“Human social organization is something necessary. The philosophers expressed this fact by saying: 'Man is "political" by nature.'”
Ibn Khaldūn · Historiography / social theory
society
Paraphrase or translation
Philosopher
Last reviewed:
Ibn Khaldūn
1332–1406 · Historiography / social theory · Medieval
Ibn Khaldūn was a North African historian, judge and statesman born in Tunis. His Muqaddimah (Introduction) to a world history set out a method for testing historical reports: ask whether the event is possible given the nature of human society, rather than trusting a chain of narrators. He explained the rise and fall of dynasties through ʿaṣabiyya, group solidarity: desert peoples with strong solidarity conquer cities, grow soft in luxury over about three or four generations, and are replaced.
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He is often called a founder of sociology and economic thought, though he worked inside an Islamic framework.
One translated card and one summary.
Start here
The Muqaddimah, tr. Rosenthal, abridged by N. J. Dawood, the introduction on historians' errors.
His checklist for bad reports is pure critical thinking.
Quotations
Historians go wrong through partisanship, by relying on transmitters, and by not knowing the nature of society; test a report against what is possible.
Ibn Khaldūn · Historiography / social theory
knowledgesociety
Summary
Key ideas
Testing reports
Check a story against what society and nature make possible.
ʿAṣabiyya
Group feeling builds states and decays with comfort.
Cycles
Dynasties rise and fall in a pattern of a few generations.
Major works
Muqaddimah (1377)
Tr. Franz Rosenthal.
Influences
Influenced
None listed in this library.
Common misreadings
- He is not a modern secular sociologist; his framework is religious.
- The cycle is a tendency, not an iron law.
Famous lines Ibn Khaldūn never said
None of the lines this library files for Ibn Khaldūn is marked Questionable or Misattributed. That is only a fact about these cards. It is not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
FAQ
What is the best book to start with?
The Muqaddimah, tr. Rosenthal, abridged by N. J. Dawood, the introduction on historians' errors. His checklist for bad reports is pure critical thinking.
What is the most famous quote?
This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Ibn Khaldūn that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “Human social organization is something necessary. The philosophers expressed this fact by saying: 'Man is "political" by nature.'” (Muqaddimah, ch. 1, first prefatory discussion, tr. Franz Rosenthal (1958; 1967 ed., vol. 1, p. 89), Paraphrase or translation).
What is the most misquoted line?
None of the lines this library files for Ibn Khaldūn is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
What is one key idea, in a sentence?
Testing reports: Check a story against what society and nature make possible.