Six Centuries On, Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah Still Explains How Societies Rise and Fall

More than six centuries after a Tunisian-born scholar set down his monumental introduction to history, the questions he raised about power, cohesion, and the life cycles of civilizations are being revisited with renewed urgency. A newly published edited volume, Reading Ibn Khaldun: His Heritage, Applications, and Significance for Modern Science, issued by the University of Ljubljana, gathers sixteen chapters from scholars across multiple disciplines and argues that the fourteenth-century polymath’s conceptual apparatus remains a working toolkit for understanding contemporary societies, not merely a relic of medieval Islamic scholarship. The collection stems from a two-day International Ibn Khaldun Colloquium held in Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, in December 2025, organized jointly by the Sharjah International Foundation for the History of Arab and Muslim Sciences at the University of Sharjah and the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Ljubljana.

The book’s subject, Ibn Khaldun, was born in Tunis in 1332 and lived one of the most turbulent lives of his era. He lost his parents and relatives to a plague epidemic, was imprisoned for long periods by some of the volatile North African rulers he served, and endured the deaths of his wife and children in a shipwreck. Out of this upheaval emerged a prolific career as historian, philosopher, scholar, and statesman, capped by the Muqaddimah, the voluminous introduction to his universal history in which he laid out systematic criteria for distinguishing historical truth from error. In doing so, he effectively founded a science of civilization, or umran, that sought to explain how human societies cohere, flourish, and decay.

The Muqaddimah’s reputation has only grown since its author’s death. Arnold Toynbee, the prominent British historian and theorist of civilizational development, famously described it as a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place. The Scottish philosopher and theologian Robert Flint offered comparable praise, and the BBC World Service, in its program The Forum, characterized Ibn Khaldun as a top scholar, a scheming political mastermind, and a peripatetic political guru. The new volume neither simply repeats these eulogies nor adjudicates whether Toynbee’s superlative holds, but its contributors leave little doubt that the text remains one of the most fertile sources of reflection on the birth, development, rise, and decline of societies.

What distinguishes the collection is its insistence that Ibn Khaldun’s ideas function as analytical instruments rather than museum pieces. Mesut Idriz, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Sharjah and co-editor of the volume, identified the central takeaway in remarks to the publishers: Ibn Khaldun’s ideas are not simply historical theories; they can still help us understand how societies work today. His concepts, Idriz explained, describe in accessible terms why people need social bonds and cooperation, how strong communities and states emerge, and how prosperity, leadership, taxation, education, and social cohesion can influence the strength or weakness of a society.

At the technical heart of this framework sit two interlocking concepts. The first is umran, often translated as civilization or human social organization, which Ibn Khaldun treated as an object of systematic study in its own right. The second is asabiyyah, a term rendered in the volume’s discussions as social cohesion or group solidarity, which he identified as the animating force behind political authority and dynastic power. In his model, a strong asabiyyah allows a group to conquer and govern; over generations of luxury and sedentary life, that solidarity erodes, opening the way for new groups with fresher bonds to displace the old. The result is a cyclical theory of dynastic rise and fall that anticipates, in some respects, modern sociological accounts of institutional decay and renewal.

Anja Zalta, Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Ljubljana and lead editor of the volume, emphasized the systemic character of this thought. Ibn Khaldun, she noted, viewed society as an interconnected system rather than as separate political, economic, or social problems, and the studies in the volume show that his thinking can be applied to very different societies and periods, including contemporary contexts. In her formulation, his work reminds us that a successful civilization depends not only on wealth or political power but also on cooperation, social trust, effective institutions, education, and the ability of societies to adapt and renew themselves.

The sixteen chapters supply concrete case studies to support these claims, tracing Ibn Khaldunian themes through polities and communities as varied as the United Arab Emirates, Nasrid Granada, Bosnia, and Sahrawi society, alongside analysis of the United States. Several chapters examine the UAE in particular, showing how the country draws on Ibn Khaldun’s concepts to illuminate questions of tolerance, social integration, institutional development, diversity management, and sustainable governance. The volume’s editors suggest that this practical orientation creates potential interest for government institutions, cultural institutions, policy bodies, and organizations concerned with social development, even though the contributors do not document specific partnerships with industry or commercial organizations.

The breadth of disciplines now engaging with the Muqaddimah is itself a measure of its endurance. The volume notes that the text continues to be cited across management, political science, sociology, history, and economics, more than six hundred years after it was written. Contributors present it as a guide to understanding civilizational change, power, and social cohesion, and they argue that Ibn Khaldun should be viewed not only as a medieval Muslim historian but as an important contributor to the broader history of the social and human sciences. By applying his ideas to both historical and contemporary cases, the volume demonstrates that his intellectual framework can still contribute to discussions about governance, social cohesion, diversity, economic development, and civilizational change.

The editors are careful not to overstate the reach of these applications. The book’s most significant broader engagement, according to Zalta, is with cultural, governmental, and public-policy concerns, connecting Ibn Khaldun’s intellectual legacy with practical questions facing modern societies, from education and economic development to cultural change and social integration. The practical message, as Idriz put it, is that classical intellectual heritage does not have to remain confined to historical study; it can provide useful perspectives for addressing present-day questions of governance, social cohesion, education, cultural change, and development. The concepts highlighted by the contributors can serve as analytical tools for policymakers and institutions thinking critically about community solidarity, leadership, institutional stability, taxation, and the management of social diversity.

The volume also points toward a methodological reorientation in future scholarship. Rather than studying Ibn Khaldun mainly in comparison with later Western thinkers, Zalta argued, future research can examine his intellectual framework on its own terms and bring it into dialogue with contemporary social sciences, encouraging more interdisciplinary and comparative studies and demonstrating how Islamic intellectual heritage can contribute to addressing questions facing societies in the twenty-first century. In that sense, the collection goes beyond an exercise in historical scholarship: it invites both specialists and general readers to reconsider the most pressing questions Ibn Khaldun raised in his Muqaddimah, and to weigh their relevance to a world still grappling with cohesion, legitimacy, and the fragility of civilizations. The book is published under the DOI 10.4312/9789612978822 by the University of Ljubljana Press.

Subject of Research: The enduring relevance of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah to modern social science and philosophy of history

Article Title: Is Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah “the greatest work of its kind” in the field of philosophy of history?

Article References: Is Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah “the greatest work of its kind” in the field of philosophy of history?. (n.d.). Original publication

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Keywords: Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, philosophy of history, asabiyyah, social cohesion, umran, civilizational change, University of Ljubljana, University of Sharjah, governance, Islamic intellectual heritage, sociology