism, wrote in a letter to
Goethe (1749–1832) that before composing poetry he would feel an indis-
tinct musical disposition take hold of him: at first, he would have just a
feeling, devoid of a clear object, a kind of musical emotion. Then a distinct
poetical idea would come.28
In other cases, instead of hearing the sound of a bell, Muḥammad saw
an angel who would speak to him. For Muḥammad, becoming aware of
the angel’s words, hearing them, reverting to sensual perception and
understanding the message, all this didn’t happen in time, which is linear,
but in less than a moment, in the blink of an eye.
‫و تارةً يتمثل له الملك الذي يلقي إليه رجالً فيكلمه و يعي ما يقوله و التلقى من الملك و‬
‫الرجوع إلى المدارك البشرية و فهمه ما ألقي عليه كله كأنه في لحظة واحدة بل أقرب من لمح‬
29
‫البصر ألنه ليس في زمان بل كلما تقع جميعا ً فتظهر كأنها سريعة‬
Sometimes an angel appears to him in the form of a man who
addresses him. [The Prophet] retains what the angel says in his
memory. It is as if he received the [address] of the angel, reverted to
human perceptions and understood what has been said to him in the
space of a single moment, or rather in the blink of an eye, because this
does not take place in time.30
Whether he heard a bell or saw an angel, it was a question of perceptions

(madārik). Through the senses, Muḥammad was able to make contact with
the angelic world, and subsequently transmit what he had heard in the
form of a discourse, the Qur’ān, whose inimitable beauty consists precisely
in it being an imaginative and figurative discourse. Let us recall that for
Ibn Khaldūn the most beautiful fruit of the bayān (stylistics or literary
rhetoric, teaching the rules of metaphor) is the understanding of the inimi-
table beauty (i‘jāz) of the Qur’ān. Prophetic revelation presents itself then
as a cognitive process of an aesthetic and imaginative nature. It is an
unfolding of knowledge which relies on images and sounds and produces
truthful representation of the intelligibles in the form of words.31 The
product of the revelation, the Qur’ān, is then the most beautiful, perfect
and unique literary work of its kind in existence. The inimitable beauty of
the Qur’ān is due to its being unequalled in expressing perfectly the
intended meaning, according to the requirements of the context
(muqtaḍayāt al-aḥwāl). Its perfection derives from the selection of the most
suitable words and the quality of their combination. In fact, human com-
prehension is incapable of really understanding it. The beauty of the
Qur’ān can only partially be perceived through taste (dhawq) by those
who have acquired the habit (malaka) of the Arabic language. Those
Arabs who heard the Qur’ān from the mouth of the Prophet could feel its
unique beauty much better than anyone else.
‫و اعلم أن ثمرة هذا الفن إنما هي في فهم اإلعجاز من القرآن ألن إعجازه في وفاء الداللة منه‬
‫بجميع مقتضيات األحوال منطوقة و مفهومة و هي أعلى مراتب الكمال مع الكالم فيما يختص‬
‫باأللفاظ في انتقائها و جودة وضعها و تركيبها و هذا هو اإلعجاز الذي تقصر األفهام عن‬
‫دركه و إنما يدرك بعض الشيء منه من كان له ذوق بمخالطة اللسان العربي و حصول‬
‫ملكته فيدرك من إعجازه على قدر ذوقه فلهذا كانت مدارك العرب الذين سمعوه من مبلغه‬
‫أعلى مقاما في ذلك ألنهم فرسان الكالم و جهابذته و الذوق عندهم موجود بأوفر ما يكون و‬
32
‫أصحه‬
You should know that the fruit of the art [of literary rhetoric] consists
in comprehending the inimitable beauty of the Qur’ān, which consists
in expressing the [intended] meaning according to the requirements of
the context, be they [explicitly] stated or [purely] understood. There is
the highest level of perfection of speech, as far as the choice of the
words, the beauty of their array and composition are concerned. This
is what the inimitable beauty of the Qur’ān is: something that the
mind fails to apprehend. The only ones who can attain the perception
of some part of it, are those who are endowed with taste, thanks to
their regular use of the Arabic language and the fact that they have
acquired the habit of it. The better their taste, the more they can
apprehend the inimitable beauty of the Qur’ān. Therefore, the Arabs
who heard the Qur’ān directly from the mouth of the Prophet were of
a higher [linguistic] rank. They were the most brilliant and the cham-
pions of the language. Their taste was impeccable and the best.33
Poetry as imaginative knowledge: the poetic

models (asālīb)
Although Ibn Khaldūn defines poetry as a noble (sharīf) technique (ṣinā‘a),
he does not present it in the fifth part of the book, which is devoted to
various techniques, including music and song, but in the sixth part of the
book which is devoted to the sciences. He inserts it within the framework
of various sections devoted to the linguistic sciences, which are considered
as propaedeutic (from the verb hayya’a, to prepare) for religious sciences
in that they help people understand the meaning of the Qur’ān correctly,
in accordance with the Arab-Muslim tradition.
In Chapter 3, we defined the status of history in the Muqaddima as that
of an unclassifiable science. Similarly, we can say here that poetic art is an
art in a class of its own, to which Ibn Khaldūn does not attribute a precise
position in the classification of arts and sciences. It is very difficult to learn
it by simply following the rules of the language. An outstanding, natural
predisposition (qarā’iḥ, sing. qarīḥa) is required for mastering the poetic
models. Only a sharp intelligence (shaḥdh al-afkār) is able to pour the
words into their moulds (tanzīl al-kalām fī qawālibihi). The linguistic habit
does not suffice at all. A finesse (talaṭṭuf) is needed, along with a rigorous
observance of the poetic models of the Arabs.
‫و لصعوبة منحاه و غرابة فنه كان محكا للقرائح في استجادة أساليبه و شحذ األفكار في تنزيل‬
‫الكالم في قوالبه و ال تكفي فيه ملكة الكالم العربي على اإلطالق بل يحتاج بخصوصه إلى‬
34
‫تلطف و محاولة في رعاية األساليب التي اختصته العرب بها و استعمالها فيه‬
Poetry is a difficult field and an extraordinary art. It is the touchstone
for a natural predisposition for the perfect mastery of its models, and
for the ability of a sharp intelligence to insert words into their moulds.
The Arabic linguistic habit is by no means sufficient for composing
poetry. A finesse and an effort to observe the specific models used by
the Arabs are needed.35
Although the Arab Bedouins of the jāhiliyya shared the quality of being
‘closer to goodness’ (aqrab min al-kayr) with the Berbers of the Maghreb,
they were still tribes of wild brigands with an elementary and primitive
‘aṣabiyya (group feeling). The fact that precisely these people had mastered
such a sophisticated technique as pre-Islamic Arabic poetry is another
reason why the poetic arts defy classification in the Muqaddima. In this
way, Ibn Khaldūn restores to poetry a part of that exceptional status it had
enjoyed in the archaic world, when it was associated with magic and divi-
nation, which was why the Qur’ān had initially condemned it, insisting on
the fact that the Prophet was neither a poet (shā‘ir), nor a magician (sāḥir),
nor a madman (majnūn), nor a soothsayer (kāhin).
In his book on Arabic poetics, Jamel Eddine Bencheikh clearly explains
that by the Islamic epoch, from the ninth century onwards, poets had lost
control over their art and had become executors of rules that had been
established by others and namely by the new intellectual class of philolo-
gists and the scholars of religious sciences (‘ulāmā’). Poetry had lost all
supernatural features, becoming a purely linguistic act. It could be judged
and appreciated exclusively on the grounds of objective, scientific criteria,
not any longer by virtue of ‘taste’. The example of Muḥammad Ibn Sallām
al-Jumaḥī (756–847) is telling in that in his Ṭabaqāt al-shu‘arā’ (Classes of
Poets), he describes poetry as a technique studied by a science. The tech-
nique is practised by poets, while the science is founded by philologists
(‘ulāmā’) who establish its rules.36
However, although Ibn Khaldūn intends to give a scientific description
of the process of poetic composition, he does not speak from the point of
view of philologists but of poets. He insists on the specificity of the poetic
art, on the aesthetic-sensual element of taste (dhawq) in appreciating it and
on the impossibility of learning it according to set rules. From some auto-
biographical hints in the Muqaddima, we know that Ibn Khaldūn was
himself a refined poet.
The most important part of the exposition on poetry concerns what Ibn
Khaldūn calls poetic ‘methods’ or ‘models’ (asālīb, pl. from uslūb). The
perfect mastery of these models makes the true poet. The models of poetry
are containers, moulds (qālib, pl. qawālib) in which the poet inserts par-
ticular word combinations (tarākīb). Poetic models are not the syntactic
meaning (ifāda). The latter depends on desinential inflection (i‘rāb).
Neither are they the most perfect way of expressing a meaning through the
combination of certain words, which is the function of eloquence (balāgha)
and stylistic rhetorical figures (bayān). Neither do they have any thing to
do with metre and rhyme (wazn), which is the task of prosody (‘arūḍ). The
observance of syntax, desinential inflection, eloquence, style and prosody
is necessary to the craft of poetry, but it is not inherent in it. In fact, the
poetic models (asālīb) are mental forms (ṣuwar) that the mind (dhihn)
extracts from the best particular verbal combinations (a‘yiān al-tarākīb)
and deposits in the imagination (khayāl), which uses them to produce new
models. This operation is similar to what the weaver does with the loon
and the builder with the mould. Each mould takes the form which is
appropriate for the intended meaning, according to the habit (malaka) of
the Arabic language.
‫)ولنذكر) هنا مدلول لفظة األـسلوب عند أهل هذه الصناعة و ما يريدون بها في إطالقهم فاعلم‬
‫أنها عبارة عندهم عن المنوال الذي تنسج فيه التراكيب أو القالب الذي يرص فيه و ال يرجع إلى‬
‫الكالم باعتبار إفادته كمال المعنى الذي هو وظيفة اإلعراب و ال باعتبار إفادته أصل المعنى‬
‫من خواص التراكيب الذي هو و ظيفة البالغة و البيان و ال باعتبار الوزن كما استعمله‬
‫العرب فيه الذي هو وظيفة العروض فهذه العلوم الثالثة خارجة عن هذه الصناعة الشعرية‬
‫و إنما ترجع إلى صورة ذهنية للتراكيب المنتظمة كلية باعتبار انطباقها كل تركيب خاص و‬
‫تلك الصورة ينتزعها الذهن من أعيان التراكيب و أشخاصها و يصيرها في الخيال كالقالب‬
‫أو المنوال ثم ينتقي التراكيب الصحيحة عند العرب باعتبار اإلعراب و البيان فيرصها‬
‫فيه رصّا كما يفعله البناء في القالب أو النساج في المنوال حتى يتسع القالب بحصول‬
‫التراكيب الوافية بمقصود الكالم و يقع على الصورة الصحيحة باعتبار ملكة اللسان العربي‬
37
‫فيه فإن لكل فن من الكالم أساليب تختص به‬
Here we shall explain the meaning of the word ‘model’ according to

the poets. You should know that they intend thereby the loom on
which word combination are woven or the mould in which the word
combinations are inserted. The word ‘model’ does not refer to the
speech intended as the [syntactical] perfection of the meaning. This
would be the function of desinential inflection. It does not refer [to the
speech intended as] the very expression of the meaning through spe-
cific word combinations. This would be the function of eloquence.
Nor does it refer to metre and rhyme, according to their use in Arabic
poetry. This would be the function of prosody. These three disciplines
[syntax, eloquence and prosody] do not belong to the domain of
poetry.
[The word ‘model’] refers instead to a mental form of versified word
compositions which has a universal value because it applies to all par-
ticular word combinations. The mind extracts this form from the par-
ticular word combinations and deposes it in the imagination, like a
mould or a loom.
Then the mind selects the correct Arabic word combinations according
to the [the rules of] desinential inflections and literary rhetoric, and
inserts them [into that mould], as the builder does with his mould and
the weaver with the loom. Eventually, the mould expands while receiving
the word combinations that [perfectly express] the intended meaning,
and takes the appropriate form according to the habit of the Arabic lan-
guage. Every branch of speech has its specific models.38
From Ibn Khaldūn’s description of the poetic models, it appears that

poetry is a parallel world, with its perceptible reality made up of particular
things (verbal expressions), with its cognitive procedure centred on the role
of the imagination and with its own universal moulds. Ibn Khaldūn
describes poets as a special class whose art, which is the preserve of the
few, cannot be learnt in a doctrinal way. The absolute and universal mould
(qālib kullī muṭlaq) that poets extract from the individual (mu’ayyana)
verbal combinations is in our opinion a universal archetypical mould of
Poetry that poets draw from the particular poetic expressions in an empirical-
intuitive way. These are archetypes that can be discovered by means
of an assiduous reading of the great classics, among which we find the
Qur’ān.
Then the imaginative faculty of the poet uses it as a model (yaḥdhū
ḥadhwahu) to shape new models with which the poet composes new
poems. Assiduous reading, learning and memorising of Arab prose and
poetry is the only way to acquire a subtle insight into these models.
‫ال يعرفه إال من حفظ كالمهم حتى يتجرد له في ذهنه من القوالب المعينة الشخصية قالب كلي‬
‫مطلق يحذو حذوه في التأليف كما يحذو البناء على القالب و النساج على المنوال فلهذا كان فن‬
‫تآليف الكالم منفردا عن نظر النحوي و البياني و العروضي نعم أن مراعاة قوانين هذه‬
‫العلوم شرط فيه ال يتم بدونها فإذا تحصلت هذه الصفات كلها في كالم اختص بنوع من النظر‬
39
‫لطيف في هذه القوالب التي يسمونها أساليب و ال يفيده إال حفظ كالم العرب نظما و نثرا‬
[The models] are known only by those who have an absolute
command of the Arabic speech so that they have in their mind a uni-
versal mould extracted from the individual word combinations. The
poets imitate [that universal mould] while composing poetry, as the
builder does with the mould and the weaver with the loom. Therefore
speech composition is different from syntax, literary rhetoric and
prosody, although it is true that the respect for the rules of these dis-
ciplines is a necessary condition for composing poetry.
When speech possesses all these qualities, it is characterised by a
subtle kind of understanding of these moulds, which are called
‘models’ [asālīb]. They are impossible to learn without a perfect know-
ledge and memorisation of Arabic prose and poetry.40
Poetic models are not meanings (al-ma‘ānī). In fact, Ibn Khaldūn says that
meanings are always the same. It is not necessary to possess a particular
technique to know them. But, in our opinion, it would be incorrect to
understand models of poetry as forms in relationship to a content. Instead,
they are the very substance of poetry. The meanings are like water, which
is always the same, says Ibn Khaldūn. The models are vases (al-awānī)
which contain water, vases which can have different forms and can be
made of different materials (gold, silver, mother of pearl, glass or clay).
The beauty (jawda) of the vases depends on their material, not on the
water filling them. In the same way, the beauty of the language depends on
the quality of its composition, that is, on its conformity with the rhetorical
context (taṭbīqihi ‘alā al-maqāṣid). It does not depend on meanings, which
are always the same (al-ma‘ānī wāḥida). Ibn Khaldūn puts forward these
considerations on ‘meanings’ regarding the art of discourse and not just
about poetry. They are all the more valid for poetic discourse.
‫إعلم أن صناعة الكالم نظما و نثرا إنما هي في األلفاظ ال في المعاني إنما المعاني تبع لها و‬
‫هي أصل فالصانع الذي يحاول ملكة الكالم في النظم و النثر إنما يحاولها في األلفاظ بحفظ‬
‫ وذلك أنّا قدمنا أن للسان ملكة‬.… ‫أمثالها من كالم العرب ليكثر استعماله و جريه على لسانه‬
‫من الملكات في النطق يحاول تحصيلها بتكرارها على اللسان حتى تحصل شأن الملكات و‬
‫الذي في اللسان و النطق إنما هو األلفاظ و إنما المعاني فهي في الضمائر وأيضا فالمعاني‬
‫موجودة عند أحد كل … و يرضى فال يحتاج إلى تكلف صناعة في تأليفها و تأليف الكالم‬
‫للعبارة عنها هو المحتاج للصناعة كما قلناه و هو بمثابة القوالب للمعاني فكما أن األواني التى‬
‫يغترف بها الماء من البحر منها آنية الذهب و الفضة و الصدف و الزجاج و الخزف و الماء‬
‫واحد في نفسه و تختلف الجودة في األواني المملؤة بالماء باختالف جنسها ال باختالف الماء‬
‫كذلك جودة اللغة و بالغتها في االستعمال تختلف بإختالف طبقات الكالم في تأليفه باعتبار‬
41
‫تطبيقه على المقاصد و المعاني واحدة في نفسها‬
You should know that the art of speech, be it poetry or prose, deals
with words, not with meanings. The words are fundamental. The
artist who endeavours to acquire the habit of speech in poetry and
prose, works with words [alfāẓ] and memorises them from examples
of Arab speech, so that he uses them frequently and currently ….
We have already mentioned that language is a habit that the human
being tries to acquire through repetitive actions on the part of the
tongue and articulated speech [nuṭq]. Indeed [the actions of the tongue
and articulated speech] deal with words, not with meanings. The latter
are in the mind. Moreover, everyone has meanings in their minds …
and no technical refinement is needed in order to compose them.
Instead, it is necessary to have a craft to compose a speech in order to
give expression to them, as we have said before.
Speech is like a mould for meanings. [The moulds of speech] are like
vases from which sea water is drawn. Vases can be made of gold, silver,
mother of pearl, glass or clay, but the water is always the same. The
beauty [jawda] of the vases filled with water depends on the kind [jins]
of material from which they are made, not on the water [in them]. In
the same manner, the beauty of speech and eloquence derives from the
[appropriate] use of the different levels of style [ṭabaqāt al-kalām] in
compositions which [should perfectly] conform to the purposes of the
[rhetorical] situation. By contrast, meanings are always the same.42
Geert Jan van Gelder (1982) records that the term asālīb had previously
been used in connection with poetry by the Tunisian poet and philologist
Ḥāzim al-Qarṭājannī (1211–1284).43 In his Minhāj al-bulaghā’ wa sirāj
al-udabā’ (The Method of the Eloquent and the Way of the Literary) and
applying Aristotelian ideas, he set himself to grasp the essence of poetry
and defined the asālīb as structures (hay’at) deriving from combinations of
meanings (ta’līfāt ma‘nawiyya). Although Van Gelder quotes Bencheikh
and states that the asālīb of Ibn Khaldūn are unconnected to those of
al-Qarṭājannī, we have not been able to verify this opinion or consult the
text of al-Qarṭājannī. However, we do not wish to exclude the possibility
of a relationship between the two authors, given their geographical prox-
imity and their common Aristotelian background. Asālīb in the sense of
specific stylistic structures of Arabic literature (in a broad sense) is an
expression that is still used by modern writers of the Nahḍa (the Arab Cul-
tural Renaissance of the nineteenth–twentieth century) such as Muḥammad
‘Abduh (1849–1905) and Ṭaha Ḥusayn.44
Returning now to the relationship between poetry and prophecy, it is
reasonable to think that Ibn Khaldūn did not highlight it explicitly due to
an inhibition of a cultural and religious nature. In order to have a better
grasp of the analogy between poetry and prophecy in the Muqaddima, it is
worth exploring an element of mediation between the two, namely, the
dream. In the following section, we shall see that further elements of
analogy between the dream and prophecy emerge from the description of
dreamlike visions in the Muqaddima.
Dream visions as a trait d’union between

