Political Authority and Legitimacy Problem in Ibn Khaldun

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between political authority and legitimacy in the context of Ibn Khaldun's views. In this context, such concepts as prosperity (umran), collective conscience (asabiye), possession (mülk), caliphate (hilafet), which are closely related to the concept of political authority, are examined. Politics is a search for 'the best' in a way. It defines an ethical paradigm in which the philosophy of politics is built on the contradictions between ex post and de lege ferenda (between what is and what should be). In this respect, the pursuit of legitimacy in politics predicates an ethical grounding and also the relationship between politics and ethics. This phenomenon, the questions of the legitimacy of politics and political power, has a dynamic continuity and problematic in itself at every stage of the government's dynamic process. The concept of legitimacy of politics is the expression of a search for steady criteria against changes and the merits of the legitimacy ground within different processes. Ibn Khaldun examines the political authority in three parts and discusses their legitimacy. The first of these is the "natural possession" that contains overtowering and using force on the basis. The second is "political possession" that includes to manage the society as necessitated by the mind in the fields of reaching worldly interests and removal of losses. The last one is the "caliphate" which means to conduct the government as a matter of religious thought for the benefit of the world and the hereafter. Ibn Khaldun criticizes the views of Islamic philosophers about political authority.