The Nature of Kingship (Mulk) in the Context of Continuity and Change in the Thought of Ibn Khaldun

Abstract

Ibn Khaldun’s societal and political theory, benefiting from the “filters of critique” of thinkers such as Ghazālī and Fahruddīn al-Razī, is a masterful application in the field of societal existence of Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysics. From this point of view we can discuss the indispensable assumptions of a societal and political theory that can be produced today from classical Islamic thought through Ibn Khaldun’s theory of kingship (henceforth: mulk). With this goal I will discuss in the next paragraphs, after analyzing Ibn Khaldun’s theory of mulk in the context of its own philosophy, this theory’s metaphysical assumptions. Ibn Khaldun is in various ways one of the Islamic thinkers that is most studied in academia in contemporary times. Many researchers have written books and articles about his views on various fields, such as philosophy, politics, society, economics, and history of science. From amongst them are authors such as Muhsin Mahdi, Ahmet Arslan, Ali al-Wardī, and Tahsin Görgün who have aimed to lay bare the philosophical foundations of Ibn Khaldun’s societal and political thought in particular, by establishing relations with philosophers such as Aristotle, Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, and Fahruddīn al-Razī. Some writers, such as Syed Farid Alatas, Abdulaziz Elazmeh, M. Umer Chapra, Laroussi Amri, Johann P. Arnason, Dieter Weiss, Recep Şentürk, and again Tahsin Görgün discuss the timeliness and reproducibility of Ibn Khaldun’s theories of the state and society. From amongst these especially Syed Farid Alatas’ economic and political analysis of Islam in general and Asian societies in particular and Recep Senturk’s alternative sociology of civilizations, attempting to draw on the thought of Ibn Khaldun, are worthy of mentioning. To these names we can add those writers who compare the views of Ibn Khaldun with the views of contemporary social and political thinkers such as Karl Marx and Max Weber. 3 As especially Muhsin Mahdi and Tahsin Görgün have stressed, the philosophical theories described in works of Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā and Fahruddīn al-Razī do not merely for Ibn Khaldun function as a means or tool to express his own views, on the contrary, they form the very foundation of his societal and political theory. 4 Ibn Khaldun’s societal and political theory then, benefiting from the “filters of critique” of thinkers such as Ghazālī and Fahruddīn al-Razī, is a masterful application in the field of societal existence of Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysics. From this point of view we can discuss the indispensable assumptions of a societal and political theory that can be produced today from classical Islamic thought through Ibn Khaldun’s theory of kingship (henceforth: mulk). With this goal I will discuss in the next paragraphs, after analyzing Ibn Khaldun’s theory of mulk in the context of its own philosophy, this theory’s metaphysical assumptions.