poetry and prophecy
For Ibn Khaldūn, as for philosophers like al-Fārābī and Avicenna, dream
vision is similar to prophecy, the difference being that the Prophet operates
while awake as well as attaining a superior level of perception of the angelic
world. Sleep too enables the person to make contact with the Unseen.
Contact with the perceptible world is interrupted during sleep. The
spirit (al-rūḥ al-ḥayawānī) does not perceive the exterior world any longer
and turns towards the pictures stocked in its memory. It separates and
combines them, giving form to new imaginary pictures, which it can easily
identify with the sensual things it has experienced when awake. Often,
however, the soul (nafs) turns into its spiritual essence and becomes able to
perceive these pictures with its spiritual perception (bi-idrākihi al-rūḥānī),
because it is predisposed by nature to do so (mafṭūra ‘alayhi). Then the
imagination takes the pictures perceived by the soul, represents them
(yumaththiluhā) either realistically (bi al-ḥaqīqa) or allegorically (bi al-muḥākā,
imitation), and inserts them in their usual moulds.
As happens in poetry, the allegory in dreams needs to be correctly decodi-
fied, so that the right meaning can be understood. Clear and realistic dreams
are of divine origin, allegorical dreams are of angelic origin. Instead, con-
fused and vain dreams (aḍghāt al-aḥlām) are of diabolical origin.45
‫فإذا انخنس الروح عن الحواس الظاهرة و رجع إلى القوى الباطنة و خفت عن النفس شواغل‬
ً‫الحس و موانعه و رجعت إلى الصور التي في الحافظة تمثل منها بالتركيب و التحليل صورا‬
‫خيالية و أكثر ما تكون معتادة ألنها منتزعة من المدركات المتعاهدة قريبا ً ثم تنزلها الحس‬
‫المشترك الذي هو جامع الحواس الظاهرة فيدركها على أنحاء الحواس الخمس و ربما‬
‫التفتت النفس لفتة إلى ذاتها الروحانية مع منازعتها القوى الباطنية فتدرك بإدراكها الروحاني‬
‫ألنها مفطورة عليه و تقتبس من صور األشياء التي صارت متعلقة في ذاتها حينئذ ثم يأخذ‬
‫الخيال تلك الصورة المدركة فيمثلها بالحقيقة أو المحاكاة في القوالب المعهودة و المحاكاة‬
‫ في الصحيح أن النبي صلى هللا عليه و سلم قال الرؤيا‬.… ‫من هذه هي المحتاجة إلى التعبير‬
‫ثالث رؤيا من هللا و رؤيا من الملك و رؤيا من الشيطان و هذا التفصيل مطابق لما ذكرناه‬
‫فالجلي من هللا و المحاكاة الداعية إلى التعبير من الملك و أضغاث األحالم من الشيطان ألنها‬
46
‫كلها باطل و الشيطان ينبوع الباطل هذه حقيقة الرؤيا‬
During sleep, the spirit withdraws from the external senses and turns
back to the inner powers. The soul is not distracted nor hindered any
longer by the senses and turns towards the pictures stored in the
memory. By using them, the soul reproduces imaginary pictures
through a synthetic and analytical procedure. They are mainly familiar
pictures that the soul extracts from [sensual] things it has known in
recent experience. Then it transfers them to common sense, which
includes all the external senses. [Common sense] perceives [those pic-
tures] through the five [external] senses. Often, with the help of the
inner powers, the soul turns into its spiritual essence, reaches the spir-
itual perception for which it is naturally gifted and takes the pictures
of the things, which its very essence now knows.
Then the imagination takes those perceived pictures and reproduces
them realistically or allegorically in the customary moulds. The allegori-
cal pictures need to be interpreted … In the Ṣaḥīḥ47 the Prophet is
reported to have said that dreams are of three kinds: dreams from God,
dreams from the angels and dreams from the devil. This classification
applies to what we have just exposed. The clear dreams are from God,
the allegorical dreams which need to be interpreted are from the angels
and the confused dreams are from the devil, because they are vain and
the devil is the source of vanity. This is what dreams are.48
Dreams, poetry and prophecy are all cognitive processes centred on the
imagination. Since poetry was considered as a special form of knowledge,
the philosophical legitimacy it acquired by being inserted among the
logical arts from as early on as the Hellenistic commentators of Aristotle,49
was to prove decisive. Poetry became a kind of ‘inferior logic’ (a definition
that Baumgarten had attributed to aesthetics in the eighteenth century),50
characterised by an imaginative syllogism (of which metaphor is a variant)
and able to arouse pleasure (ladhdha) and admiration (ta‘jīb).51
In addition to this general outline, there are numerous details that
confirm the analogy between dreams and poetry, for example, the aesthetic
and epistemological criteria of their language, which, if figurative, must be
clear and not confused and odd. It must adhere to the rules of the Arabic
language, as Averroes says in his Faṣl al-Maqāl (Decisive Treatise)52 with
regard to the limits within which it is possible to make use of the allegori-
cal interpretation (ta’wīl) of the Qur’ān. Dreams like poetry must comply
with the general formal criteria of the beautiful which, according to the
Muqaddima, are applicable to the whole of reality: they must be clear,
simple and measured as opposed to obscure, confused, out of proportion
and eccentric (gharīb).
The Poetics of the Qur’ān

From the mid-ninth century, the term i‘jāz came into use to indicate the
inimitable character of the Qur’ān regarding both its form and content.
The verb a‘jaza signifies ‘to render/become incapable’ of doing something,
and in the case in point, it refers to the inability of human beings to
produce a text similar to the Qur’ān. This is the origin of the miraculous
nature (mu‘jiza, miracle) of the Holy Book of Islam. A further proof of its
inimitability is the fact that the Qur’ānic style, which is so very different
from the style of pre-Islamic Arab poetry, has indeed never been imitated
till this very day. The notion of the i‘jāz is based on some Qur’ānic verses
in which God defies jinn and human beings to produce a book similar to
the Qur’ān.
ُ ‫آن َل يَأْتُونَ بِ ِم ْثلِ ِه َولَوْ َكانَ بَ ْع‬

‫ضهُ ْم‬ ْ
ِ ْ‫ال ْنسُ َو ْال ِج ُّن َعلَ ٰى أَ ْن يَأتُوا بِ ِم ْث ِل ٰهَ َذا ْالقُر‬
ِْ ‫ت‬
ِ ‫قُلْ لَئِ ِن اجْ تَ َم َع‬
(٨٨( ‫ْض ظَ ِهيرًا‬ ٍ ‫لِبَع‬
Say: ‘If mankind and the jinns gathered to produce a Book like the
Qur’ān, they wouldn’t be able to do it even though they were the sup-
porters of each other’ (88)
(Qur’ān, al-Isrā’ [The Night Journey], 17:88)
ْ
‫للاِ إِ ْن‬ ِ ‫ب ِم َّما نَ َّز ْلنَا َعلَ ٰى َع ْب ِدنَا فَأتُوا بِسُو َر ٍة ِم ْن ِم ْثلِ ِه َوا ْدعُوا ُشهَدَا َء ُك ْم ِم ْن د‬
َّ ‫ُون‬ ٍ ‫َوإِ ْن ُك ْنتُ ْم فِي َر ْي‬
(٢٣( َ‫صا ِدقِين‬ َ ‫ُك ْنتُ ْم‬
If you were doubting the veracity of what We have revealed to our
Servant,53 then bring a sūra like these ones and call your witnesses
other than God, if you are sincere (23)
(Qur’ān, Al-Baqara [The Cow], 2:23)
At the time of Ibn Khaldūn, the inimitability of the Qur’ān was already a
well-established axiom in the Arab-Muslim culture, in the sense of a self-
evident truth that no longer needed to be demonstrated. From a logical
point of view, then, the inimitability of the Qur’ān assumes the nature of a
tautology. The Qur’ān is sublime because it is inimitable and the Qur’ān is
inimitable because it is sublime.
In the Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldūn, albeit in a non-systematic manner,
accomplishes an aesthetic analysis of the Qur’ān, despite the fact that the
Qur’ān is already the proof of itself and thus does not require any demonstra-
tion of its beauty or its miraculous veracity. Ibn Khaldūn shows that he is per-
fectly aware of the stylistic unicity of the Holy Book. While wonders
(khawāriq) accomplished by prophets are the proof of the truthfulness of their
divine inspiration, the Qur’ān is an incomparably greater miracle (mu‘jiza),
because it is at once the signifier and the meaning, the sign of the truthfulness
of the revelation and the revelation itself, the proof and the object to be
proved (fa huwa awḍaḥ dalālatan li ittiḥad al-dalīl wa al-madlūl fīhi).
‫أعظهم المعجزات و أشرفها و أوضحها داللة القرآن الكريم المنزل على نبينا صلوات هللا و سالمه‬
‫عليه ألن الخوارق في الغالب تقع مغايرةً للوحي الذي يتلقاه النبي و تأتي المعجزة شاهدة به و هذا‬
‫ظاهر و القرآن هو بنفسه الوحي المدعا و هو الخارق المعجز و داللته في عينه و ال يفتقر إلى دليل‬
54
‫أجنبي عنه كسائر الخوارق مع الوحي فهو أوضح داللة التحاد الدليل و المدلول فيه‬
The greatest, noblest and clearest miracle is the evidence which is the
Qur’ān itself, revealed to our Prophet, God bless him and give him sal-
vation! Indeed, usually wonders [khawāriq] are separated from the
prophetic revelation, and miracles take place to testify to the truthful-
ness of that revelation. This is evident.
The Qur’ān, instead, is at once a revelation and a miraculous
wonder. It is the evidence of itself and does not need any external
proof, as is the case for other wonders which take place in concomi-
tancy with revelation. The Qur’ān is the clearest evidence for it is both
the proof and the object to be proved.55
Ibn Khaldūn is not alone in accomplishing an aesthetic analysis of the

Qur’ān. There is an entire body of literature which is both theological and
philosophical dealing with the i’jāz al-Qur’ān (inimitability of the Qur’ān).56
In the field of philosophy, Averroes, in his Middle Commentary on the
Poetics of Aristotle, essentially treats the Qur’ān as a poetic text like any
other, quoting examples of recurring metaphors and similes in the Qur’ān or
in Arab poetry as examples of ‘imitation’ (muḥākā, takhyīl), Aristotelian
mímēsis which in Arabic commentaries undergoes a shift from stage repres-
entation to verbal and/or imaginative representation.57 Averroes enumerates
three kinds of imitation (takhyīl) and comparison (tashbīh) in literature. A
simple kind of imitation is the comparison (tamthīl) of one thing with
another, as happens in the Qur’ānic verse saying that the wives of the
Prophet are for the Muslims ‘like their mothers’, that is to say that they
cannot marry them. Averroes continues mentioning another comparison
occurring in a verse by Abū Tammām (805–845), dedicated to the ‘Abbāsid
caliph al-Mu‘taṣim (d. 842).58
Ibn Khaldūn is aware of the fact that the Qur’ān, in Arabic literary
history, constitutes a literary genre of its own. It is in prose but it is
neither free prose (mursal) nor is it really cadenced prose (saj‘). Let us
remember that in pre-Islamic Arabia the latter was connected to and
used by magicians and diviners and thus fell into discredit when the
opponents of Muḥammad identified the Qur’ānic prose as being that of
the soothsayers and accused the Prophet of being a magician, a seer, a
madman (majnūn, in the sense of being possessed by jinns), and a poet
who had forged the Qur’ān, an incoherent speech about confused dreams
(aḍghāt aḥlām).
ِ ‫اس َوبَ ِّش ِر الَّ ِذينَ آ َمنُوا أَ َّن لَهُ ْم قَ َد َم‬

ٍ ‫ص ْد‬
‫ق‬ َ َّ‫اس َع َجبًا أَ ْن أَوْ َح ْينَا إِلَ ٰى َرج ٍُل ِم ْنهُ ْم أَ ْن أَ ْن ِذ ِر الن‬
ِ َّ‫أَ َكانَ لِلن‬
(٢( ‫ين‬ ٰ ْ
ِ ‫ِع ْن َد َربِّ ِه ْم ۗ قَا َل الكَافِرُونَ إِ َّن هَ َذا لَ َس‬
ٌ ِ‫اح ٌر ُمب‬
It amazes the people that We have inspired a man from amongst them
to admonish mankind and give good news to those who believe that
they have a rank of excellence before their Lord. The unbelievers say:
‘This is clearly a sorcerer’ (2)
(Qur’ān, Jūnus [Jonah] 10:2)
َ َّ‫َوقَالُوا يَا أَيُّهَا الَّ ِذي نُ ِّز َل َعلَ ْي ِه ال ِّذ ْك ُر إِن‬

ٌ ُ‫ك لَ َمجْ ن‬
(٢) ‫ون‬
They say: ‘You, to whom the admonishment has been revealed, you
are clearly possessed by the jinns’ (6)
(Qur’ān, Ḥijr [El-Ḥijr], 15:6)
(٥) َ‫َاث أَحْ َل ٍم بَ ِل ا ْفتَ َراهُ بَلْ هُ َو شَا ِع ٌر فَ ْليَأْتِنَا بآيَ ٍة َكما أُرْ ِس َل َْال َّولُون‬
ُ ‫بَلْ قَالُوا أَضْ غ‬
َ ِ
They say: ‘They are confused dreams! He has forged it.59 He is a poet!
Let him bring us a sign like the ones that were sent by the Ancients!’ (5)
(Qur’ān, al-Anbiyā’ [The Prophets], 21:5)
Muḥammad is not a poet and not just because the language of the Qur’ān
is different from that of poetry but also because he is not the author of the
Qur’ān, whose verses finish where God wishes, according to His ‘taste’
(dhawq), and not according to pre-established linguistic or rhetorical rules.
The God of the Qur’ān, the absolute arbiter to the point of excluding sec-
ondary causes and laws of nature, is also totally free to express Himself
through the Qur’ān, giving birth to a new and inimitable poetics, with its
own models (asālīb), which are different from those of Arabic poetry and
which He alone masters.
In the previous section, we have seen that although poetry cannot be
learnt with rules, it does in fact apply precise rules, which are an integral
part of the psychology of the poet, and that reflect his perfect mastery of
the models of Arabic poetry. As the Qur’ān itself says, Ibn Khaldūn
reminds us, God has revealed the most beautiful story (aḥsan al-ḥadīth), a
book of allegories (kitāban mutashābihan), full of repetitions (mathānī), a
book that raises gooseflesh on the skin of those who fear their Lord.60
‫)وأما القرآن) و إن كان من المنثور إال أنه خارج عن الوصفين و ليس يسمى مرسال إطالقا ً و ال‬
‫ بل هو مفصل آيات تنتهي إلى مقاطع يشهد الذوق بانتهاء الكالم عندها ثم يعاد‬.‫مسجعا‬
‫الكالم في اآلية األخرى بعدها و يثنى من غير التزام حرف يكون سجعا و ال قافية و هو معنى‬
61
‫قوله تعالى هللا نزل أحسن الحديث كتابا متشابها مثان َي تقشعر منه جلود الذين يخشون ربهم‬
Despite its being in prose, the Qur’ān does not belong to [either prose
or poetry]. It is neither straight nor rhymed prose. It is rather divided
into verses, whose parts end wherever the taste [of God] wants. The
words are repeated in the Qur’ānic verse that follows. Letters are
repeated without any need to respect the rules of rhymed prose or
poetry. This is the meaning of the words of [God] Most High when
He said that God has revealed the most beautiful story, a Book of alle-
gories, full of repetitions, [a Book] that raises gooseflesh on the skin of
those who fear their Lord.62
If it is true that the Qur’ān remains unimitated, it is worth mentioning that

some poets who were influenced in varying degrees by Sufism and Gnosis,
especially in the Persian area, challenged the beauty of the Qur’ān, albeit
within the formal framework of literary conventions. I am thinking of the
Indian Persian-speaking poet Amir Khosrow of Delhi (1253–1325), who
titled his work on the rhetoric of prose Rasā’il al-i‘jāz (Epistles on Inimita-
bility). In this work, he explicitly defines the beauty and refinement of his
own prose as ‘inimitable’, with clear reference to the Qur’ān.
Ibn Khaldūn tends towards a moderate Sufism, simply recognising the
literary value of the Qur’ān and warning about the fascination of the com-
mentary of Zamakhsharī (1075–1144), who was so talented in applying
literary rhetoric (‘ilm al-bayān) to the Holy Book that he risked persuading
readers of the truth of his unorthodox innovations. Zamakhsharī, whom
we have already mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3, was in fact Mu‘tazilite.
Mu‘tazilism, as we have seen before,63 was a rationalist theological current
of the ninth century which underlined the unity of God, the refusal of
divine anthropomorphism, the created Qur’ān, free will, divine justice (as
opposed to divine judgement) and on the duty of Muslims to see that the
Law of God was respected, even at the cost of overthrowing a caliph if
found guilty of impiety.
In the passage of the Muqaddima on the fascination of the commentary
of Zamakhsharī, we see Ibn Khaldūn’s awareness of that archaic power of
poetic language, which is able to take possession of the heart and mind of
the listener. It recalls the fascination/repulsion of Plato for poetry in the
Republic (Greek Politéia). The only poetry admitted in Plato’s ideal State
were hymns to the gods and eulogies for famous men. Epic and lyrical
verses were prohibited. Allowing them would have meant that the State
would be ruled by pleasure and pain, and not by law and reason, as it
ought to be.64
Al-Zamakhsharī, says Ibn Khaldūn, applied literary rhetoric (bayān) to
the interpretation of the allegories of the Qur’ān. By doing so, he high-
lighted the inimitable beauty of the Holy Book more than any other com-
mentator. However, he used the instrument of eloquence (balāgha) with
the purpose of supporting the beliefs of the Mu‘tazilite innovators. There-
fore, only those who have a solid knowledge of the Sunni articles of faith
can read al-Zamakhsharī and get an insight into the sublime beauty of the
Qur’ān, without being affected by his unorthodox beliefs.
‫أحوج ما يكون إلى هذا الفن [البيان] المفسرون و أكثر تفاسير المتقدمين غفل عنه حتى‬
‫ظهر جار هللا الزمخشري و وضع كتابه في التفسير و تتبع آي القرآن بأحكام هذا الفن بما‬
‫يبدي البعض من إعجازه فانفرد بهذا الفصل على جميع التفاسير لوال أنه يؤيد عقائد أهل‬
‫ فمن أحكم عقائد السنة و شارك في هذا الفن‬.… ‫البدع عند اقتباسها من القرآن بوجوه البالغة‬
‫بعض المشاركة حتى يقتدر على الرد عليه من جنس كالمه أو يعلم أنها بدعة فيعرض عنها و‬
‫ال تضر في معتقده فإنه يتعين عليه النظر في هذا الكتاب للظفر بشيء من اإلعجاز مع السالمة‬
65
‫من البدع و األهواء‬
Those who most need to know this discipline [literary rhetoric] are the
Qur’ān’s commentators. However, the majority of the ancient comment-
ators neglected it. Eventually came al-Zamakhsharī who wrote his book
on Qur’ānic exegesis. He studied every verse and distinguished himself
by applying the rules of [literary rhetoric] and shedding light on some
aspects of the inimitable beauty of the Qur’ān. However, he provided
support for the articles of faith of the innovators, deriving them from the
Qur’ān by means of different features of eloquence … [Only] those who
master the Sunni articles of faith and have cultivated [literary rhetoric],
are able to respond to him using his own arguments and to understand
that [his exegesis] is an innovation. They can refute it, so that their belief
is not harmed by it. They could study this book and reflect on some
aspects of the inimitable beauty of the Qur’ān while remaining safe from
[the lure of] innovation and unorthodox inclinations.66
Although the Qur’ān is very different from poetry, the poets who were for-
tunate enough to listen to the Qur’ān live from the mouth of the Prophet
are artistically superior to those of the successive or preceding epochs.
However, even if they lived after the death of the Prophet, the poets and
prose writers of the Islamic era possess more eloquence than their pre-
Islamic predecessors due to the beneficial influence of the Qur’ān on their
style, which is more solid, balanced, robust and luminous as a result and
despite the distance in time, says Ibn Khaldūn.
‫الذين أدركوا اإلسالم سمعوا الطبقة العالية من الكالم في القرآن و الحديث الذين عجز‬
‫البشر عن اإلتيان بمثلها لكنها ولجت في قلوبهم و نشأت على أساليبها نفوسهم فنهضت‬
‫طباعهم و ارتقت ملكاتهم في البالغة عن ملكات من قبلهم من أهل الجاهلية ممن لم يسمع هذه‬
‫ فكان كالمهم في نظمهم و نثرهم أحسن ديباجة و أصفى رونقا من أولئك و‬.… ‫الطبقة‬
‫ و أعدل تثقيفا بما استفادوه من الكالم العالي الطبقة (و تأ ّمل) ذلك يشهد لك به‬67‫أرصف مبنى‬
68
‫ذوقك إن كنت من أهل الذوق و البصر بالبالغة‬
Those who experienced Islam [at the time of the revelation] heard the
sublime speech of the Qur’ān and the ḥadīth. No human being can
produce similar examples [of speech]. It penetrated their hearts. Their
souls flourished in harmony with those [linguistic] models [asālīb].
Their nature was raised [to a higher position], their faculties [malakāt]
of eloquence were lifted higher than the pre-Islamic Arabs, who had
not heard that [sublime] style … Their speech, be it prose or poetry,
was better arranged and had a purer brilliance than their predecessors.
It was straighter and more solidly constructed because they benefited
from the sublime style [of the Qur’ān].
The [linguistic] taste of those who will reflect on what I’m saying
shall attest that it is true, provided that they really have taste, insight
and eloquence.69
Even more incisive is an autobiographical passage in which Ibn Khaldūn

