ABSTRACT
It seems an odd coincidence that from 1930 to 1932 there should have appeared four different studies devoted to the work of Ibn IQialdun, considering that in the half century following the issue of de Slane's translation of the Muqaddima,^ apart from von Kremer's study^ and a few short articles drawing the attention of a wider circle of students in various countries to its significance, it was not until 1917 that the first monograph on the subject was published by Dr. Taha Husain.^ This work, like most of the earlier articles, dealt primarily with the sociological aspects of Ibn Khaldun*s historical theory, and the same interest predominates in all but one of the three or four articles published since 1917. Of the latest studies it may be said that, though still giving prom inence to the social aspect, they cover as a whole a rather wider ground. Dr. Gaston Bouthoul, indeed, limits himself in his title* to Ibn Khaldun's "Social Philosophy," but the contents of his essay overleap these bounds, especially the first thirty pages, devoted to a very suggestive analysis of the personality and intellectual out look of the historian. Professor Schmidt's tractate^ is in the nature of a survey of the field; he assembles and examines the views of earlier writers on different aspects of Ibn Khaldun's work, but does not put forward any synthesis of his own. Lastly, the two recent German works of Drs. Kamil Ayad® and Erwin Rosenthal mark a return towards the more strictly historical thought of the Muqaddima, and the latter in particular is the first monograph to be devoted exclusively to Ibn Khaldun's political theory.® The two books differ considerably in plan. Dr. Ayad, after a long and philosophical introduction on the general trends of Islamic cul tural and intellectual development, displays a remarkable critical faculty and acuteness of observation in the analysis of Ibn Khal dun's historical method, and concludes by examining in outline
his social theory. Dr. Rosenthal on the other hand prefers to let Ibn Khaldun explain himself, and describes his own work as "a modest attempt to present the historian with the material from which to construct a picture of Ibn Khaldun*s view of the state, by means of as accurate a translation as possible of the most im portant passages in his Muqaddima in which he analyses the theory of the state, together with an historical interpretation limited strictly to the text."®
In view of these admirable and very serviceable books it would be an unnecessary task to attempt to traverse the whole field of Ibn Khaldun's political thought here. The object of the fol lowing remarks is solely to draw attention to a point which ap pears to the writer to be fundamental for any critical study of Ibn Khaldun's thought, but which has been consistently overlooked or even misrepresented in most, if not all, of the works already cited. (For purposes of discussion it will be convenient to illustrate the argument more especially from the two last-named German works.) The general explanation of the deficiency referred to is to be sought in a certain tendency to exaggerate the independence and originality of Ibn Khaldun's thought, which in turn arises from a misapprehension of his outlook, especially in its relation to religious questions.
