Permanence and Impermanence: Re-evaluation of Ibn Khaldūn’s ͑Ibar Between Continued Existence and Human-made Environment

Abstract

The Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldūn found much fame in modern scholarship. The text was at the center of many debates over its classification, ranging from sociology, political science, economics, and other, where the text was viewed through the lens of modern theories, and stretched outside of its own scope. The debate centers around the understanding and interpretation of one key element in the text that being Ibn Khaldūn’s new science of ʿumrān. Throughout modern studies there has been no consensus over the translation, understanding or interpretation of the term ʿumrān. The term, and what it held in meaning within it allowed for the variegated interpretations of the text and led to the Muqaddima being categorized in modern scholarship under different novel fields of study. This study aims at re-evaluating the Muqaddima through a textual analysis that focuses on the text as a whole and more particularly on the science of ʿumrān. We will be addressing the duality that the term ʿumrān itself presents between materiality and immateriality, territorial and temporal, leading to a new understanding of the objective of the Muqaddima in addressing human continuity through history. Therefore, time is seen as central to understanding the Muqaddima, where ʿumrān͑ becomes a representation of human permanence within an impermanent world. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter presents the premise of Ibn Khaldūn’s text, and his multilayered approach to the study of history and the role he assigns for his new science of ʿumrān.͑The second chapter focuses on the term ʿumrān͑in order to unpack its meaning, how Ibn Khaldūn defined it, and the ways in which he used it and employed it throughout the text. In this part, we focus on the text of the Muqaddima and look specifically at the different usages of the root word of ʿumrān͑within the text. We present the different meanings they offer by relying on two lexicons. The third chapter focuses on the usages of the root ʿ-m-r in the Qurʾān, its exegesis (tafāsīr), Tradition (ḥadīth), jurisprudence (fiqh), and history (tārīkh), to compare them and shed light on the usages of the root ʿ-m-r in the Muqaddima. It will be shown that the duality of ʿumrān as both material and immaterial, physical and conceptual exists already in these sources. The final chapter highlights the importance of the duality that the term ʿumrān͑ offers and the way it sheds light over the moral of continuity that pervades the Muqaddima and the philosophy of permanence of humankind that is presented through the science of ʿumrān. The study focuses on unraveling the role of time as being very central throughout Ibn Khaldūn’s text and uncovering the ways in which Ibn Khaldūn saw the possibility of human permanence.