recounts how he confided in a vizier of Granada, Abū ‘Abd Allāh ibn
al-Khaṭīb, that he was unable to compose poetry because his mind was
encumbered with works of logic, jurisprudence and literary rules, includ-
ing those written in verses. But the presence of verse is not sufficient to
write poetry and in order to develop his poetic talent he should have read
true poetry, we would say, and that is the Qur’ān and ‘the speech of the
Arabs’ (kalām al-`Arab). The vizier looked at him in silence, full of amaze-
ment, then said (fa naẓara ilayya sā‘atan mu‘jaban thumma qāla): ‘None
but you could say that!’
‫فقلت له أجد استصعابا علي في نظم الشعر متى رمته مع بصري به و حفظي المجيد من‬
‫الكالم من القرآن و الحديث و فنون كالم العرب … و إنما أتيت و هللا أعلم بحقيقة الحال من‬
‫ و تدارست كتابي ابن‬.… ‫قبل ما حصل في حفظي من األشعار العلمية و القوانين التأليفية‬
‫الحاجب في الفقه و األصول و جمل الخونجي في المنطق و كثيرا من قوانين التعليم في‬
‫المجالس فامتأل محفوظي من ذلك و خدش وجه الملكة التي استدعيت لها بالمحفوظ الجيد‬
‫من القرآن و الحديث و كالم العرب فعاق القريحة عن بلوغها فنظر إلي ساعة معجبا ثم قال هلل‬
70
‫أنت و هل يقول هذا إال مثلك‬
I said to [the vizier Abū ‘Abd Allāh Ibn al-Khaṭīb]: ‘I find it difficult to
compose poetry despite my insight into it, and despite my knowledge
of the glorious speech of the Qur’ān and the ḥadīth and of different
Arabic linguistic disciplines … I have come to the conclusion that [my
difficulty] is due to the fact that I have learned verses about scientific
subjects and rules of literary composition by heart … I have studied
two books by Ibn al-Ḥājib on Islamic law and its fundamentals,
besides the compendium by al-Khūnajī on logic and the rules of school
teaching. This has filled my memory and damaged the [poetic] faculty
I had cultivated through the memorisation of beautiful [examples]
from the Qur’ān, the ḥadīth and Arabic literature [kalām al-‘Arab].
My natural disposition [qarīḥa] could not reach maturity because of
this.’
[The vizier] looked at me for a while, full of amazement, then said:
‘No one but you could say that!’.71
If it has not had true and proper imitators in literature, the imaginative
style of the Qur’ān has probably acted on the Arab-Muslim culture in
other ways, both on a theoretical and concrete level.
By theoretical level, we mean the philosophical speculations influenced
by Neoplatonism (al-Fārābī, Avicenna) from which there emerges an
analogy between prophecy and poetry in the shape of forms of knowledge
of an imaginative type.
By concrete level, we mean the numerous Islamic literary works (Arabic,
Persian and Turkish), which infused Qur’ānic material in their verses. This was
the case, for example, with the Persian poet Jalāl al-Din Rumi (1207–1273).
Oliver Leaman (2016), in his book on the use made of the Qur’ān by Islamic
philosophers, observes that the Qur’ānic verses stating that the Qur’ān is not
poetry, mean that the Qur’ān is not ‘just’ poetry but much more. Like the
poets, philosophers too made use of Qur’ānic material for their own ends,
displaying a great variety and freedom of interpretations, whose limits and
logic are not always easy for us moderns to grasp.72
Ibn Khaldūn quotes the Qur’ān in continuation, but in a conventional
and decorative manner. The verses with a mainly theological or moral
content serve to conclude the paragraphs and chapters of the Muqaddima,
like bookends. Instead, the imaginative verses are noticeable by their
absence. The latter, as we supposed for the philosophers, may have acted
in other ways on the sensibility of Ibn Khaldūn. The Qur’ān, read, reread,
meditated on and integrated by generations of Muslims must have con-
tributed to the shaping of the aesthetics of the Muqaddima, an aesthetics
which is first and foremost sensual and viscerally attached to the corporeal
beauty of this world.
To conclude this section, we can affirm that although Ibn Khaldūn
probably does not add anything new concerning the literary analysis of the
Qur’ān, he outlines a true and proper Qur’ānic poetics by synthesising the
totality of the elements present on this theme in the Arab cultural tradi-
tion. Recognising the oneness of the Qur’ānic text in virtue not only of the
axiom of inimitability but also of its objective stylistic unity, Ibn Khaldūn
considers it more capable than any other literary work of furnishing poets
with indispensable instruments for composition.
In this chapter, we have first described the phenomenological beauty of
the dawn of Islam (ṣadr al-Islām), an era that was characterised by an
enthusiastic and revolutionary aesthetics that was short-lived and fell
outside the normal course of history. Next, we have analysed the episte-
mological aesthetics of the Islamic revelation, highlighting the analogies
that exist between prophecy, poetry and dreams inasmuch as they are all
cognitive processes of an imaginative type. These correspondences coexist
within the Muqaddima-universe, even when independent of the author’s
intentions. They objectively pave the way for a new understanding of art
and poetry. This new understanding of poetry and art was different from the
Aristotelian one, according to which poetry was scenic imitation/repres-
entation and art (tékhnē) was the activity of producing objects suitable for
their purpose. Thanks to the analogy with prophecy and dreams, poetry in
the Muqaddima becomes a practice, which discovers things and invents
new expressive models (asālīb).
Eco (1982) said that only with the advent of Humanism in Europe
would art constitute a new mode of knowledge and of discovering
things, instead of making them. In the fourteenth century, Francesco
Petrarca (1304–1374), Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) and Colluccio
Salutati (1331–1406) considered poetry as being analogous to theology.73
For the early Humanist, Giovanni Mussato (1261–1329), poetry was a
science that came from heaven, a gift from God, the ancient poets had
been God’s mouthpiece and therefore poetry was a second theology.74
However, Eco (1982) himself pointed out, en passant, that Avicenna’s
reflections on the role of imagination in poetry, certain Jewish-Arab hints
about poetry considered as a form of divination, the leitmotiv of the
divine madness of poets recurrent in medieval literature, were all ele-
ments moving in the same direction.75 Probably the fact that Eco was not
an Orientalist allowed him to see things that a specialist would be slower
to pick up on.
Eco’s (1982) observations support our thesis that for Ibn Khaldūn
poetry constitutes a new mode of knowledge thanks to its link with
dreams and prophecy. If, on the one hand and in accordance with the logic
of the Muslim philosophers, poetry is a kind of inferior gnosiology, on the
other hand, its imaginative character allows it to aspire to a special status
and rediscover the ancient connection between poetry, magic and divina-
tion which the Qur’ān itself bears witness to.
In the eighteenth century, when Baumgarten defined aesthetics as an
inferior gnosiology, he drastically restricted the aesthetic field but exercised
a choice that only the Humanistic affirmation of poetry as a new mode of
knowledge allowed him to do.76 Certain suggestions, however, take a long
time to die out. The association between prophecy, dreams and poetry that
emerges in the Muqaddima is the same that will allow idealistic aesthetics,
moving from the idea of aesthetics as inferior gnosiology, to confer a
special dignity on poetry. The antipositivist, anti-scientific and anti-rationalist
reactions of the end of the nineteenth century, like the philosophy of
Nietzsche, will in turn take this to its final consequences.
This is what Nietzsche has to do with Ibn Khaldūn. A materialist and
rationalist historian, Ibn Khaldūn wants to explain everything, even how
poetic composition takes place. And he explains it by drawing on all the
instruments his culture puts at his disposal. Among these, the most useful
and efficient in this specific field are the reflections developed by Muslim
philosophers, and in particular those like al-Fārābī and Avicenna, pro-
foundly influenced by Neoplatonism, its psychology and its aesthetics.
Notes
1 It is the period to which the historian, Aḥmad Amīn, exponent of the Nahḍa
(modern Arab cultural Renaissance) devoted the book Fajr al-Islām [The Dawn
of Islam], the first of eight volumes dedicated to Islamic civilisation; Aḥmad
Amīn, Fajr al-Islām, Vols I–VIII (Cairo: Maṭba‘at al-I‘timād, 1929).
2 Al-Qur’ān, translated by Alessandro Bausani, Il Corano (Milan: Rizzoli, 1992),
lxv; hereafter quoted as Bausani (1992).
3 Ṭaha Ḥusayn, Fī al-shi‘r al-jāhilī (Cairo: Dār al-kutub al-ilmiyya, 1926), 15.
4 Bausani (1992), lxii.
5 Henri Bergson, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1970), originally published in 1888.
6 Qur’ān, Isrā’, The Night Journey, 17:1.
Press, 1967. Reprint 1980), Vol. I, 206.
11 ‘Khuṭbat al-nabī fī ḥujjat al-widā’ ’, in An Anthology of Arabic Literature,
Culture, and Thought from Pre-Islamic Times to the Present, edited by Bassam
K. Frangieh (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 466–468. Source:
Majmū‘a al-watha’iq al-siyāsiya li al-‘ahd al-nabawī wa al-khilāfa al-rāshida,
edited by Muḥammad Ḥamīd Allāh (Beirut: Dār al-Nafā’ism, 1987), 362–360.
12 ‘Sha’nuhā ka-sha’n al-ṣalā’, Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 383; and Ibn Khaldūn
(1980), Vol. I, 436.
13 Anarchy here refers to the etymological meaning of ‘absence of political author-
ity’, and not the pejorative meaning of chaos.
20 Majakovskij, ‘Good!’ [‘Horošo!’] (1927), Bene!, e poema di Lenin, translated
by M. de Micheli (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1958).
21 Cf. note 23 in the Preface: Vladimir Maïakovski, Poèmes 1924–1926, trans-
lation by Claude Frioux (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000), 5.
22 For a brilliant synthesis of the history of Russia in the context of the history of
European civilisations, cf. Fernand Braudel, Le monde actuel, I (Paris: Librairie
classique Eugène Belin, 1963).
23 Giovanna Spendel, Storia della letteratura russa (Rome: Newton, 1996), 63.
24 The Sudanese theologian Maḥmūd Muḥammad Ṭaha (d. 1985), during his trial
in 1985, addressed a striking similar criticism to the ‘Islamic laws’ imposed by
the Sudanese government in 1983. These laws, he said, have the purpose of
submitting (istikāna), terrorising (irhāb) and humiliating (idhlāl) the people and
threatened the national unity of the country.
25 Mikhā’īl Nu‘ayma, Sab‘ūn: Ḥikāyat ‘umr [Seventy: The Story of my Life], Vols
1–3. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1959–1960), 404–405. Cf. Francesco Gabrieli, ‘L’esperienza
russa di Nuàima’, in Cultura araba del Novecento (Milan: Laterza, 1983),
115–125.
26 Alessandro Bausani, Persia religiosa: Da Zaratustra a Bahā’u’hllāh (Cosenza:
Giordano Editore, 1959), 152.
27 Aristotle, Perì Psychēs, translated by Giancarlo Movia, L’Anima with a parallel
translation of the Greek text (Milan: Rusconi, 1996).
28 A letter from Friedrich Schiller to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1796, cited by
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music [Die Gebeurt
der Tragödie], translated by Ian Johnston (©2003 Blackmask Online, 2000), 21.
31 The intelligibles (ta noētá in Aristotle’s Psychology, al-ma‘qūlāt in the Arab-
Islamic philosophers) are the concepts of things devoid of their sensual matter
and understood by the intellect.
33 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn, (1980), Vol. III, 338.
36 Jamel Eddine Bencheikh, Poétique arabe (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), vi; and
Muḥammad Ibn Sallām Al-Jumaḥī, Ṭabaqāt al-shu‘arā’ [Classes of Poets],
edited by M. Shākir (Cairo, 1952).
43 Geert J.H. van Gelder, Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Critics on the Coher-
ence and Unity of the Poem (Leiden: Brill, 1982), 172.
44 For example, Muḥammad ‘Abduh, Al-Islām bayna al-‘ilm wa al-madaniyya
(Islam between Science and Civilisation) (Cairo: Kalimāt ‘arabiyya li al-tarjama
wa al-nashr, 2011), 121.
45 When speaking of poetry and meaning ‘to imitate’, Ibn Khaldūn does not use
the term ḥākā (‘to imitate, to represent in words’) as he does with regard to
dreams and psychology, but ḥadhā which literally means to walk in someone’s
footsteps, and thus fits both the first sense of asālīb (lit. ‘paths’) and the sense of
qālib (mould). Avicenna and Averroes in their comments on Aristotelian
Poetics render the Greek mímēsis with muḥākā (verbal representation) and
takhyīl (imaginative representation), Ibn Rushd, Talkhīṣ kitāb al-shi‘r, edited
by Charles E. Butterworth and Ahmad Abd al-Magid Haridi (Cairo: The
General Egyptian Book Organization, 1986); Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb al-shi‘r, translated
by Ismail M. Dahiyat, Avicenna’s Commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle
(Leiden: Brill, 1974).
46 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 188–190.
47 Collection of ḥadīth, acts and words of the Prophet, by Bukhārī, completed
around 846.
49 Among whom, apparently, Alexander of Aphrodisia (fl. 200 bce), Dahiyat
(1974), 13.
50 Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Aesthetica, edited by Salvatore Russo, A.G.
Baumgarten: L’Estetica, translated by Francesco Caparrota, Anna Li Vigni and
Salvatore Tedesco (Palermo: Aesthetica edizioni, 2000).
51 Dahiyat (1974), 62–63. On poetic syllogism as imaginative syllogism, cf. also
Ibn Sīnā, Al-Ishārāt wa al-tanbīhāt, translated by Shams Constantine Inati,
Avicenna: Remarks and Admonitions (Rome: Pontifical Institute for Medieval
Studies, 1984), 149; Arabic text: Ibn Sīnā, Al-Ishārāt wa al-tanbīhāt, edited by
Sulīmān Dunyā (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1960), 511–513.
al-ḥikma min al-ittiṣāl, translated by Marc Geoffroy, Averroës. Discours
décisif (Paris, Flammarion, 1996), 118–122. This reference was mentioned in
Chapter 3, note 12.
53 The Prophet.
56 Gustave E. von Grunebaum, ‘I’jāz’, in Encyclopedia of Islam, III, 2nd edn
(Leiden: Brill, 1987), 1018–1020.
57 On this subject, cf. Giovanna Lelli, ‘Il commento medio di Averroè alla Poetica
aristotelica. Elementi di poetica medievale comparata arabo-islamica e latino-
cristiana’, in Carmela Baffioni (ed.), Averroes and the Aristotelian Heritage
(Naples: Guida, 2004), 175–188.
58 The Qur’ānic verse in question is The Confederates, Al-Aḥzāb, 33:6 [Ibn
Rushd] Averroè Talkhīṣ kitab al-shi’r, translated by Carmela Baffioni, Com-
mento al Perì Poietikēs (Milan: Coliseum 1990), 170–171. Arabic text [Ibn
Rushd] (1986), 54–55.
59 The Prophet has forged the Qur’ān.
60 Qur’ān, The Armies, al-Zumar, 39:23. For the interpretation of ‘kitāban
mutashābihan’ and ‘mathānī’, cf. Bausani (1992), 641.
63 Chapter 2, n. 24; Chapter 5.
64 Plato, The Republic, translated by Benjamin Jowett (New York: Anchor Books,
1973), n.p.. Greek text: Repubblica, translated by Francesco Gabrielli (Milan:
Rizzoli, 1981), 607a, 348f.
67 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. III, 350: ‫ارصف مبانى‬.
72 Oliver Leaman, The Qur’an: A Philosophical Guide (London: Bloomsbury
Academy, 2016), 34–35.
73 Ernest Robert Curtius, ‘Poesia e teologia’ [‘Poetry and Theology’], in Ernest
Robert Curtius, Letteratura europea e Medio Evo latino (Rome: La Nuova
Italia, 1995), 239–253.
1982), 200–201.
75 Eco (1982), 201, refers to Ibn Sīna, Al-ishārāt wa al-tanbīhāt [Remarks and
Admonitions]. We intend the term ‘Orientalist’ in the traditional and broad
sense of a scholar of Arab and Islamic studies.
76 For more on Baumgarten’s definition of aesthetics as an inferior gnoseology,
see Preface.
References
‘Abduh, Muḥammad, (2011) Al-Islām bayna al-‘ilm wa al-madaniyya (Islam
between Science and Civilisation). Cairo: Kalimāt ‘arabiyya li al-tarjama wa al-
nashr.
Amīn, Aḥmad (1929) Fajr al-Islām. Cairo: Maṭba‘at al-I‘timād.
Aristotle (1996) Perì Psychēs, trans. Giancarlo Movia, L’Anima. Milan: Rusconi,
Greek parallel text.
Bausani, Alessandro (1959) Persia religiosa: Da Zaratustra a Bahā’u’hllāh.
Cosenza: Giordano Editore.
Bausani, Alessandro (1992) Al-Qur’ān. trans. A. Bausani, Il Corano. Milan:
Rizzoli.
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb (2000) Aesthetica, ed. Salvatore Russo, A.G.
Baumgarten: L’Estetica, trans. Francesco Caparrota, Anna Li Vigni and Salvatore
Tedesco. Palermo: Aesthetica edizioni.
Bencheikh, Jamel Eddine (1989) Poétique arabe. Paris: Gallimard.
Bergson, Henri (1970 [1888]) Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience.
Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Braudel, Fernand (1963) Le monde actuel, Vols I–II. Paris: Librairie classique
Eugène Belin.
Nuova Italia.
Dahiyat, Ismail (1974) Avicenna’s Commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle. Leiden:
Brill.
Frangieh, Bassam K. (ed.) (2005) An Anthology of Arabic Literature, Culture, and
Thought from Pre-Islamic Times to the Present. New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-
sity Press.
Gabrieli, Francesco (1983) ‘L’esperienza russa di Nuàima’. In Cultura araba del
Novecento. Milano: Laterza, 115–125.
Ḥamīd Allāh, Muḥammad (ed.) (1987) Majmū‘a al-watha’iq al-siyāsiya li-al-‘ahd
al-nabawī wa al-khilāfa al-rāshida. Beirut: Dār al-Nafā’is.
Ḥusayn, Ṭaha (1926) Fī al-shi‘r al-jāhilī. Cairo: Dār al-kutub al-ilmiyya.
Ibn Rushd (1986) Talkhīṣ kitāb al-shi‘r, ed. Charles E. Butterworth and Ahmad
Abd al-Magid Haridi. Cairo: The General Egyptian Book Organization.
[Ibn Rushd] Averroè (1990) Talkhīṣ kitab al-shi’r, trans. Carmela Baffioni, Com-
mento al Perì Poietikēs, trans. Carmela Baffioni. Milan: Coliseum.
al-ḥikma min al-ittiṣāl, trans. Marc Geoffroy, Averroës. Discours décisif (Paris,
Ibn Sīnā (1960) Al-Ishārāt wa al-tanbīhāt, ed. Sulīmān Dunyā. Cairo: Dār
al-Ma‘ārif.
Ibn Sīnā (1984) Al-Ishārāt wa al-tanbīhāt, trans. Shams Constantine Inati, Avi-
cenna. Remarks and Admonitions. Rome: Pontifical Institute for Medieval
Studies.
Al-Jumaḥī, Muḥammad Ibn Sallām (1952) Ṭabaqāt al-shu‘arā’ [Classes of Poets],
ed. M. Shākir. Cairo.
Leaman, Oliver (2016) The Qur’ān: A Philosophical Guide. London: Bloomsbury
Academy.
Lelli, Giovanna (2004) ‘Il commento medio di Averroè alla Poetica aristotelica.
Elementi di poetica medievale comparata arabo-islamica e latino-cristiana’. In
Carmela Baffioni (ed.), Averroes and the Aristotelian Heritage. Naples: Guida,
175–188.
Majakovskij, Vladimir (1958) ‘Good!’ [‘Horošo!’] (1927), Bene!, e poema di
Lenin, trans. M. de Micheli. Milan: Feltrinelli.
Maïakovski, Vladimir Il’itch (2000) Poèmes 1924–1926, trans. Claude Frioux.
Paris: L’Harmattan, Russian parallel text.
Life], Vols 1–3. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir.
Plato (1973) The Republic, trans. Benjamin Jowett. New York: Anchor Books.
[Plato] Platone (1981) Repubblica, trans. Francesco Gabrielli. Milan: Rizzoli.
Spendel, Giovanna (1996) Storia della letteratura russa. Rome: Newton.
Van Gelder, Geert Jan H. (1982) Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Critics on the
Coherence and Unity of the Poem. Leiden: Brill.
Von Grunebaum, Gustave E. (1987) ‘I’jāz’. In Encyclopedia of Islam, III, 2nd edn.
Leiden: Brill, 1018–1020.
7 Sedentary civilisation
The aesthetic State
Knowledge and beauty in the sedentary civilisation

