Ibn Khaldun Quotes

“Averroes, the last of the great medieval Arab philosophers, was fighting a rearguard defense of philosophy that was under attack from theologians, and, though translations of his works were to be much read in the universities of Christian Europe, he had little influence on later generations of thinkers in the Muslim world.”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“The inner meaning of history . . . involves speculation and an attempt to get at the truth, subtle explanation of the causes and origins of existing things, and deep knowledge of the how and why of events. (History,) therefore, is firmly rooted in philosophy. It deserves to be accounted a branch of (philosophy).”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“ibn Khaldun devoted a lot of space to the za’iraja al-’alam, or za’iraja of the world. This had been an earlier enthusiasm of his. He encountered this device, half divination machine, half parlor game, during his stay in Biskra in 1370 and, writing about it much later, he described it as “a remarkable technical procedure.” It is discussed in two places in the Muqaddima. The circular diagram of the za’iraja displays concentric circles representing the heavenly spheres, the elements, the sublunary world, existants, and sciences. The names of the zodiacal houses are written in the outermost circle. Chords run from the center out to the circle’s circumference. The za’iraja’s circle is set within a rectangle divided into numerous compartments and on one side of that square there is a verse ascribed to Malik ibn Wuhayb, one of the greatest diviners of the Maghreb.

In order to question this strange oracle, one first writes one’s question and then breaks the question down into its component letters. Then, having taken account of which sign of the zodiac is in the ascendant, one selects the chord that is astrologically indicated and follows its line to the center and thence to the chord that takes one to the opposite side of the circumference. On that chord are letters and numbers in tiny characters known as ghurab. The numbers are converted into letters by a process known as hisab al-jummal. The total of these letters is added to the letters of the question. Then further procedures, too complicated and tedious to list here, are used to gather yet more letters from the za’iraja and in the final procedure certain letters are produced that are in the same rhyme and meter as the verse ascribed to Malik ibn Wuhayb and the verse so formed will give an answer to the initial question.”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“Ibn Khaldun discussed the calculations of the ninth-century astrologer and polymath al-Kindi regarding the predestined end of the ‘Abbasid dynasty.”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“it seems clear that Ibn Khaldun preferred al-Ghazali to Averroes. “He who wants to arm himself against the philosophers in the field of dogmatic beliefs should turn to the works of al-Ghazali.”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“It is curious to compare Ibn Khaldun with Edward Gibbon who in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88) presented that decline and fall as being due to barbarism and religion. By contrast, Ibn Khaldun presented barbarism and religion as the sources of empire, for, as we have seen, he believed that empires were regularly renewed by barbarian incursions and he believed that religion was a desirable supplement to ‘asabiyya for tribal conquerors who aimed to conquer an old regime and set up a new one.”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“contrast with, say, Whig historians, such as Macaulay in nineteenth-century England, is striking. The Arab historians had no belief in the progress of humanity. Instead they waited for God to declare the End of Time.”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“the fantastical and damned Iram City of the Columns reappeared in some of the stories of the twentieth-century horror writer H. P. Lovecraft”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“It can be translated as “wisdom,” or “what prevents one from ignorant behaviour.” Hikma described those sciences that did not derive from the Qur’an and hadith. It was also used to describe a body of literature that offered aphorisms, wise counsel, and improving examples taken from the lives of kings, sages, and (yes) philosophers.”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography

“. But things are not what they seem. The normal Arabic word for “philosophy” was and is falasifa and a “philosopher” is a faylasuf. Plato was a faylasuf and so were Aristotle, Avicenna, Averroes, and al-Farabi. But the word that Rosenthal has translated as “philosophy” in the passage quoted above is hikma, and hikma has a subtly different range of meaning.”
― Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography