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Economic Thought of Islam: Ibn Khaldūn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Joseph J. Spengler
Joseph J. Spengler
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Extract

This essay has to do mainly with the economics of Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406), historian and statesman of prominent Arab descent and medieval Islam's greatest economist, who spent most of his stormy life in northwest Africa and Egypt, engaged either in scholarly undertakings or in judicial and other governmental activities. His economic opinions, apparently the most advanced of those expressed in medieval Islam, are to be found principally in The Muqaddimah, originally intended as an introduction to his history (Kitāb al-‘Ibar) of the Arab and Muslim world and its pre-Islamic antecedents, though finally transformed into an exposition of the sources of historical change at work in that world. The Muqaddimah, initially completed in 1377, continued to be corrected or added to until shortly before the author's death; though manuscript copies were numerous, it was not issued in printed form until in the 1850's.

Type
Economic Ideas
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , April 1964 , pp. 268 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1964

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References

1 When medieval Islam terminated does not coincide with when medieval Christendom terminated, for the Arabic world did not experience a Renaissance as did the West. “Until comparatively recent times … the Arab retained his medieval outlook and habit of mind, and was in no respect more enlightened than his forefathers who lived under the ‘Abbasid Caliphate.” So concludes Reynold Nicholson, A., in A Literary History of the Arabs (Cambridge), 1930, p. 443.Google Scholar Indeed, until the early twentieth century it was commonly believed that the world of Islam was incapable of economic development. See under “tidjãra” (i.e., commerce), Encyclopedia of Islam, IV, Leiden, 1934, pp. 750–51.Google Scholar An impression of the religious attitude of Islamic authors toward economic activity may be had from Ritter, Helmut, Das Meer der Seele, Leiden, 1955.Google Scholar

2 I have used Franz Rosenthal's splendid, annotated translation of The Muqaddimah (3 vols.), London, 1958;Google Scholar it includes the introduction and Book One of Ibn Khaldūn's World History, entitled Katāb al-'Ibar. Selections from The Muqaddimah were translated and arranged by Charles Issawi and published as An Arab Philosophy of History, London, 1950.Google Scholar The literature relating to Ibn Khaldūn is very extensive. A good account of his “new science of culture” is that of Muhsin Mahdi in Ibn Khaldun's Philosophy of History, London, 1957.Google Scholar Walter J. Fischel's selected bibliography of works by and about Ibn Khaldūn are included in Rosenthal, op. cit., III, pp. 485–512; other items are noted in Rosenthal's “Introduction”, ibid., I, pp. xliii–xlv, lxiv–lxv. Hereinafter I shall refer to this work merely by citing the volume number in large Roman numerals; pagination in small Roman numerals in Vol. I refers to Rosenthal's introduction, etc.

3 On the evolution of the text, together with comments on the manuscripts extant and on the printed editions, see Rosenthal (I, pp. lxxxviii–cix).

4 Rosenthal writes: “Here was a man with a great mind, who combined action with thought, the heir to a great civilization that had run its course, and the inhabitant of a country with a living historical tradition” (I, pp. lxxxvii); and he approves (I, p. cxv) A. J. Toynbee's assessment of Ibn Khaldūn's contribution as “undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place”. See Toynbee, A Study of History, 2d. ed., III (London, 1935), p. 322;Google Scholar also Sorokin, P.A., Social and Cultural Dynamics, IV (New York, 1941)Google Scholar on the place of Ibn Khaldūn's cycle theory in the history of such theories. Rosenthal notes also that, while Ibn Khaldūn lacked the equipment to make “original contributions of note to any of the established disciplines” (I, p. xliii), his experience in government and tribal politics was extensive, and he possessed “remarkable detachment” respecting what he observed, together with a markedly realistic outlook and a capacity for ruthless and opportunistic action when essential to his purposes (I, pp. xxxv–lxvi, esp. xxxvi–lii, lxi–lxvi). His experience contributed much more to his thought than did his reading, W. I. Fischel points out in “Ibn Khaldūn's Activities in Mamlūke Egypte (1382–1406)”, in Fischel, , ed., Semitic and Oriental Studies (Berkeley, 1951), p. 104.Google Scholar

5 While he coupled with his account of the decline of the intellectual sciences in Western Islam a statement that they were flourishing in Christian Europe, he did not comment on this renaissance or attempt to explain it (in, pp. 117–18). A. L. Tibāwl concludes that “the philosophy of (Muslim) education” remained “as al-Ghazall left it” and that, while Ibn Khaldun managed to be original about it within the traditional framework, “the philosophy of Muslim education remained on the whole static” after his time. See “The Philosophy of Muslim Education”, Islamic Quarterly, IV, 1957, pp. 86–89.Google Scholar Inasmuch as education, being the concern of the individual rather than of the state, fell into the hands of the theologians, it could not become dynamic or widespread. See Levy, Reuben, The Social Structure of Islam (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 298–99;Google ScholarGibb, H.A.R., Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey (2d. ed., New York, 1955), pp. 111–12,Google Scholar also chap. 10. On the organization, etc., of Muslim education, especially in Egypt up to 1250 A.D., see Ahmad Shalaby, History of Muslim Education, Beirut, 1954.Google Scholar