In the course of previous chapters, we have repeatedly evoked a leitmotiv
of the Muqaddima, which is its conception of sedentary, urban civilisation
(ḥaḍāra, ‘umrān ḥaḍarī), with its multiplicity of arts and sciences, as a
body already affected by the seeds of senility (shuyūkha) and decline
(haram). Ibn Khaldūn insists on the opposition between the original unity
of the raw nature of the Bedouins and that of nature modified by colours
(talawwun) and forms (ṣibgha), which increases with the passage of time
(ayyām, dahr).
In this chapter, we shall conduct an in-depth analysis of the dimension
that science and beauty assume in urban civilisation in the Muqaddima. As
already mentioned, we concur with Lacoste (1998) in thinking that the
nomad–sedentary opposition in the sociology of Ibn Khaldūn rather than
being relevant in terms of a moral opposition between virtue and vice
wishes to indicate the inherent contradiction in the States of the Maghreb,
which are structurally unstable, and in which the ‘aṣabiyya of the dynasties
of Bedouin origin begins by being the motor driving the State only to then
become the cause of its decline.
In this chapter, we shall dwell in particular on the aesthetic description
of the State in the Muqaddima. Ibn Khaldūn insists on the importance of
parading exterior beauty by means of ‘emblems’ of power (shārāt): the
outfit (āla), the throne (sarīr), the mint (sikka), the seal (khātam), embroi-
deries with the names of the rulers (ṭirāz), large tents and tents walls
(al-fasāṭīṭ wa al-siyāj), the prayer enclosure (maqṣūrat al-ṣalā) and the
prayer during the Friday sermons (al-du‘ā’ fī al-khuṭba). The pomp and
circumstance of the emblems of the State increase as the distance grows
between the small group of rulers and the tribal aristocracy which origin-
ally constituted its social base. These are the symptoms of an unavoidable
crisis which leads to the downfall of the State.
From the point of view of our reading of the Muqaddima, the nomad–
sedentary opposition is relevant not only inasmuch as it is an integral part
of Ibn Khaldūn’s aesthetic vision of history but also in that from this there
emerges the idea of the aesthetic State as a fundamental attribute of polit-
ical power in the advanced tributary pre-capitalist societies.
The transition from the primitive Bedouin stage to one which is
sedentary, urban and complex, part of the natural course of history, is
achieved thanks to the investment of an excess of the social production
with respect to subsistence (zā’id ‘alā al-ma‘āsh). A surplus of labour
(a‘māl), in turn, enables the development of urban civilisation, of the arts
and sciences, that is, of superfluous products and luxury.
‘‫’ في أن العلوم إنما تكثر حيث يكثر العمران و تعظم الحضارة‬

‫و السبب في ذلك أن تعليم العلم كما قلناه من جملة الصنائع و قد كنا قدمنا أن الصنائع إنما‬
‫تكثر في األمصار و على نسبة عمرانها في الكثرة و القلة و الحضارة و الترف تكون نسبة‬
‫الصنائع في الجودة و الكثرة ألنه أمر زائد على المعاش فمتى فضلت أعمال أهل العمران عن‬
‫معاشهم انصرفت إلى ما وراء المعاش من التصرف في خاصية اإلنسان و هي العلوم و‬
1
‫الصنائع‬
‘Sciences multiply when civilisation grows and sedentary life flourishes’
The reason for this is that the transmission of knowledge is only one
among the crafts. We have already said that crafts develop in the
cities. The excellence and the number of crafts increase proportionally
to the level of development of civilisation and the importance of
sedentary life and luxury in these cities, because [crafts] represent an
extra with respect to [activities] of mere subsistence. When civilised
people dispose of a surplus of labour exceeding [the needs of] subsist-
ence, this surplus is oriented towards activities which are not indis-
pensable to survive. These activities are peculiar to man. They are the
crafts and the sciences.2
Human nature is always the same, whether the person in question be

Bedouin or sedentary and whether he hails from temperate or intemperate
zones. If sedentary people seem more brilliant and sagacious than
Bedouins, it is only because their soul has acquired forms and colours: it
bears the luminous imprint of crafts and education.
‫… لنفس إنما تنشأ باإلدراكات و ما يرجع إليها من الملكات …أال ترى إلى [أهل] الحضر مع أهل‬
‫البدو كيف تجد الحضري متحليا ً بالذكاء ممتلئا ً من الكيس حتى أن البدوي ليظنه أنه قد‬
‫فاته في حقيقة إنسانيته و عقله و ليس كذلك و ما ذاك إال إلجادته من ملكات الصنائع و‬
‫اآلداب في العوائد و األحوال الحضرية ماال يعرفه البدوي … إنما الذي ظهر على أهل‬
3
‫الحضر من ذلك هو رونق الصنائع و التعليم فإن لهما آثاراً ترجع إلى النفس‬
The soul develops thanks to the perceptions it has and the habits it
acquires … If you compare sedentary people with the Bedouins, don’t
you see that the former are endowed with so much greater sagacity
and intelligence that you would think that their nature and intellect
are [congenitally] different from the Bedouins. But it is not so. This
Sedentary civilisation 131
impression is due to the excellent technical abilities of sedentary
people, to their activities [which are made possible by] acquired habits
and to the general circumstances of their sedentary culture, all things
that are unknown to the Bedouins …
In fact, the apparent [superiority] of the sedentary people lies in the
brilliance of their crafts and education which leave an imprint on their
soul.4
With regard to human geography, we explained in Chapter 4 how, in our

opinion, the description of advanced civilisations in terms of harmony,
proportion and beauty in the Muqaddima is similar to a portrait, to a
photo that Ibn Khaldūn pauses to admire. But it is an abstract image,
lacking movement and lifeless. Real civilisations exist in time, which
inexorably devours them. Nobody can divert civilisations, characterised as
they are by the practice of sophisticated crafts, from pursuing their path to
decadence, because habits are like a second nature (al-‘awā’id… manzilat
ṭabī‘a ukhrā) and people cannot abandon them. Only the prophets, but it
would be better to say only the Prophet Muḥammad, with the assistance of
God can take a stand against habits and maintain a soul that is pure and
without colour. In Chapter 5, we have already recalled the tradition
according to which two angels opened the chest of the young Muḥammad
and washed it with snow.
‫و العوائد تتنزل منزلة طبيعة أخرى فإن من أدرك مثال أباه و كبراء أهل بيته يلبسون الحرير‬
‫و الديباج و يتحلون بالذهب في السالح و المراكب و يحتجبون عن الناس في المجالس و‬
‫الصلوات فال يمكنه مخالفة سلفه في ذلك إلى الخشونة في اللباس و الزي و االختالط بالناس إذ‬
‫العوائد حينئذ تمنعه… و انظر شأن األنبياء في إنكار العوائد و مخالفتها لوال التأييد اإللهي‬
5
‫و النصر السماوي‬
Customs are like second nature, for example, if you saw your father or
senior members of your family wearing silk and brocade, adorning
their weapons and mounts with gold and distancing themselves from
[ordinary] people in gatherings and at prayer, you could hardly go
against your forefathers, wear rough dress and mingle with [ordinary]
people. Customs would prevent you from [doing that] …
Look at the prophets. They reject customs and oppose them, but
they can do so only thanks to the divine support and the help of
Heaven.6
In order to grasp Ibn Khaldūn’s vision of history, it is necessary to bear in

mind the historical context in which he belonged. An intellectual, sceptical
and disillusioned, he nevertheless remained a firm member of the ruling
class of Arab society in its decline. Decline had a double economic dimen-
sion: in the short term, it related to the conjuncture; and, in the long term, to
the structure. Ibn Khaldūn was aware of both. The conjunctural economic
decline was a result of the Mongol invasions of the Arab Orient in the thir-
teenth century and of the invasions of Tamerlane at the time of Ibn
Khaldūn. These events provoked the decline of the cities and a general
regression of the agricultural economy towards a pastoral one, as had hap-
pened in the Maghreb following the invasions of the Banū Hilāl nomads,
who had come from the Arab peninsula in the eleventh century. The struc-
tural decline had begun, on a political level, in the ninth century, when (for
a reason which is difficult to explain, as pointed out by Corm)7 the Arabs
surrendered the reins of power to ‘foreigners’ (‘Ajam), first to the Persians
and then to the Turks, abandoning the political rule of their society. The
‘aṣabiyya (group feeling) of the Arabs was lost and ‘the manners and
the ideals of the Arabs’ (al-‘urūbiyya wa manāzi‘ahā) came to an end.
The Muslim Empire broke into pieces (wa iftaraqa amr al-Islām).8
Although it would only be in the eighteenth century in the wake of the
Industrial Revolution and the Bourgeois revolutions in Europe that the
backwardness of the Arab and Muslim world would become clear (it had
been reunified under the Ottoman Empire from the fourteenth century),
Ibn Khaldūn is already aware of it and intuits that a European Renaissance
will begin in Spain. If he somewhat confuses the social dimension of
historical with that of natural phenomena, it is because of their repetitive-
ness as well as because of the influence of Aristotelian physics which
explained all becoming in terms of matter that is predisposed to acquire a
form. For Ibn Khaldūn, civilisation (‘umrān), the subjects, the cities and all
created beings (al-khalīqa) are matter (mādda) that tend to acquire their
specific form (ṣūra), which is the State (dawla) and the political authority
exercised by it (mulk).
Despite the use of Aristotelian categories, there are other materialist
Hellenistic stimuli, perhaps of Epicurean origin, that converge in the
Khaldunian vision of history. The Khaldunian ideas of an unceasing flux
in the picture of repetitive cycles, a materialism which is essentially anti-
metaphysical and characterised by an aesthetic-sensitive dimension both in
the sciences of the human world and in the perceptions of the Unseen, are
all elements that show analogies with Epicureanism.
Epicurus, a Greek philosopher of the third century bce, developed the
atomic ideas of Democritus (fl. fourth century bce), which opposed the
Aristotelian doctrine of becoming and elaborated a mechanistic physics

based on the meeting of atoms which excluded any divine intervention. On
this basis, Epicurus thought that sensations, which were atomic images that
had detached themselves from objects and engraved themselves on the soul,
were the only possible criteria for truth. In contrast to both Platonic and
Aristotelian intellectualism, Epicurus based his ethics on the idea of pleasure
(hēdonē), to be understood not in a superficially hedonistic way but in the
sense of a state of serenity (ataraxía), which is both happiness and virtue.
Atomic stimuli must have contributed to the formation of the most ori-
ginal part of Muslim thought, namely, its theology (‘ilm al-kalām, science
of the Word), which was subsequently made more rigid in the systemisation
given it by al-Ghazālī. The speculative physics of the kalām, to which Ibn
Khaldūn explicitly adheres, describes becoming in terms of an occasionalistic
atomism which allows for the justification of an absolute divine omnipo-
tence and the absence of secondary causes. If even Ibn Khaldūn does not
dwell on the atomistic doctrine of the kalām, we can suppose that he
accepted its fundamental ideas and that, as a typical medieval intellectual,
he did not consider them in any way at variance with the Aristotelian
model of becoming as matter-form. The intellect (aql) is ‘only an atom
among the atoms of world of existence which is produced by God’ (dhirra
min dhirrāt al-wujūd al-ḥaṣil minHu),9 says Ibn Khaldūn concerning the
fact that reason is effective for weighing up human but not divine things.
He means that to wish to understand the unity of God using human reason
would be like wishing to weigh the mountains with scales meant for
weighing gold.
According to Muslim theology, the world and its objects are composed
of atoms that God creates and destroys at every instant. The continuous
aspect of things is an illusion due to habit (‘āda) and to the simultaneity
(iqtirān) of the phenomena. In a famous example, al-Ghazālī explains that
when cotton burns when in contact with fire, combustion is not an effect
of this contact but of divine intervention. Habit and simultaneity make us
believe in causality.10 Considering the atomism of Muslim theology, it is
no wonder that the Khaldunian vision of history, from which the Absolute
Arbiter of the world is absent, has similarities with both ancient Epicurean
physics and modern historical materialism. It is no coincidence that in his
degree thesis dedicated to the Difference between the Philosophy of
Democritus and that of Epicurus (1841), the young Marx defined Epicurus
as the greatest Greek Enlightenment thinker, who deserves the praise of
the Epicurean poet Lucretius.
This is why in Chapter 4 we recalled the beginning of De rerum natura,
with which Ibn Khaldūn shares a grandiose vision of the universe as an
unceasing process of birth, growth and destruction of bodies and their ele-
ments. The tragedy of the Muqaddima consists precisely in the fact that
with God absent and a world made of atoms which aggregate and
disaggregate, or in the language of Aristotle, of matter that acquires

forms (whether it be atoms or matter-form does not change anything), the
Khaldunian vision finds no relief even in the nature-cosmos, whose
immanent grandeur and beauty afforded some comfort to Lucretius.
Centuries later the Italian poet-philosopher Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837),
in his song ‘To Himself’ and in an archaising fashion fed by his knowledge
of the Greek and Latin Classics, would evoke the ‘fate’, which offered only
death to mankind. Leopardi concludes his song by admonishing his heart
to despise itself, nature and the evil power which secretly operates to bring
about the ruin of the universe, and the infinite vanity of all.11 With respect to
the ‘evil power’ mentioned in this song, it is worth observing that Leopardi
intended to dedicate a hymn, which remained unfinished, to the divine
principle of Evil in the ancient Persian Mazdean religion.
The universe of Ibn Khaldūn, which is historicocentric and anthropo-
centric, is dominated in its turn in an archaising fashion by the fate of
Arab paganism (cf. Chapter 4), by the ‘infinite vanity of all’ of the song
of Leopardi, save for the fact that Ibn Khaldūn does not evoke his
own individual destiny like the Italian poet who had been fed on
Romanticism.
The economy of tributary societies

In the Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldūn provides a precise and detailed descrip-
tion of the economy of the Arab civilisation of his time. It is this material-
ist analysis of history that has aroused the admiration of so many scholars.
The State (dawla) draws the surplus necessary for its reproduction and
development from taxes (jibāya) that allow it to increase its financial
resources (māl). The State expands and reinforces itself but its expenses
increase. It must pay the salaries of the military and civil servants, who
become increasingly demanding. In the initial stage, the circle of the
economy is virtuous. The income and expenditure are well balanced. In
fact, the economy is a system of interdependent elements (umūr
mutanāsiba), says Ibn Khaldūn. These elements are: the force or weakness
of the State, the number of inhabitants, the dimension of the cities and the
general level of prosperity. The subjects pay duties and land taxes
(al-jibāya wa al-kharāj) to the ruler who returns them in the forms of gifts
(‘aṭā’). Therefore, the wealth of a State is proportional to the wealth of it
subjects.
‫)و اعلم) أنها أمور متناسبة و هي حال الدولة في القوة و الضعف و كثرة األمة أو الجيل و عظم‬
‫المدينة أو المصر و كثرة النعمة و اليسار و ذلك أن الدولة و الملك صورة الخليفة و العمران‬
‫وكلها مادة له من الرعايا و األمصار و سائر األحوال و أموال الجباية عائدة عليهم ويسارهم‬
‫في الغالب من أسواقهم و متاجرهم و إذا أفاض السلطان عطاءه و أمواله في أهلها انبثت‬
‫فيهم و رجعت إليه ثم إليهم منه فهي ذاهبة عنهم في الجباية و على الخراج عائدة عليهم في العطاء‬
‫فعلى نسبة مال الدولة يكون يسار الرعايا و على نسبة يسار الرعايا أيضا ً و كثرتهم يكون‬
12
‫مال الدولة و أصله كله العمران و كثرته فاعتبره و تأمله تجده‬
You should know that the following elements are interdependent: the
strength or weakness of the State, the demography of a nation or race,
the dimension of a town or of a city and the extent of prosperity and
wealth. Indeed, political power and the State are the form of the
created world and of civilisation, while these, which include the sub-
jects, the cities and all other circumstances, are the matter [of the
political power and the State]. Tax-income returns to the subjects, and
their wealth comes mostly from the market’s [activities] and exchanges.
When the ruler offers them gifts, wealth [amwāl] spreads among them,
returns to him, then reverts to the subjects again. They pay duties and
land taxes with that, then [wealth] returns to them in the form of gifts.
The wealth of the subjects depends on [the state of] the Treasury, and
vice versa. The fundamental cause of all [these phenomena] is civilisa-
tion and its high level of development. If you consider attentively what
I say, you will find it is so.13
It is the stage of growth and the increase of profit (kasb). The profit repres-
ents the value of labour (al-makāsib … qiyam al-a‘māl).14 The population
increases, especially in the cities, and new superfluous needs emerge and
production grows. However, as time goes by, the State increasingly spends
more on superfluity rather than production: the lucrative rewards to its
clan members so that they remain faithful and the luxury and pomp of
display, which has a function of ostentation and is thus an instrument of
power. In order to obtain the financial resources it needs, the State
increases the fiscal pressure on its subjects, the merchants increase the price
of goods, corruption is widespread and the goods on the market no longer
find the purchasers necessary to make the economy work. Production col-
lapses and the country hurtles into a crisis of impoverishment (and we
would add) of underproduction.
In describing the economic processes so clearly, Ibn Khaldūn was helped
by the transparency of the economic functioning of pre-capitalist societies,
in which the State drew the surplus from various tributes and taxes. The
transparency of these kinds of tributary societies (of which feudal Europe
was a variant) was different from what happens in Capitalism. Unlike the
modern State, the tributary State had no need of an economic scientific
theory with the purpose of legitimising social inequalities. In fact, the latter
were accepted as natural, justified by the religious metaphysics, which
invested the social order with a divine legitimacy.
In the Middle Ages, social relationships were not masked by relation-
ships between goods but were transparent personal relationships between
producers and lords. Marx illustrates this feature of medieval society in the
first book of The Capital:
[In the] the European middle ages … instead of the independent man,
we find everyone dependent, serfs and lords, vassals and suzerains,
laymen and clergy. Personal dependence here characterises the social
relations of production just as much as it does the other spheres of life
organised on the basis of that production. But for the very reason that
personal dependence forms the ground-work of society, there is no
necessity for labour and its products to assume a fantastic form different
from their reality. They take the shape, in the transactions of society, of
services in kind and payments in kind. Here the particular and natural
form of labour, and not, as in a society based on production of com-
modities, its general abstract form is the immediate social form of
labour. … No matter, then, what we may think of the parts played by
the different classes of people themselves in this society, the social rela-
tions between individuals in the performance of their labour, appear at
all events as their own mutual personal relations, and are not disguised
under the shape of social relations between the products of labour.15
Instead in Capitalism, explains Marx, the functioning of the economy is

hidden by the fact that goods do not appear as the fruit of human labour
but as autonomous things, and the production of commodities and goods
does not appear as a relationship between men but as a relationship
between things. Considering commodities and goods merely as things, or
as quantities of value, says Marx, means turning them into ‘fetishes’.
On this subject, Samir Amin observes that the opaque sphere in tribu-
tary societies is that of political power and that in order to study it we
would need to have a work titled The State instead of The Capital.16
Well, Ibn Khaldūn has already written a chapter of this book in the
Muqaddima. In fact, in his analysis of the State, he begins with the
statement that the Prophet Muḥammad did not institute the caliphate
and that the question of political power was never raised by the first
Muslims. A consensus reigned around the inspired caliphs, primi inter
pares, in the manner of the Bedouin societies, although we know that
the deep religious faith of the ṣadr al-Islām did not prevent internecine
conflicts and bloodshed. In other words, Ibn Khaldūn paved the way for
the possibility of criticising the historical legitimacy of the caliphate,
many centuries before Farag Foda (1946–1992), the Egyptian intellec-
tual who paid for his secular and forward-looking vision of Islam with
his life.17
We shall not deal here with the whole of the Khaldunian analysis of
the State, but only with a part of it, namely, the way in which Ibn
Khaldūn describes the aesthetic ostentation of power as an indispensable
means of its reproduction and survival. On the basis of the Muqaddima,
one of the chapters of the imaginary work titled ‘The State’ could be
called ‘The Aesthetic State’. As this expression suggests, aesthetic osten-
tation is a type of legitimisation of power, which implies a critical and
historical understanding of it, and therefore differs from those presented
in Muslim theological texts. In the latter, a chapter was traditionally
dedicated to the caliphate or to the office of the imam (imāma), to be
understood in the Sunni sense as the leader of the Muslims and the
executor of the Law established by the Prophet. The chapters on the
office of the imam in the works of kalām generally describe the require-
ments for the position of caliph and his legitimacy. In the orthodox
Sunni version of al-Ghazālī, the caliph must belong to the same tribe as
Muḥammad, (the Qurayshites), he must possess capacity, competence,
knowledge, virtue, be worthy of guiding Muslims on the right path and
be without any physical defects.18
In contrast, from the Khaldunian description of the aesthetic State,
there emerges a wish to highlight the mechanisms of power behind appear-
ances and independently of their religious legitimisation.
The aesthetic State

In the Muqaddima, one of the main features of the State is its exterior
beauty (jamāl). Even if used only once on this subject, the term jamāl,
associated with pomp and magnificence (ubbaha) clearly has the meaning
of opulence, unrestrained luxury and the ostentation of power and
wealth. In Chapter 2, we evoked a passage from the Muqaddima in which
we are told that when they reach the stage of their decline, the States
(duwal) lose their ‘pomp and beauty’ (al-ubbaha wa al-jamāl). We have
also seen that the States seek to conserve them for as long as possible,
until they die out, like the wick of a lamp without oil.19 The aesthetic
dimension of the State swells as its ability to count on the group feeling
(‘aṣabiyya) diminishes.
From the very beginning, the State is sustained by the existing group
feeling as well as suffocating it, exercising a restraining (wāzi‘) influence on
its subjects. It is an authority that is external to man and which became
necessary when the religious Law in force at the dawn of Islam as an
internal force of the soul, lost its forward drive. Albeit for different
reasons, neither the dawn of Islam nor the Bedouin societies (before or
after Islam) had need of a coercive State. Savage (mutawaḥḥishūna)
Bedouins are characterised by a strong group feeling which guarantees

their cohesion. Their courage (ba’s) is intact exactly because they are not
subjected to laws and sanctions. The Companions of Muḥammad, in their
turn, were the most courageous people because the restraining influence of
religious laws did not come from an external institution. It came from
within themselves, by virtue of the Qur’ān which the Prophet recited to
them, awakening desire and fear (al-targhīb wa al-tarhīb) in their hearts.
Their force remained untouched by external political and educational
authorities (al-ta’dīb wa al-ḥukm).
Yet the State, whose laws incur sanctions for those who fail to respect
them, is an inevitable historical necessity which weakens the courage and
vitality of its subjects. Laws imposed on subjects who cannot defend them-
selves are a source of humiliation (madhilla) and break their courage.
‫أما إذا كانت األحكام بالعقاب فمذهبة للبأس بالكلية ألن وقوع العقاب به و لم‬
‫يدافع عن نفسه يكسبه المذلة التي تكسر من سورة بأسه بال شك و أما إذا كانت‬
‫األحكام تأديبية و تعليمية و أخذت من عند الصبا أثرت في ذلك بعض الشيء‬
‫لمرباه على المخافة و االنقياد … لهذا نجد المتوحشين من العرب أهل البدو أشد‬
‫بأسا ً … و ال تستنكرن ذلك بما وقع في الصحابة من أخذهم بأحكام الدين و الشريعة و لم ينقص‬
‫ذلك من بأسهم بل كانوا أشد الناس بأسا ً ألن الشارع صلوات هللا عليه لما أخذ المسلمون عنه دينهم‬
‫كان وازعه فيه من أنفسهم لما تلي عليهم من الترغيب و الترهيب … إنما هي أحكام الدين و‬
‫آدابه المتلقاة نقالً يأخذون أنفسهم بها بما رسخ فيهم من عقائد اإليمان و التصديق فلم تزل سورة‬
20
‫بأسهم مستحكمة كما كانت و لم تخدشها أظفار التأديب و الحكم‬
When [breaking laws] leads to punishment, [laws] totally annihilate
courage, because a person who undergoes a punishment and is not able
to defend himself, has a feeling of humiliation which definitely destroys
his fortitude. If laws have the purpose of education and instruction, and
they are imposed from childhood, they have exactly the same effect,
because they educate [young people] in fear and submission … This is
why we find the primitive Bedouin Arabs more courageous …
This fact cannot be denied [by remembering] that the Companions
of the Prophet accepted the religious commandments and the Law,
without their courage being diminished. They were even the most
courageous people. When they learned their religion from the Legis-
lator [Muḥammad], God bless him and grant him peace! they had
restraint in their own souls because hearing the recitation of the
Qur’ān awakened desire and fear [alternately] in them … [Their laws]
were the religious commandments and the rules which they received
[orally] and accepted spontaneously, because the articles of faith and
their assent to them were well rooted in their souls. Therefore their
courage remained as solid as before and was not tarnished by laws
and education.21
Ibn Khaldūn specifies that the quality of government (malaka) depends on

the relationship between the ruler (sulṭān) and the subjects (ra‘yia). If the
government is good (min al-jawda) and beautifully beneficial (jamīla
ṣaliḥa), then it meets the general interest of the subjects (maṣlaḥa). Under
these circumstances, the ruler has perfectly achieved his purpose (maqṣūd).
A bad government, instead, is harmful for the subjects. Of course, specifies
Ibn Khaldūn, the general interest depends on qualities which have nothing
to do with the aesthetic beauty of the ruler, his pleasant physical aspect,
his intellectual virtues or his beautiful handwriting.
‫إعلم أن مصلحة الرعية في السلطان ليست في ذاته و جسمه من حسن شكله أو مالحة وجهه‬
‫أو عظم جثمانه أو أتساع علمه أو جودة خطه أو ثقوب ذهنه و إنما مصلحتهم فيه من حيث‬
‫إضافته إليهم فإن الملك و السلطان من األمور اإلضافية و هي نسبة بين منتسبين فحقيقة‬
‫السلطان أنه المالك للرعية القائم في أمورهم عليهم فالسلطان من له رعية و الرعية من لها‬
‫سلطان و الصفة التي له من حيث إضافته إليهم هي التي تسمى الملكة و هي كونه يملكهم فإذا‬
‫كانت هذه الملكة و توابعها بمكان من الجودة حصل المقصود من السلطان على أتم الوجوه فإنها‬
‫إن كانت جميلة صالحة كان ذلك مصلحة لهم و إن كانت سيئة متعسفة كان ذلك ضررا‬
ً 22‫عليهم و هالكا ً لهم‬
You should know that the interest that the subjects have in their ruler
does not derive from the person of the ruler as such, his body, his
handsome aspect, his lineaments, his imposing physique, the extent of
his knowledge, his beautiful handwriting or the sharpness of his mind.
Their interest in him derives rather from their connection with him.
Political power and rulership generate a bond, which is a relationship
between two related elements, [the ruler and the subjects]. The ruler
dominates his subjects and is responsible for all their affairs. The ruler
is a ruler because he has subjects and the subjects are subjects because
they have a ruler. The trait that connects [the ruler] to them is called
‘rulership’ [malaka], which means that he dominates them. If the rul-
ership and its effects are good inasmuch as the inner purpose of the
political authority has been fully achieved, and if the rulership is beau-
tiful and beneficial, then it will serve the interests of the subjects.
Instead, if it is bad and unjust, it will harm the subjects and provoke
their ruin.23
However, good government should be the incarnation of that ideal of tem-

perance and moderation (i’tidāl, tawassuṭ) of which we spoke in Chapter 4
and which, as we observed, has a precarious and temporary existence since
it is destined by nature to make a show of luxury and power. The historian
can only photograph that ideal so as to analyse it scientifically in his labo-
ratory. The general interest, ‘beautifully beneficial’, is similar to a beautiful
image, removed from the vicissitudes of time.
In the aesthetics of the State, the walls (judrān) and the fortifications
that surround the cities have a symbolic value, as well as a practical one.
The walls replace the force of the group (‘iṣāba) and the enthusiasm for
fighting (shawka) which have now been lost. Therefore, political authority
(mulk) aspires to found cities and control them.
The emblems (shārāt) of the aesthetic State

The part of the Muqaddima in which the aesthetic function of the State is
most apparent is that which deals with the emblems (shārāt) of power. Let
us consider this in the light of some examples.
First of all, Ibn Khaldūn explains that when there is less consensus, it
can prove more effective for the sovereign to resort to the ‘pen’ (qalam)
rather than the ‘sword’ (sayf). This is the mid-term of the living cycle of a
State (wasaṭ al-dawla). At this point, the ruler is interested only in obtaining
the benefits of his political authority in the form of taxes and properties,
and by ensuring his supremacy over other States and the enforcement of
his laws. He does not need the military (ahl al-sayf) any longer. On the
contrary, he keeps them away from his intimate circle. He prefers the men
of the pen, the civil members of the administration, who then enjoy more
privileges and wealth.
The art of beautiful writing, which is the forte of secretaries, enables the
ruler to maintain his grip on power through the management of his admin-
istration and the display of the beauty of the language. Let us recall what
was said in Chapter 2, namely, that among the arts it is writing (kitāba)
that prompted the remark the Persian King Khosrow that secretaries were
‘diabolical’ (diwāne, mad, demon-possessed, diabolic) on account of their
acumen and shrewd understanding (kays). In fact, writing possesses this
almost magical property of fixing thought and transporting it afar in time
and space. Linked to the diabolical nature of writing is the idea that the
Prophet was illiterate (ummī), an inherent characteristic of his purity and
perfection. Here then is the State that uses secretaries or ‘men of the pen’
(arbāb al-aqlām) instead of the military or ministers. It is the aesthetic, the
fickle, the arbitrary and the capricious State. It is the real State, a far cry
from the abstract right proportions of good government.
‫و أما في وسط الدولة فيستغني صاحبها بعض الشيء عن السيف ألنه قد تمهد أمره و لم يبقى‬
‫همه إال في تحصيل ثمرات الملك من الجباية و الضبط و مباهاة الدول و تنفيذ األحكام و القلم‬
‫ فيكون أرباب األقالم في هذه الحاجة أوسع جاها ً و أعلى رتبة و‬.… ‫هو المعين له في ذلك‬
‫أعظم نعمةً و ثروةً و أقرب من السلطان مجلسا ً و أكثر إليه تردداً و في خلواته نجيا ً ألنه حينئذ‬
‫آلة التي بها يستظهر على تحصيل ثمرات ملكه … و المباهاة بأحواله و يكون الوزراء حينئذ‬
24
‫و أهل السيوف مستغنى عنهم مبعدين عن ناظرالسلطان حذرين على أنفسهم من بوادره‬
When [the State] reaches the middle age [of its life cycle], the ruler can
do without the sword. His authority is well established and he has no
other concern but to reap the fruits of his power in the form of duties
and properties, competing in splendour with other States and ensuring
the enforcement of the laws. The pen is there for that … The men of
the pen enjoy a comfortable position and occupy a high rank for this
purpose. They enjoy great prosperity and wealth. They are close to the
ruler and see him often. They are allowed to be intimate with him and
admitted to his inner circle. At that time, the pen is the instrument that
helps the ruler reap the fruits of his political power … and compete in
splendid circumstances. At this time [the ruler] can do without viziers
and men of the sword, who are kept away from him and must look
out for themselves, given the attempts (to harm them) he may make
against them.25
The aesthetic State uses the instruments of display in order to maintain its
power. They are the elements inherited from the pomp and luxury (al-badhakh
wa al-taraf) of the Byzantine and Persian rulers, those customs that
incurred the wrath of the intransigent ‘Umar and which had led the King
of Nubia to reprove ibn Marwān, the fugitive son of the last Umayyad
caliph, and explain to him that the Umayyad dynasty had lost power
because of divine punishment (Chapter 4).
We have seen in Chapter 6 that in the revolutionary phase of the revela-
tion and for a few generations afterwards, the ‘caliphate’ was something
‘similar to prayer’ and had nothing to do with the organisation of political
power. There was no need for a coercive State. It was a period of har-
monious anarchy and enthusiastic faith. However, later on, the caliphate
turned into a coercive State, with an institutionalised political authority.
The Muslims found the display of the State apparatus (āla) of the Byzantines
and the Persians so beautiful that they adopted it.
‫حتى إذا انقلبت الخالفة ملكا ً و تبحبحوا زهرة الدنيا و نعيمها و البسهم الموالي من الفرس و‬
‫الروم أهل الدول السالفة و أروهم ما كان أولئك ينتحلونه من مذاهب البذخ و الترف فكان مما‬
26
‫استحسنوه اتخاذ اآللة فأخذوها‬
Eventually the rule of the caliphate turned into [ordinary] political
power, and the Muslims enjoyed the splendour of worldly pleasures
and comfort. They came into close contact with Persian and Byzantine
clients and other subjects of [conquered] dynasties, who showed them
ostentation and luxury, which [the Muslims] learned. Among the
means of ostentation, [the Muslims] found the State apparatus beauti-
ful, and adopted it.27
Indeed, among the instruments of ostentation, in first place, there is the

display of the State apparatus, one of the privileges of State power. Here
music and sounds (drums, pipes and horns) are of the greatest importance
and combine with the unfurling of banners and flags to terrify the soldiers.
‫فمن شارات الملك اتخاذ اآللة من نشر األلوية و الرايات و قرع الطبول و النفخ في األبواق و‬
‫القرون … أما تكثير الرايات و تلوينها و إطالتها فالقصد به التهويل ال أكثر و ربما يحدث في‬
28
‫النفوس من التهويل زيادة في اإلقدام و أحوال النفوس و تلوناتها غريبة و هللا الخالق العليم‬
One of the symbols of power is the State apparatus, consisting of
banners and flags, the percussion of drums and the blowing of trum-
pets and horns … The purpose of displaying a great number of large
flags of various colours is to frighten [the enemy], nothing more.
Fright generates greater audacity in the souls. Psychological conditions
and their variety are something extraordinary. God is the Creator, the
Omniscient.
(Qur’ān, Al-Ḥijr, 15:86; Yā Sīn, 36:81)29
The deployment of banners and flags on the battlefield is common to all

peoples, we are told by Ibn Khaldūn. However, although the Prophet and
his first caliphs made use of flags, they deliberately avoided drums and
trumpets, because they held the pomp of political power in contempt.
Ibn Khaldūn compares the effect of the music of the State display with
that of the music of the Berber Bedouins, whose poets would surround the
procession of the leader and sing in such a way as to stir the warriors’
emotions and prepare them to face death. However, it is clear that the
element of comparison is indeed the psychological effect provoked by
music; there is an enormous difference between the fearless Bedouins and
the weak citizens of the aesthetic State, between the sweet and melodious
song of the Zanāta Berber poets that incites their warriors to do battle and
the din of drums, pipes and horns that strikes terror in the hearts of the
civilised soldiers.
It is easy to understand that the way in which the Bedouin Prophet used
banners and flags and the way the States used them at the height of their
pomp and circumstance were profoundly different for Ibn Khaldūn. Let us
note the element of instilling awe (tahwīl), which had an aesthetic-religious
quality at the dawn of Islam, the beautiful awe of God aroused by the
Qur’ān in those who listened to the Prophet himself speaking the verses
that had just been revealed. It was an awe mingled with a marvelling that
gave birth to a silence full of wonder. The Qur’ān is a book that raises
gooseflesh on the skin of those who fear their Lord, then their skin and
hearts soften again, when they hear the name of God.30
How unlike the sentiment instilled by the aesthetic State, whose stand-
ards and drums serve only to enslave weak citizens, like animals in cap-
tivity who have now lost all their vigour and beauty. It is indeed a fear
that is a copy of the ancient and authentic fear of God, a mask behind
which the new social relationships between sovereigns and subjects are
hidden.
Another symbol of power is the throne, in its various meanings, on
which the sovereign sits: sarīr, minbar, takht, kursī, according to the
custom of the Persian and Byzantine emperors who had a holy aura. It is
significant in this regard that the Qur’ānic mentions of the ‘throne’ (kursī,
‘arsh)31 were among the most hotly debated between those who favoured a
more or less explicit anthropomorphic interpretation of the Qur’ān and
the allegorists like Averroes. Given the mystical inclination of Ibn
Khaldūn, the throne used as a symbol of power seems to us to smack of
immorality and blasphemy. The Persian poet Sa‘di (fl. thirteenth century)
ends a ḥikāyat (a brief moralising piece of rhyming prose) by recounting an
exchange between a king, a prisoner and two viziers: ‘čeh bar takht
mordan čeh bar ruy-e khāk’ (what difference is there between dying on a
throne or on the bare earth?), according to a recurrent theme in Persian
poetry that reminds us that even he who sits on a throne does not escape
the fate of all mortals.32
Other aesthetic elements of display are the embroideries with the names
of rulers (ṭirāz), on various types of materials. This usage also seems to us
to warrant an accusation of blasphemy, given that from the point of view
of religious piety the name of God should be embroidered on materials of
silk and brocade, not the names of rulers.
‫من أبهة ال ُملك و السلطان و مذاهب الدول أن ترتسم أسماؤهم أو عالمات تخص بهم في طراز‬
33
‫أثوابهم المعدة للباسهم من الحرير و الديباج أو اإلبريسم‬
Among the means of ostentation of political power and the manners

of the State, there is the habit of embroidering the name of the rulers
or their distinctive symbols on their clothes using silk and brocade.34
Then Ibn Khaldūn mentions various symbols among which we find
large tents and pavilions of the sovereigns (al-fasāṭīṭ wa al-siyāj), a beauti-
ful sight full of colours, pomp and luxury (badakh wa taraf). Moreover,
there is the prayer enclosure, (bayt al-maqṣūra), another symbol of power.
It is in fact an enclosure around the niche (mihrāb), that part of the
mosque that faces Mecca, which was instituted by the first Umayyad
caliph Mu‘āwiya (r. 661–680) in order to protect himself after an attempt
on his life.
Another prerogative of the ruler is the pulpit (minbar) from where he
led the Friday prayers. At first, the caliph led the prayers in person. The
first to have a pulpit built for this purpose was ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ās (d. 664),
governor of Egypt immediately after the Arab conquest. When the pious
caliph ‘Umar came to hear of his podium, he ordered him to destroy it.
‘I have heard that you use a podium to raise yourself above the Muslims’
would have said ‘Umar, full of rage. Then he urged ‘Amr to break the
podium into pieces immediately.35
The pomp and magnificence of exterior beauty in the Muqaddima
appear as a deliberate State strategy to restrict the privileges of exercising
power and enjoying privileges to a small circle, appealing to the sentiments
of admiration mixed with fear aroused by the beauty of the music, colours
and artistic forms. This beauty is far from the rough beauty of the primi-
tive Bedouins and the dawn of Islam.
To conclude this chapter, the Muqaddima offers us an aesthetic descrip-
tion of the State on two levels.
The first level is consistent with the leitmotiv of civilisation as a natural
being that is born, grows and dies. The State, the form to which the
material of civilisation tends, is the institution in which and from which
the decline takes place. The latter is indissolubly linked to the flourishing
of the arts and sciences, whose beauty and harmony are similar to a photo,
which tears them out of time but also takes their life.
The second level is what we have defined as the chapter of a book as yet
unwritten. Titled The State, this book should describe the functioning of
power in precapitalist tributary societies, in which economic relationships
are transparent but political relationships opaque, hidden by religious met-
aphysics, which legitimises the social order by presenting it as of divine
origin. Ibn Khaldūn reveals to us some of the masks with which men
introduce themselves to one another in the theatre of medieval society.
The State is the place for the exercise of a power that uses aesthetic and
psychological elements which are effective not because of their real
strength but because of a disguise made of luxury and wealth.
These observations further confirm the interest of an aesthetic reading of
the Muqaddima. No wonder if at the beginning of the Arab cultural
Renaissance of the nineteenth–twentieth centuries (Nahḍa) an intellectual like
al-Kawākibī (1854–1902) writes that despots want to maintain their sub-
jects in ignorance and, to this end, they do not fear so much the religious
sciences, concerning the future life, as the social sciences like history. Only
a few years before the publication of the book by al-Kawākibī, the Muqaddima
of Ibn Khaldūn had begun to circulate in the Arab world again.36
The aesthetic State will last for a long time. It will survive the advent of
capitalism (eighteenth century) and its ideology which presents goods as
fetishes instead of as labour and the social relationships that that entails.
For a long time yet, the State will need to show off not only its magnifi-
cence and luxury but also the authentic beauty of the arts, in all their
forms (painting, sculpture, architecture, music and literature). Only in the
last decades of the twentieth century does the State no longer seem to need
beauty to legitimatise itself.
Notes
Khaldoun, Vols I–III (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1970 [1858]), Vol. II, 383.
Press, 1980 [1967]), Vol. II, 434.
et problématiques XIXe–XXIe siècle (Paris: La Découverte, 2015).
8 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 410–411; and Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. I, 468–469.
9 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. III, 31; and Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. III, 38.
10 Al-Ghazālī, Al-Iqtiṣād min al-I‘tiqād (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 1983),
63. For an exposition on the atomistic speculative physics of the Kalām, cf.
al-Bāqillānī (950–1013), Kitāb al-tamhīd [Introduction], edited by P.R.J McCarthy
(Beirut: s.n., 1957).
11 Giacomo Leopardi, Canti (Milan: Mursia, 1977), Canto XXVIII, 166:
Or poserai per sempre,
stanco mio cor. Perì l’inganno estremo,
Ch’eterno io mi credei. Perì. Ben sento,
in noi di cari inganni,
non che la speme, il desiderio è spento.
Posa per sempre. Assai
palpitasti. Non val cosa nessuna
i moti tuoi, né di sospiri è degna
la terra. Amaro e noia
la vita, altro mai nulla; e fango è il mondo.
T’acqueta omai. Dispera
l’ultima volta. Al gener nostro il fato
non donò che il morire. Omai disprezza
te, la natura, il brutto
poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera,
E l’infinita vanità del tutto.
15 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I, Book One: The
Process of Production of Capital, translated by Samuel Moore and Edward
Aveling (Marxist Internet archive, 1995, 1999), n.p., based on edition by
Fredrick Engels (1887, German edition 1867, Moscow: Progress Publisher,

n.d.), n.p.
16 Samir Amin, L’eurocentrisme: Critique d’une idéologie (Paris: Anthropos eco-
nomica, 1988), 15.
17 [Faraj Fawda] Farag Foda, Al-ḥaqīqa al-ghā’iba [Absent Truth] (Cairo: s.n.,
1986). In this work, the author questions the political-religious legitimacy of
the caliphate and the ‘Islamic State’ on the basis of a historical and sociological
analysis. He himself was assassinated by a jihadi in 1992, after having been
declared blasphemous by the religious authorities of the al-Azhar university.
18 Al-Ghazālī, Al-Iqtiṣād min al-I‘tiqād (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 1983),
147ff. Alessandro Bausani, L’Islam (Milan: Garzanti, 1987), 32.
19 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. II, 113; cf. Chapter 2.
20 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 230–231.
22 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. I, 339–340.
29 Cf. Ibn Khaldūn (1980), Vol. II, 48–50
30 Al-Qur’ān, al-Zumar [The Armies], 39:23; these verses cwere ited in Chapter 6.
31 The Qur’ānic terms for the throne of God are kursī (it is found with reference
to God only in the sūra of Baqara [The Cow], 2:255) and ‘arsh (al-A‘rāf [The
Battlements], 7:54, several references).
32 Sa‘di, Golestān, in Kolliyāt-e Sa‘di, edited by Moḥammad ‘Ali Forughi (Tehran:
Enteshārāt-e Rahā, c. 1374/1996), 28.
35 Ibn Khaldūn (1970), Vol. II, 63; and Ibn Khaldūn (1980) Vol. II, 71.
36 ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī, De la nature du despotisme et de la fin de
l’esclavage (Paris: Dār Albouraq, 2017); and ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī,
Ṭabāí‘al-istibdād wa maṭābi ‘al-isti‘bād (Cairo: Kalimāt ‘arabiyya li al-tarjama
wa al-nashr, 2011).
References
economica.
Al-Bāqillānī (1957) Kitāb al-tamhīd, ed. Richard Joseph McCarthy. Beirut: s.n.
Bausani, Alessandro (1987) L’Islam. Milan: Garzanti.
[Fawda, Faraj] Foda, Farag (1986) Al-ḥaqīqa al-ghā’iba [Absent Truth]. Cairo: s.n.
Al-Ghazālī (1983) Al-Iqtiṣād min al-I‘tiqād. Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya.
Al-Kawākibī, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (2011) Ṭabāí‘al-istibdād wa maṭābi ‘al-isti‘bād.
Cairo: Kalimāt ‘arabiyya li al-tarjama wa al-nashr.
Al-Kawākibī, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (2017) De la nature du despotisme et de la fin de
l’esclavage. Paris: Dār Albouraq.
Leopardi, Giacomo (1977) Canti. Milan: Mursia.
Marx, Karl (1999 [1867]) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, I, Book One:
The Process of Production of Capital, trans. by Samuel Moore and Edward
Aveling for the Marxist Internet archive, based on the edition by Fredrick Engels
(1887, German edition 1867, Moscow: Progress Publisher, n.d.).
Sa‘di (c.1374/1996) Golestān. In Kolliyāt-e Sa‘di, ed. Moḥammad ‘Ali Forughi.
Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Rahā.
8 The Muqaddima as a tragedy
In the course of this book, we have set out to read the Muqaddima of Ibn
Khaldūn, a text of Arab historiography, from the point of view of its aes-
thetic vision. The aesthetics of the Muqaddima is an integral part of the
theory of history of Ibn Khaldūn and allows us to understand it in a more
complete and profound way.
Reading the Muqaddima from the point of view of its aesthetics does
not, however, mean going in search of the parts of the book where Ibn
Khaldūn provides the modern reader with information on his vision of
beauty. Instead, it means understanding that the theory of history of Ibn
Khaldūn, based above all on his observation of the Arab and Berber
society of the Maghreb of his day, is of necessity also an aesthetics of
history on account of the characteristics themselves of this society. It is not
an immanentist aesthetics of order, or proportion (although these cate
gories are part of it), as one might expect from reading the Khaldunian
exposition on music for example. Nor do the aesthetics of Ibn Khaldūn
reflect the idea of a superior and transcendent order, as is the case in the
Thomas Aquinas’ aesthetics analysed by Eco.1 The aesthetics of Ibn
Khaldūn is a total aesthetics, which embraces all aspects of the society and
culture of his age. For this reason, it is an aesthetics of aporia and of
contradictions.
Among all these contradictions, what does have a symbolic value on
account of its inherent relationship to the historiographic vision of Ibn
Khaldūn, is the two-pronged function of the ‘aṣabiyya, which is both con-
structive and destructive.
The ‘aṣabiyya is the group feeling of the Bedouins which creates their
physical and moral beauty and is the element that enables the passage
from the primitive Bedouin society to the sedentary and urban society,
characterised by a centralised State. The description that Ibn Khaldūn
gives of this evolution reflects the real historical situation of the pastoral
societies of the Maghreb of his time, where tribal dynasties succeeded one
another right up to the nineteenth century. These tribal dynasties were
composed of free, armed men who succeeded in establishing centralised
States thanks to the support of the tribe and the group feeling which
bound their members to the leader, primus inter pares, in the name of a
common ancestor. Once established, however, the State was forced to
suffocate that same ‘aṣabiyya which had been so indispensable to its
foundation. The group feeling had been necessary to transform the author-
ity of a primus inter pares into an absolute sovereign. By destroying it, the
State annihilated the very forces that were indispensable to its existence.
This phenomenon gave rise to a repeated failure to constitute a stable, cen-
tralised State in the Maghreb. Despite it being an economic, political and
social phenomenon, it assumes an aesthetic dimension in the Muqaddima.
The ‘aṣabiyya, by virtue of its physical and sensual meaning (‘aṣab
means ‘nerve’) and of the tragic contradiction it carries within it, is a key
concept in Khaldunian aesthetics. It is at the origin of the opposition
between beauty understood as the virtue and vigour of the Bedouin soci-
eties and ugliness understood as the vice and weakness of the advanced
sedentary civilisations, with their centralised State where there is a flower-
ing of the arts and sciences, the signs of luxury and decadence. Con-
sidering that Ibn Khaldūn was a refined, cultured citizen and a member of
the State administration, his aversion to civic life, the arts and sciences
may seem paradoxical. And yet, it is precisely the contradictions that con-
tribute to the grandeur of the Muqaddima, and which make of its aes-
thetics not only a theory but also a reality and a rich, unstable and
complex one at that. They emerge from the reasoning of Ibn Khaldūn
who, in the most consistent way possible, wishes to understand social
reality and history.
Thus, our aesthetic reading of the Muqaddima does not just take into
account that Ibn Khaldūn is a product of his time, as one element among
others. Our reading considers the historical circumstances of the composi-
tion of the Muqaddima as the essential element to reveal the Khaldunian
aesthetic vision. The Muqaddima is a system and like every system, it con-
tains within it both some contradictions and the conditions for overcoming
and solving them. It is an organic system whose inconsistencies stem from
the fact that it is not the exclusive product of a theoretical theological or
philosophical speculation, but rather it is the result of the empirical obser-
vation of material and social situations. It is the dialectical contradictions
of reality that explain Ibn Khaldūn’s reasoning. Therefore, Ibn Khaldūn
includes the contradictions, like that of the role played by the ‘aṣabiyya, as
key elements in his theoretical construction.
It is precisely because of these characteristics that the aesthetics of the
Muqaddima is also an aesthetics of future possibilities. What it would
become in practice and in a way that was completely independent of the
forecasts and will of Ibn Khaldūn, we know by observing the aesthetics of
Humanism and of the seventeenth century based on the idea of poetry as a
special form of knowledge. We know it by considering the aesthetics of
Baumgarten (eighteenth century) as an inferior gnosiology, the antipositiv-
ist and Dionysian aesthetics of Nietzsche, the Croce idealist aesthetics that
The Muqaddima as a tragedy 149
put forward the autonomy of art and finally, in the field of the concrete
practice of poetry, the futurist aesthetics of Majakovskij, who invested art
with a revolutionary project.
In the course of this book, we have underlined these possibilities which
are inherent to the Muqaddima and which spring from suggestions present
in Arab Hellenistic philosophy, above all those inclining to Neoplatonism
(al-Fārābī and Avicenna), and which, thanks to the vast culture of Ibn
Khaldūn, are enriched by all the elements of Arab culture in its totality
(poetry, theology, philosophy, law and the sciences … ), demonstrating
that the times of history function in a complex manner and cannot be
reduced to the simultaneity of political, social, economic and cultural
developments.2
For these reasons, we have seen the interest in looking through the
mirror of the Muqaddima and comparing the classical Arab-Islamic world
not only with other epochs, both earlier and later, but also with other cul-
tural areas like the Russian and Chinese. It is a question of explaining
existing analogies both through the existence of common structures that
illustrate the convergence of ideas and through the transmission of know-
ledge and the spread of stimuli, as Needham has shown in the field of sci-
entific exchanges between China, Europe and the pre-modern Arab-Islamic
world.
For example, we have compared the aesthetic representation of Bedouin
and revolutionary early Islam with the futurist aesthetics of Majakovskij.
After Lenin’s death, when the Russian poet shouted that Lenin was: ‘the
most earthy man to ever walk the face of the earth’ and that he was not a
prophet nor a leader by divine grace; he was in fact desperate precisely
because he wished Lenin had been immortal. The Futurism of Majakovskij,
a revolutionary art project, was also fed by elements that derived from
medieval Orthodox Russia, which was so close to him in time and whose
figures he overturned and thereby reversed their meaning. At the same
time, Majakovskij felt that the Bolshevik State risked destroying the
revolutionary vigour of the Russian people (‘it seems, as in ancient times,
that the whole of Russia is becoming nomadic once more’), using the
charismatic figure of Lenin but emptying it of its significance. These are
the elements that have enabled us to identify some convergences between
the aesthetics of Ibn Khaldūn and that of Majakovskij.
Another of our comparisons concerned the notion of ‘nature’ in Chinese
aesthetics and in the Muqaddima. The Chinese aesthetics of late Taoism, a
meeting place between the aesthetics of Buddhism and Confucianism of
the same era, shares the value attributed to the original unity of a pure and
single nature with the Muqaddima. It is probably no coincidence that these
affinities emerge after the Mongol domination in China (Yuan dynasty at
the end of the thirteenth–fourteenth century), in the era of the Ming
dynasty (fourteenth–seventeenth century), when China found itself being
crossed by an unprecedented circulation of ethnic groups, cultures and
very diverse religions;3 as well as those of traditional China (Taoism and
Confucianism), there was Tibetan Buddhism, Turkish-Persian Islam and
the Christianity of the early missions. While, however, Taoism, a material-
ist metaphysics, maintains that it is able to return to the purity of nature at
its beginnings and free itself of the manifold and its oppositions, of fla-
vours and of colours, this return is impossible for Ibn Khaldūn, who is a
historian. For him, it is at best mysticism (Sufism) that can furnish man
with a surrogate for that original natural state, to be attained not by
reason but by a spirituality that only sensations and taste (dhawq) enable
one to fully grasp.
Before making our concluding remarks, it would be useful to summarise
the contents of the various chapters of this book.
In Chapter 1, we provided some essential information on the biography
of Ibn Khaldūn and his historical circumstances.
In Chapter 2, we focused on the connection between aesthetics and
epistemology in the Muqaddima, by conducting a preliminary analysis of
the meaning of the terms ‘beauty’ (jamāl) and ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm) and
reviewing the different recurrent meanings in the book. We saw that the
term jamāl, both in its positive and negative sense, is used almost exclu-
sively to refer to sensual beauty: immoral lasciviousness, the luxury of the
States in decline, musical harmony and the rhetorical embellishments of
language. In the case of music and language, jamāl can be associated by
analogy to the beauty of God, the angelic world and the Qur’ān.
With regard to knowledge (‘ilm), we made a distinction between sciences
in the plural (‘ulūm), which are the sciences of the human world and prac-
tised by ordinary men (be they also religious sciences), and knowledge in the
singular (‘ilm), which is mostly knowledge of the divine. Certain categories of
men, and in particular the prophets, can have access to this through special
perceptions (idrāk) of the Unseen (ghayb). Such perceptions are attained by
means of the imaginative faculty (khayāl). The Prophet Muḥammad pos-
sessed ‘knowledge and religion’ (al-‘ilm wa al-dīn), but the term ‘knowledge’
in this usage has a moral meaning and indicates an ethics of perfection
(kamāl) inextricably linked to the ignorance and roughness of the illiterate
Bedouin Prophet (ummī). In his heart and mind, there was no room for the
arts and sciences, which would have diminished his piety and devotion.
In Chapter 3, we analysed knowledge and beauty in history understood
both in the sense of historiographic theory and in the concrete sense of the
unfolding of human affairs over time.
As regards his historiographic theory, Ibn Khaldūn states that his
history is a totally new science and he offers the reader an aesthetic
description of it, which is both negative and positive. In his negative aes-
thetics, beauty is defined by contrast (what beauty is not), while in his
positive aesthetics, he means that perfect correspondence (muṭābaqa)
between events and circumstances, the precise measurement of their
importance as well as balance, simplicity, clarity and harmony.
Regarding history understood as a concrete unfolding of human affairs
over time, Ibn Khaldūn gives an aesthetic description of it, both on the
level of the long term (in the framework of his naturalistic conception of
civilisations) and on the level of single events, in which the historian is
sometimes faced with the problem of exterior beauty which conceals
historical truth.
In Chapter 4, we analysed knowledge and beauty in human geography
and in the perceptions of the Unseen. The latter pertain to the geography
of the divine world, if we can express it in this way, so as to grasp the rela-
tionship between the two sections of the chapter which correspond to two
sections of a chapter of the Muqaddima, and which would otherwise seem
detached one from the other. Concerning the geography of the human
world, we focused on the centrality of the notion of i‘tidāl (temperance
and balance), the condition at once physical, moral and intellectual for the
development of the sciences and the arts in civilisations. We observed that
when Ibn Khaldūn shows his appreciation for the beauty of the arts and
sciences on account of their harmony and perfection, he artificially
removes them from the passage of time (zaman), time that devours and
corrupts everything and represents them, as if they were in a photo to be
contemplated: perfect but devoid of life. Regarding the perceptions of the
Unseen, we identified a special type of knowledge in the imagination of the
Prophet. Owing to its objective analogies with poetic knowledge, this
special type of knowledge opens up a new way of understanding poetry as
a special and potentially superior form of knowledge.
In Chapter 5, we analysed knowledge and beauty in primitive Bedouin
society in general and in Arab paganism (jāhiliyya) in particular, highlighting
the eminently aesthetic nature of Bedouin society when it is characterised
by a tribal group feeling (‘aṣabiyya), which is poor but very rich: poor on
account of its material poverty but rich on two counts. First, because it
possesses an extraordinary literary heritage which includes both pre-
Islamic poetry and the Qur’ān, which is a literary genre of its own and of
an inimitable beauty (i‘jāz). Second, because it is a concentration of phys-
ical vigour, rough beauty and ethical virtue, which is still close to its ori-
ginal nature (ṭabī‘a) and not altered by the colours and the forms of
customs over time.
In Chapter 6, we analysed knowledge and beauty at the origins of Islam
(ṣadr al-Islām), which includes the era of the Qur’ānic revelation and the
first generations immediately afterwards. It is an era that Ibn Khaldūn
imbues with a strong aesthetic dimension. The dawn of Islam is a contin-
uum of the Bedouin society of Arab paganism both in its social organisa-
tion and in its aesthetic dimension. However, in addition, there is now
the enthusiasm of the revelation, the fascination of the stylistic novelty of the
Qur’ān and naturally the overwhelming force of a faith, which, under
the guidance of the Bedouin Prophet, transforms Arab tribes into a poten-
tially universal nation, and blood ties into the human brotherhood of faith.
In this temporary phase, the ‘aṣabiyya, the driving force of history, no
longer has a purpose. Faith, more than any esprit de corps, is the generator
of social cohesion. Yet, in a world in which everything perishes, not even
the dawn of Islam can last for long. It is like a parabola, which, having
reached its apex, descends until it finally stops. Then history resumes its
ordinary course which, above all in the Maghreb, is characterised by the
role of the ‘aṣabiyya which provides the sap for the formation of States
and then destroys them.
In Chapter 7, we analysed knowledge and beauty in sedentary civilisa-
tion, with particular reference to the mature State. Ibn Khaldūn highlights
the importance of the display of exterior beauty in the State that tries to
survive for as long as possible. The chapter includes the description of this
mechanism of display, by means of the symbols (shārāt) of power (the
outfit, the throne, the mint, the seal, the embroideries, the royal tents and
the sermon), of which the States of the Maghreb constitute a specific case.
We then explained that the ‘Aesthetic State’ as described in the Muqaddima
could constitute a chapter of a book titled The State. Marx’s Capital
describes the functioning of modern economic relationships that the ideo-
logy of capitalism conceals in the form of laws of nature. In the same way,
this hypothetical book titled The State would describe the functioning of
unequal social relationships, which tributary societies hid behind a meta-
physical sacralisation of the social order.
The tragic character of the Muqaddima, which, from the aesthetic and
historiographic point of view, is represented by the double and two-
pronged nature of the ‘aṣabiyya, and from an existential standpoint is
highlighted by the fundamental contradiction in Khaldunian thought and
sensibility. Ibn Khaldūn is viscerally attached to physical beauty, to the
vigour of the body, personified by the Bedouin warriors, and thus the pro-
spect of a future life holds no comfort for him. It is this body that he
wants, this earthly body, and not another, be it the same in every respect
as this one, as is promised in early Islam which believes in the resurrection
of the body.
As a rationalistic historian, can Ibn Khaldūn really believe in the resur-
rection of the body? We would say no. At the same time, he feels a
stranger to the abstract, metaphysical notions of the philosophers who,
rationalistically, denied the resurrection of the body and interpreted it alle-
gorically. Ibn Khaldūn refuses the claim of philosophy to offer a rational
explanation for the supernatural world, given that the human intellect is
only an atom (dhārra min dhārrāt) of the universe. These are scales for
weighing gold but not mountains.
Even to him, Sufism is less of a comfort than it might seem as it seeks
to reach the Eternal with its ‘taste’ (dhawq), rather than reason. The
problem is that in reality the world of Ibn Khaldūn is a world without
God, whether it be the God of the theologians, the mystics or the philo-
sophers. For this reason, we compared Ibn Khaldūn to ‘Omar Khayyām,
the great Persian mathematician and astronomer, who was the author of
the famous quatrains. On the other hand, if in some ways the naturalistic
aesthetics of Ibn Khaldūn recalls that of the Epicurean Roman poet
Lucretius, there is a difference in that the world of Ibn Khaldūn is histor-
ical and anthropocentric, and shut off from the life-giving breath of
nature and the cosmos.
The tragic Khaldunian contradiction between the attachment to the
body and the impossibility of escaping from the corruption which is its
destiny, to which can be linked all the other elements of the aesthetics of
the Muqaddima that we have examined in this book, is intimately linked
to the same tragic nature of the ‘aṣabiyya, which generates the State only
to destroy it.
The fact is that the Muqaddima is more than just a historiography text.
It also presents us with a picture of Arab-Islamic culture in its entirety. The
Muqaddima is a universe. Ibn Khaldūn’s intention was not so much to
found a consistent system of thought as to describe and understand the
reality of history in all its complexity and contradictions. In first place
came the history of the Maghreb, his own history, and then through this
came the universal history. To achieve this goal, Ibn Khaldūn endows the
Muqaddima with all his culture and all his knowledge.
It is thanks to this approach that discordant and inconsistent elements
emerge from the Muqaddima-universe, which pave the way for the aes-
thetics of centuries to come. Among these elements, the most significant
is the analogy between prophecy and poetry, between prophetic revela-
tion and poetic composition, both special forms of knowledge of a
sensual-imaginative nature. This analogy, which was already present in
the Arab-Islamic philosophers like al-Fārābī and Avicenna, is clearer and
more complete in the Muqaddima precisely because it is not inserted in
an exclusively philosophical dimension but in a dynamic relationship
with all the other elements of Arab and Muslim culture that converge in
this direction. Such elements, which it would be impossible to describe
from a purely philological standpoint, were to furnish ingredients that
would be essential to modern aesthetics, through phases of birth, rebirth
and revival which, from the archaic association between poetry and
magic, traverse Platonism, Neoplatonism, Humanism and the Baroque
until they finally reach the Irrationalism of Nietzsche and the Idealism of
Croce.
Today, capitalist civilisation seems to have attained the stage of ‘senil-
ity’ (shuyūkha), to use the words of Ibn Khaldūn. The problem of beauty,
truth, justice, goodness and their mutual relationships is not at the heart of
our concerns. Reading the Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldūn can serve both to
understand the Arab-Islamic aesthetics of the classical era and to develop a
critique of our societies, which is not just social but also ethical and
aesthetic. It can help us conceive of an alternative world from a total per-
spective, which would include justice, goodness, truth and beauty.
Notes
1982).
2 Jacques Le Goff, Faut-il vraiment découper l’histoire en tranches? (Paris: Seuil,
2014).
3 Anne Chang, Histoire de la pensée chinoise (Paris: Seuil, 1997).
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Index
‘Abbasids 3, 7–8, 26, 33, 46, 48, 64, ‘amal pl. a‘māl (labour) 130, 135
75, 77, 104, 117 Amin, S. 90, 136
‘Abduh, M. 114 Amir Khosrow of Delhi 119
Abelli 37 ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ᾱṣ 143
Ᾱbid al-Jābrī, M. x angel(s) 17, 27, 67–68, 77, 89, 99, 108,
Abū Bakr 102 115, 131
Abū Nuwās 13, 38, 46, 49 Apollo 84
Abū Tammām 15, 117 aporia 147
accident 43 appropriateness 9, 103, 111, 113
‘āda pl. ‘awā’id (habit) 49, 75, 88, aptum (appropriate for the aim) 9, 50
131, 133 ‘aql (intellect, reason) 23, 45, 133;
Ᾱdī ibn Zayd 48 maḥḍ (pure) 22, 28; ṣarf (pure) 89
aesthetics: Chinese 74–75, 88, 90–91, Aquinas, T. x, 9, 14, 66, 88, 147
93, 149; futurist 149; of the Gospel ‘araḍ 43; see also accident
and the Qur’ān 51; Greek and Latin arbāb al-aqlām (men of the pen) 140
(ancient) ix, 9, 50, 60; of history xii, archaic 79–80, 83–85, 88, 100
1, 147; imaginative 83; medieval ix, architecture 103, 144
9; modern 9, 115, 123, 148, 153; Aristotle vii, 11, 22, 40, 45, 66–67, 69,
naturalistic 153; negative 20, 64, 88, 82, 92–93, 107, 114–115, 117, 123,
150; of the Qur’ān 98; of the 132–133
revolution 98, 106; Romantic 62; of ‘arsh 142; see also throne
silence 65, 101; of the State see State art(s) 17, 24, 47, 93, 139; autonomy of
‘afāf (chastity) 9, 49 149; contain something diabolical 25;
‘ahd (succession to power) 104 liberal ix; philosophy of x; purpose of
ahl al-sayf (military) 139 35; and science(s) vii, xiii, 23–26, 36,
aim: appropriate for the 9, 13; of 54, 58, 60, 65, 80, 129–130, 143,
poetry 50 148, 150–151
aísthēsis (sensation) ix, 58 ‘arūḍ (prosody) 111
‘ajab see wonder ‘aṣabiyya 4, 10, 18, 21, 63, 75–76,
‘Ajam (non-Arab) 38, 49, 132 101–102, 110, 129, 132, 137,
ākhira (the other life) 21, 78 147–148, 151–153; see also State,
āla (outfit) 129 and group feeling
alētheia (truth) 26 Ash‘arī 61, 87; see also kalām
‘Alī 102 aṣl pl. uṣūl (essence, source) 45
‘ālim pl. ‘ulamā’ (religious scholar) 110 ataraxía (serenity) 132
allegory 19, 24, 28, 37, 45, 54, atomism 61, 133
114–115, 120, 142; allegorical Augustine 14
interpretation of the Qur’ān 40, 119, Averroes vii, 37–38, 40, 62, 69, 93,
152; see also ta’wīl 116–117, 142
162 Index
Avicenna 24, 27, 40–41, 67–69, 93, claritas (splendour) 66
114, 122–124, 149, 153 colour(s) 6, 11, 54, 88, 91–94, 101,
ayyām (days, history, time) 33, 43, 47, 104, 129–131, 143, 150
74, 80, 85, 129; see also Confucianism 91–92, 149–150
Time-Destiny consonantia (harmony) 66
Corm, G. x–xi, 90, 132
ba’s (courage) 76, 100, 137 craft(s) 19–20, 25, 43, 59, 111, 113,
badāwa (bedouinity) 49, 100 130–131
badī‘ (rhetorical embellishment) 14 Croce, B. ix–x, 148, 153
Bakunin, M. 102 Cusano, N. 88
balāgha (eloquence) 70, 93, 110, 120 cycle 10–11, 43, 46, 80, 85, 100,
Barmecids 48–50 132, 139
bāṭin (inside, inner) 37
Baumgarten, A. G. ix, 9, 115, dahr 74, 79–81, 85, 129; see also
123, 148 Time-Destiny
Bausani, A. 61, 85–87, 90, 93 dalīl (proof) 117
bayān (stylistics) 14, 70, 93, 108, 111, dawiyy (sound) 68, 107
119–120; see also rhetoric, literary dawla pl. duwal (State, dynasty)
beauty: of ‘emblems’ of power 129; see State
epistemological xii, 34, 59, 66, 69, de Bruyne, E. ix
71; of God 12, 64, 66, 89; inimitable de Tassy, G. 41
xii, 70–71, 100, 108, 117–120; decadence 1, 21, 60, 79, 81, 84–85,
intelligible x, 6, 12, 54; of 106, 131, 148
knowledge 17–18, 20, 88–89; of decay 10, 27
nature 28, 60–61, 78, 133; decorum (appropriateness for the
phenomenological xii, 42, 58, 66, aim) 9, 50
99, 132; problem of xii, 16, 29, 48; devil 38, 39, 50
of the ruler 138; sensual xi–xii, 6–9, dhāt pl. dhawāt (essence) 22,
11–13, 16, 19, 21, 33, 36–37, 82, 89
48–51, 64, 89–90, 168; true 20, 34, dhawq 93, 108, 110, 118, 150, 152;
47, 51; of vases 113; of wild animals see also taste
64, 66; see also jamāl dhihn (mind) 111
Behrens-Abuseif, D. ix, 24 dhirra pl. dhirrāt (atom) 133
Bencheikh, J. 110, 114 dīn 9, 62; al-‘ilm wa al- 16–17, 23, 28,
Bergson, H. 99 150; ‘aṣabiyyat al- 18; sadhājat al-
Bīrūnī 93 49; see also religion
Boccaccio, G. 123 Dionysius (Greek god) 84
Boethius 14 Dionysius the Areopagite (or Pseudo-
Borges, J. L. vii Dionysius) 66, 88–89
Braudel, F. 75 dīwān pl. dawāwīn (archive,
Buddhism 48, 90, 92, 149–150 administration) 17, 25
burhān (demonstration) 37, 42, 82 diwāneh (mad) 25
Byzantine x, 102, 105, 140–142 dream 27, 66–67, 84, 100,
114–116, 123
caliphate 3, 102–104, 136, 140
causality 87, 133 economy 3, 16, 43, 105, 131, 132,
causes 36, 37, 45; Cause of causes 82; 148–152; economic laws 47, 81, 90;
internal viii, 23, 44; secondary 61, surplus 22–23, 130, 134–135; see
87, 118, 133 also Marx, K.
China xi, 3, 59, 74, 90–92, 149–150 éidos 107; see also form(s)
Christianity x, 14, 84, 88, 92, Epicureanism 60–61, 132–133, 153
105–106, 150 eschatology 80, 84, 88, 94, 99
circumstances viii, xii, 28, 35–36, ethics 17, 50, 98, 132, 150
41–42, 46, 99, 104, 150 Eurocentrism xi
Index 163
Europe xi, 9, 11, 74, 85, 88, 90–91, hadaf 35; see also aim; purpose
123, 132, 135, 149 ḥaḍāra (civilisation) 22, 129
evil 36, 79, 93, 134 ḥadd pl. ḥudūd (divine laws) 9
ḥadīth (saying or action made by the
faculty (Aristotelian): estimative Prophet, story) 50, 79; aḥsan al- 118
(al-quwwa al-wahmiyya) 40; ḥafīẓa pl. ḥafā’iẓ (resentment) 50
imaginative (al-quwwa Ḥajjāj 18–19
al-mutakhayyala) 58, 67–69; (khayāl) ḥakīm pl. ḥukamā’ (sage) 12, 16, 25,
112, 150 27, 89
fadeur (opaque, flavourless quality) ḥāl pl. aḥwāl viii, 7, 9, 33–34, 36, 41,
91–92 43, 47, 108; see also circumstances;
faḍīla 34; see also virtue situation
falsafa 35, 37, 82, 107; see also ḥaqīqa (truth) 12, 33, 114; see
philosophy also truth
faṣāḥa (clarity) 14 ḥaqq (truth) 42, 75
faylasūf pl. falāsifa (philosopher) 24, 69 haram 10, 44, 129; see also decay
Ferdowsi 74–75, 85–86 harmony xii, 7, 13, 16, 35, 50, 54, 65,
fetishes 136, 144 70, 84, 131, 143, 150
fi‘l (actuality) 22 Ḥārūn al-Rashīd 7, 48–50, 104
Ficino, M. 88 ḥasab (lineage) 43
figures of speech 14–15, 111 hay’a 70, 114; see also form(s)
fikr (intelligence) pl. afkār 23, 109 hēdonē (pleasure) 132
fiṭra (nature) 11, 16, 21, 23, 36, 62, 66, ḥikāya pl. ḥikāyāt (story) 8, 142
76; see also ṭabī‘a; jibilla ḥikma and pl. ḥikam (wisdom) 17,
Foda, F. 136 36–37; see also philosophy
form(s) 11–12, 36, 54, 89, 92, 104, historiography vii, viii, 2–3, 16, 33–35,
107, 112–114, 130, 133, 143 38, 41, 66, 83, 147, 153; see also
Francs 81 history, science of
fusṭāṭ pl. fasāṭīṭ 129, 143 history: aesthetics of see aesthetics;
futurism 98–99, 149 cyclical vision of 23, 132; economic
see economy; global xi; organicistic
Gelder, van G. J. 114 and naturalistic vision of 10, 23, 47,
geometry 27, 34 89; as a new science xii, 29, 37, 86;
ghaḍab (anger) 50 as a not poetic discourse 38, 41; is
ghaḍāḍā (vigour) 76, 88, 100 not rhetoric 36; science of 8, 27, 34,
gharaḍ 6, 13, 35, 42, 50; see also 36, 83, 86 (see also historiography);
purpose sociology of 83; unclassifiable 16, 27,
gharīb (extraordinary, spicy) 33, 37, 70, 109
62–63, 86, 116 Hourani, A. 1
ghāya (utmost limit) 60 ḥukm pl. aḥkām (divine norms)
ghayb xiii, 16, 27–28, 58, 66, 150; see 9; (judgment) 40; (political
also Supernatural; Unseen authority) 137
ghazāl (Persian lyrical poem) 90 ḥulm pl. aḥlām 115, 118; see also
Ghazālī 33, 41, 47, 67–68, 71, 83, 87, dream
107, 133, 136 Humanism 85, 88, 123, 148, 153
ghinā’ 11–12, 50; see also singing Ḥusayn, Ṭ. 77, 98, 114
gnosiology ix, 123, 148 ḥusn (goodness) 6, 11, 63
Gnosis 12, 23–24, 27–28, 89, 91, 93,
99, 119 i‘jāz (inimitable beauty of the Qur’ān)
Goethe, J. W. 107 70, 100, 108, 116, 119, 151
Gonzales, V. ix i‘rāb (desinential inflection) 110
goodness xii, 6, 17, 36, 52, 110, 153 i‘tidāl (temperance) 6, 58–63, 65–66,
Greece vii, ix, xi, 25, 50, 61, 68, 74, 84, 139, 151
132–133 Ibn al-‘Arabī 91
164 Index
ibn al-Khaṭīb 121 khabar pl. akhbār (historical
Ibn Hishām 77 information) 17, 33
ibn Marwān 64, 140 kharāj (land taxes) 134
idrāk pl. idrākāt 16, 23, 27, 58, 62, 66, khāriq pl. khawāriq (wonder) 117
89, 114, 150; see also perception khātam (seal) 129
Idrīsī 59 khaṭṭ 20; see also writing
ifāda (meaning) 14, 33, 110 khayāl 41, 107, 111, 114; see also
ighrāb (stupefaction) 36, 39 imagination; faculty, imaginative
Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ 24, 27, 93 khayr (good) 9, 21, 75–76, 78, 93, 98
ilm pl. ‘ulūm viii, xii, 6, 9, 16–17, Khayyām, ‘O. 74–75, 85, 86, 152
22–24, 26, 28–29, 62, 83, 88, 150; khilāfa 102; see also caliphate
see also science; knowledge; learning khiṭāba 36; see also rhetoric
imagination 38, 41, 68–71, 112, 115, khiyāṭa (dressmaking) 24
123, 151; see also faculty, Khosrow Anushirvān 25–26, 48,
imaginative 119, 140
imām (the one who leads prayer; the khuluq al-Sūdān (Black Africans) 62
executor of the Law) 35, 54n6, 136; khurāfa pl. khurāfāt (story) 8
see also imāma khushūna (roughness) 17, 20, 76, 88,
imāma (office of the imām, leading 100, 102
prayer) 102, 136 khuṭba (sermon) 129; al-widā‘ 101
imkān (possible) 41, 45 King of Nubia 64–65, 101, 140
immorality 70, 142 kitāba (writing) 25, 139
Imru al-Qays 46, 48, 75 knowledge: angelic 89; imaginative 85,
inā’ pl. awānin (vase) 113 107–108, 122; of intelligible things
intellect 40–41, 58, 68, 152; Agent 22; intuitive 68; original and primitive
68–69 16–17, 20, 24, 26–27, 62, 83;
iqlīm pl. aqālīm (zone) 59 problem of xii, 16, 29; of the Prophet
iqtirān (simultaneity) 133 20, 23, 28, 36, 88; theory of 67, 70;
Izutsu, T. 91 of the Unseen/Supernatural 27, 41,
58; see also poetry as a special form of
jāhiliyya (Arab paganism) 23, kursī 142; see also throne
74–81, 83, 85, 87–88, 93–94,
98–101, 110, 151 labour 136, 144
jamāl 6–7, 10–11, 14, 16–17, 29, 33, Lacoste, Y. xi, 3, 21, 44, 83, 129
48–49, 54, 64, 70, 89–90, 137, 150 ladhdha 115; see also pleasure
jawda (goodness) 113, 138 lamp 10, 45–47, 64, 137
Jesus 51, 103 lasciviousness xii, 9, 17, 50, 70, 150
jibāya (taxes) 134 lawn pl. alwān 62, 88; see also
jibilla (nature) 23 colour(s)
jinn 80, 116, 118 Leaman, O. ix, 122
Jullien, F. 92, 109–110 learning viii, 8–9, 18, 20; religion and
Jumaḥī 110 8, 23, 28
jurisprudence 2, 19, 121 Lenin, V. I. x, 102, 105–106, 149
Leopardi, G. 133–134, 144n11
kadhib/kidhb 7, 33; see also lie lie 8, 34, 36, 39, 45
kāhin pl. kuhhān (soothsayer) 67, logic viii–ix, 2, 37, 55n31, 68–70, 82,
101, 110 115, 121, 123
kalām (speech) 14–15, 68, 88, 109, Lucretius see Epicureanism
113, 121; (theology) 30n24, 61, luxury see taraf
132–133, 136
kamāl 6, 12, 14, 20, 35, 60, 150; see ma‘āsh (subsistence) 130
also perfection ma‘nā pl. ma‘ānin/al-ma‘ānī (meaning)
Kawākibī 143–144 11, 25, 68, 112–114
kays (shrewd understanding) 26, 140 Ma’mūn 7–9, 33, 48, 104
Index 165
mabda’ (First Principle) 12, 89 and 107; State apparatus and 141,
madārik (senses) 63, 108 143; in Chinese thought 92
mādda 11, 132; see also matter mūsīqā 11; see also music
Maghreb viii, 1–4, 11, 13, 22–23, 44, Mussato, G. 123
59, 75–76, 78, 110, 129, 132, muṭābaqa (coincidence,
147–148, 152–153 correspondence) xii, 6, 8, 34, 36, 41,
Majakovskij, V. x–xi, 98–99, 101–102, 89, 150
104–106, 149 mysticism 19, 27–28, 37, 41, 66–67,
majnūn pl. majānīn (mad) 67, 110, 118 83–84, 87–88, 142; see also Sufism
malaka (habit, faculty) 19, 93, 108,
111; (rulership) 29n1, 138 nafs 11, 22–23, 48, 114; see also soul
Mālik ibn Anas 13 nahḍa see Renaissance, Arab
Mamluks 2–3 nāqil pl. nāqilūna (transmitters) viii, 34
Manṣūr 64–65, 101 nashwa (inebriation) 12
manṭiq 22; see also logic nāṭiqa see soul, rational
maqṣad pl. maqāṣid 34–35, 113; see nature see fiṭra; jibilla; ṭabī‘a
also purpose; moderation naẓar pl. anẓār (intellectual insight) 82;
maqṣūd 138; see also purpose (theoretical matters) 25
Marcus Aurelius 51 Needham, J. 74, 91
Marx, K. 102, 133–136, 152 Neoplatonism 11–12, 23–24, 27–28,
Mas‘ūdī 64 41, 66, 81, 81–83, 86, 88–90, 93,
maṣlaḥa pl. maṣāliḥ (general interest) 122, 124, 149, 153
50, 138 Nietzsche, F. 74–75, 84–85, 99,
materialism viii, 11, 14, 24, 28, 81, 83, 123–124, 148, 153
89–91, 124, 132–134, 150 noūs (intellect) 107
matter 12, 45, 67, 132–133 Nu‘ayma, M. x, 105–106
Mecca 52, 78, 98–99, 101, 143 nubuwwa pl. nubuwwāt 58–59, 62; see
metaphor 38, 41, 69, 108, 115, 117 also prophecy
metaphysics ix, 22, 82–83, 85, 92–93,
135, 143, 150 ontology 36, 44–45
mi‘iyār (criterion) 41 Ottomans 3, 106, 132
mimēsis (imitation) 117, 125n45
minbar (pulpit) 142–143 panegyric vii, 35
Mir Shams al-Din of Delhi 38, 41 paradise 21, 54, 87, 103–104
miracle 101, 104 perception xiii, 22, 28, 67, 82–83, 89,
moderation xiii, 6, 35, 92, 139 100, 107–108, 114–115, 132, 151
Mongols 2–3, 81, 91–92, 132, 149 perfection ix, 16, 22, 28, 41, 69, 89,
morality 7–8, 35, 78, 104 100, 108, 140, 151
mould 111–114 Petrarca, F. 123
Mu‘āwiya 51, 143 philosophy 2, 35, 38, 68, 83–84,
mu‘jiza 15, 116–117; see also miracle 87–88, 117, 123, 149, 152; idealistic
Mu‘taṣim 117 ix; Neoplatonic 27, 82; Taoist 91
mubālagha 38 photograph 60, 63, 66, 139
muḥākā (imitation) 114, 117; see also physics 83, 132–133
takhyīl Plato 11–12, 19, 26, 92, 119, 132, 153
mulk (political authority) 59, 75, 104, pleasure 13–14, 44, 49, 70, 78, 93,
132, 139 120, 132
mumkin (possible) 45 poetics 70, 110; Aristotle’s vii, 69, 117;
mumtani‘ (impossible) 45 Persian 38; of the Qur’ān xiii, 100,
musabbib see causes, Cause of causes 116, 118, 122
music 6–7; Black Africans and 62; poetry 13, 15, 38–39, 48, 76, 149; the
Dionysiac 84; Ghazālī and 71; is aim of 50; archive of the Arabs 17,
harmony 11; and poetry 49–50; 70; associated with music 49;
religious legitimacy of 14; Schiller condemnation of 69–70; and dreams
166 Index
poetry continued skin 119, 142; style of the 14–15,
114–116; French 99; and Humanism 98–99, 118, 121, 151
123; Persian 86, 142; Plato and 119; quwwa (power, faculty, actuality) 22,
pre-Islamic 46, 61, 64, 77, 80, 98, 40, 45, 67
110, 116; and prophecy 67–68, 71,
76, 83, 94, 107, 122; Qur’ān and 19, ra‘yia (subjects) 138
116–120, 122; silence in 52, 121; as religion 8, 60, 64–65, 74–75, 80,
a special form of knowledge 106, 104–105, 134, 138, 150
148, 151, 153; and the Supernatural, Renaissance: Arab (nahḍa) 114, 143;
the magic 58, 110, 123, 153 European 88, 132
Positivism 41, 84, 123, 148 resurrection of the body (al-ḥashr wa
prophecy: beauty of 59, 66–71, 76, 83, al-nashr) xiii, 87, 152
94, 106; and dreams 115, 123; see revelation xiii, 17, 22, 27–28, 54, 62,
also poetry and; Prophet 67–68, 78, 85, 98–102, 104–108,
Prophet (Muḥammad): Bedouin 83, 117, 123, 140, 151, 153
100, 142, 151; did not institute the rhetoric 7, 14, 33–34, 36–38, 69–70,
caliphate 102, 136; farewell speech of 93, 108, 111, 113, 118–120, 150
the 101; illiterate 140, 150; Romanticism 62, 107, 134
knowledge of the 16–18, 20, 23, ru’ya 67; see also dream
26–28; made no use of flags 141; rūḥ (spirit) 22, 62, 114
nocturnal journey of the 99; is not a Rumi, J. 122
poet 69, 110, 118; Seal of the Russia x, xi, 102, 105–106, 149
Prophets 28, 85; silence of the 52; as ruzegār 74; see also Time-Destiny
a restraint (wāzi‘) 75
proportion(s) xii, 6, 11–12, 53, 58–60, Sa‘di 142
62–63, 65–66, 70, 116, 131, 134, sadhāja (simplicity) 17, 20, 49, 76,
140, 147 88, 100
psychology 40, 67–68, 107, 118, 124 ṣadr al-Islām (the origins of Islam) 98,
Puerta-Vílchez, J. M. ix 103, 105–106, 122, 136, 151
pulchritudo (beauty) 66 sāḥir (magician) 69, 110
pulchrum (beautiful) 9 saj‘ (cadenced prose) 14, 118
purpose(s) x, 34–35, 42, 49–51, 60, Salutati, C. 123
113, 123 sapientia (wisdom) 93
sarīr 129; see also throne
qadr (destiny) 81; (appropriate Sassanids 38, 85, 90, 102
dimension) 103 ṣawāb (truth) 36
qālib pl. qawālib 70, 109–110, 112; see ṣawn (morality) 9, 49
also mould Scarcia, G. ix
qānūn (rule, norm) 42, 82 Schiller, F. 107
qarīḥa pl. qarā’iḥ (natural senility 10
predisposition) 109 Shāfi‘ī 13
Qarṭājannī 114 shahwā pl. shahawāt (passion) 50
qaṣd (purpose; moderation) 6, 10, 13, shakl pl. ashlāl 11, 62–63; see also
35, 50, 103 form(s)
qaṣīda (ode) 35, 48 Shar‘ (Law) 37
qīma pl. qiyam (value) 135 shāra pl. shārāt (emblems) 129, 139, 152
qiyās (analogical reasoning) 70 sharaf (honour) 9, 49, 76, 100
Qur’ān: allegorical interpretation 37, sharī‘a pl. sharā’i‘ (religious laws) 59
40, 69, 142; exegesis 15, 33, shawka (enthousiam for fighting) 139
119–120; inimitability of the xii, 100, Shiite 102
104, 108, 116–117, 122; see also shujā‘a (courage) 76, 100
i‘jāz; and poetry of 19, 69–70, 78, shuyūkha (senility) 129, 153
110, 112, 120, 122–123; psalmody ṣibgha (form) 129
of the 13, 77; raises gooseflesh on the sikka (mint) 129
Index 167
ṣinā‘a pl. ṣanā’i‘ 11, 16, 18–20, 22, 26, tarannum (litany) 77
59, 109; see also art(s); craft(s); tarkīb pl. tarākīb (word combinations)
technique 110–111
singing 13, 46, 70 taṣdīq (assent) 38
situation viii, 33 tashbīh (comparison) 117
siyāj (pavilion) 129, 143 taste 6, 94
song: on the battlefield 12; the Qur’ān Tatarkiewicz, W. ix
and 19; of the sirens 9 tawassuṭ (right means) 6, 58, 60, 139;
soothsayer 118 see also moderation
soul 12–13, 9, 25, 33, 36, 50, 70, 76, ṭawr pl. aṭwār 10, 43; see also cycle
78, 93, 114, 132, 137; coloured 101; taxes 22, 135, 139
devoid of colours 88, 130–131; technique 35, 67, 76, 90–91; poetry
concupiscent 50; irascible 50; 109–112
irrational 12, 62; faculties of 67–68, theology viii, 2, 9, 22, 35, 87–88, 123,
107; rational 22–23; three kinds of 133, 149 (see also kalām); Mu‘tazilte
human 68 15; Thomas Aquinas’ x
State: aesthetic 136–144; Bolshevik throne 38, 129, 142, 152
102, 105, 149; as a form (ṣūra) 132; Time-Destiny 74, 79–81, 85–88
and group feeling (‘aṣabiyya) 21, 75, Timurids 3
129, 148; life cycle of 10–11, 43–44; Tolstoy, L. 106
Muslim 78; of tributary societies tragedy vii, xiii, 80, 84, 87–88, 133,
134–136 147–148
Sufism viii, 22, 24, 83, 85, 87, 91, 119, truth 17, 26, 35–36, 50, 101, 116,
150, 152 132, 153; historical viii, xii, 7,
Sunna 2, 18, 35, 85, 120, 136 33–34, 36–37, 40–41, 151;
Supernatural 58, 67, 83, 152; see also religious ix, 75, 119
Unseen
ṣūra pl. ṣuwar 89, 111, 132; see also ubbaha pl. ubbahāt (splendour, pomp)
form(s) 10, 46, 51, 137
Ulysses 52
ta‘jīb (admiration) 115 ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb 51, 65, 101–103,
ta‘līl (investigation into the causes) 37 106, 140, 143
ta’wīl (allegorical interpretation) 38, Umayyads 18, 46, 48, 51, 64, 77,
69, 116 140, 143
ṭabī‘a (nature) 34, 36, 47, 62, 93, ‘umrān (civilisation) vii, 42, 58–59,
131, 151 129, 132
Ṭaha, M. M. 125n24 Unseen 41, 83, 100, 107, 114, 132, 151
tahwīl (instilling awe) 142 ‘urubiyya (the manners and the ideals
takht 142; see also throne of the Arabs) 132
takhyīl (imitation) 117, 125n45 uslūb pl. asālīb (poetic model) 70,
talā’um 6, 11, 41; see also 109–111, 114, 118, 123
appropriateness; proportion(s)
talaṭṭuf (finesse) 109 vice 1, 7, 36, 76, 78, 129, 148
talāwa (psalmody of the Qur’ān) 13 virtue 33, 36, 49–50, 58, 91, 129, 132,
talawwun 129; see also colour(s) 136, 138; of the Bedouin 1, 17, 63,
Tamerlane 2, 3, 132 66, 75–76, 148, 151; of the Prophet
tamḥīṣ (critical examination) 36 x, 100
tamthīl (comparison) 117
tanāsub (proportion) 6, 11, 58, 63; see wahm (erroneous conjecture) 12, 40–41
also appropriateness; harmony waḥyī (revelation) 23, 28
Taoism 74–75, 88, 90–93, walī pl. awliyā’ (Sufi saint) 16, 27, 67
149–150 Walīd ibn Yazīd 46
taraf (luxury) 7, 10, 49, 140, 143 wāqi‘ pl. waqā’i‘ (event, reality) 34,
Ṭarafa 64 36, 41
168 Index
waswās pl. wasāwis ẓāhir 37
(whispering) 39 Zamakhsharī 15, 40, 119–120
wāzi‘ (restraint) 60, 75, 137 zaman/zamān (time) 43, 47, 74, 80,
wisdom see ḥikma 85–86, 151; see also Time-Destiny
writing (the art of) 20, 25–26, zanādeqeh (heretics) 38
139–140; see also kitāba Zanāta Berbers 12, 141
Zarathustra 84–85
ýpsos (sublimity) 52 zinbīl (basket) 7
Yuan dynasty 91–92, 149 Zoroastrianism 38, 99

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Lelli-Knowledge and Beauty in Classical Islam - An Aesthetic Reading of The Muqaddima by Ibn Khaldūn

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Knowledge and Beauty in

This volume offers an aesthetic reading of the Muqaddima by Ibn Khaldūn

The Routledge Studies in Islamic Philosophy Series is devoted to the publication

Becoming a Genuine Muslim

Al-Ghazali and the Divine

The Philosophy of Religion in Post-Revolutionary Iran

Analytic Philosophy and Avicenna

The Political Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā

Knowledge and Beauty in Classical Islam

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

ISBN: 978-0-367-89898-4 (hbk)

1 Ibn Khaldūn and his historical context 1

2 Beauty and knowledge: the meaning of ‘beauty’

3 Knowledge and beauty in history: epistemological

4 Human geography and the Unseen world: knowledge

5 Bedouin society: knowledge and beauty in the

6 The dawn of Islam: knowledge and beauty at the

7 Sedentary civilisation: the aesthetic State 129

8 The Muqaddima as a tragedy 147

I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my dear friend Prudence

In order to embark on our aesthetic and epistemological journey through

The meaning of beauty (jamāl)

a With reference to vice and impiety.

‘Beauty’ with reference to vice and impiety

It is clear that beauty occupies an important place in the work of Ibn

The aforementioned passage on the life cycle of States is very important

Beauty with reference to musical harmony

The question of the religious legitimacy of music was also debated

‘Beauty’ with reference to rhetorical embellishments

ِ ‫بِ ۡس ِم ِٱهلل ٱلر َّۡح َم ٰـ ِن ٱلر‬

The beauty of stylistic devices can be dangerous precisely when dealing

The meaning of ‘knowledge’ (‘ilm)

a ‘Ilm in the sense of primitive and natural knowledge and under-

Knowledge as a primitive understanding of

Knowledge in the singular, at its highest point (comparable only to that of

Al-Ḥajjāj still transmitted that living knowledge to simple and ignorant

By contrast, simplicity (sadhāja), roughness (khushūna) and ignorance

Sedentary people enjoy all kinds of pleasures, they are devoted to

According to Lacoste (1998), the apparently irrational and moralising

The ‘knowledge’ of the advanced civilisations

According to our reading of the Muqaddima, and excepting the particular

The reference to this anecdote about Khosrow Anushirvān indicates that

An unclassifiable science: history

The knowledge of the Unseen (ghayb)

To conclude, in this chapter we have clarified the meaning of ‘beauty’

‘Beware, historiography is not literature’, Ibn Khaldūn seems to put us

The epistemological beauty of historical science

Franz Rosenthal’s translation of ḥikma as ‘philosophy’ in the passage just

The word wasāwis, translated above as temptation, recalls the Qur’ānic

ِ ‫بِ ۡس ِم ِٱهلل ٱلر َّۡح َم ٰـ ِن ٱلر‬

ِ َّ‫قُ ۡل أَعُو ُذ بِ َربِّ ٱلن‬

َ ُّ‫أَلَمۡ تَ َر ك َۡيفَ فَ َع َل َرب‬

The commentators deduce from these verses the existence of an immense

It is however, explains Ibn Khaldūn, a question of fantasies that are far

As far as information about [historical] facts is concerned, it is neces-

We shall now conclude our analysis of beauty in history understood as

The longue durée

Ibn Khaldūn refuses to accept this romanticised version of events. The

1 Ibn Khaldūn and his historical context 1

7 Sedentary civilisation: the aesthetic State 129

8 The Muqaddima as a tragedy 147