6 E.g., see Abu Yūsuf (Ya'qūb b. Ibrāhīm), Le livre de I'impôt fonder (Kitāb al-Kharāj), translated and annotated by E. Fagnan, Paris, 1921; Yahyā Ben Ādam, Taxation in Islam (Kitāb al-Kharāj), translated and annotated by Ben, A.Shemesh, Leiden, 1958.Google Scholar These works, two of the three that survive of some 21 such compositions, reflect Islamic thought about 800 A.D. at which time the influence of Greek thought had not yet made itself felt; for Yahyā b. Ādam died in 818 A.D., 20 years after Abu Yūsuf (ibid., p. ix). Abu Yūsuf's work, done at the request of the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, was judicial (though somewhat casuistical) and hence concerned with the determination of legal rules, he having been an organizer of one of the several Islamic legal schools which emerged in the eighth century. Yahyā b. Ādam's work is a book of Hadīth, or traditions going back to Mohammed, which constitute, along with the Koran, the two main sources of Islamic legal speculation. See ibid., pp. 1–7; also Kister's, M.J. comments on the implications of some of these traditions, in Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, III (1960), pp. 326–34.Google Scholar See also Levy, op. cit., pp. 167–68, 296; references in note 8 below. On the kharāj (i.e., land tax) as well as other taxes and sources of public revenue see Levy, op. cit., pp. 23–24, 58, 303–24; Aghnides, N.P., An Introduction to Mohammedan Law and Bibliography (New York, 1916),Google Scholar especially Part II, on “financial theories”. On the inter-country diversity of early Islamic taxation see Levy, op cit., chap. 8, and Dennett, D.C., Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam, Cambridge, 1950;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Fredde Løkkegaard's monograph relating principally to Iraq, Islamic Taxation in the Classic Period, Copenhagen, 1950.Google Scholar On the replacement of tribal by individual ownership under Islam, and its relation to taxation as well as the encouragement of cultivation see Al-Kader, Ali Abd, “Land Property and Land Tenure in Islam”, Islamic Quarterly, V, 1959, pp. 4–11.Google Scholar

7 Most of the translations were done between A.D. 800 and A.D. 1000. The translators, usually Christians, translated “from Syriac versions or, less frequently, from the Greek original”. Almost all of Aristotle's treatises (with the exception of the Politics, which apparently was not much studied in the Imperial Age) as well as the leading dialogues of Plato and the works of later authors and commentators, only some of whose works were known to the West, were translated. See Walzer, Richard, Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 5–8Google Scholar, 29–35, 60–128, 142 ff., 220 ff., 236–39; also idem, “The Rise of Islamic Philosophy”, Oriens, III (1950), pp. 1–19.Google Scholar See also O'Leary, De Lacy, Arabic Thought and Its Place in History (London, 1954),Google Scholar chaps. 1, 4, 6 and How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs, London, 1948;Google Scholar Levy, op cit., chap. 10; de Boer, T.J., The History of Philosophy in Islam, London, 1933, chaps, 1–3;Google ScholarArnaldez, R., “Sciences et philosophie dans la civilisation de Bagdad sous les premiers ‘Abbasides”, Arabica, IX (1962), pp. 357–73.Google Scholar

8 While Ethics commanded little attention in late Greek philosophical schools, it did receive considerable attention at the hands of Muslim authors under Greek influence. E.g., see Levy, op. cit., pp. 215–28; Walzer, Greek into Arabic, pp. 17, 32, 221–27, 232, 239–45. Islamic philosophical ethics were based essentially on Plato as was Islamic political theory; stress was placed upon the four Platonic virtues (wisdom, temperance, valor, justice), though generosity and a variety of minor virtues associated with major virtues were included in the scheme of virtues (in keeping with Neoplatonic moral philosophy). Ibid., pp. 222–23, 240–41. See also Dwight Donaldson, M., Studies in Muslim Ethics (London, 1953), pp. 119,Google Scholar 126–27, 274–75. This stress, as manifested, was not particularly favorable to material progress.

9 Rosenthal, E.I.J., Political Thought in Medieval Islam (Cambridge, 1958), p. 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Haroon Khan Sherwani implies that the incentive given to Muslim thought by the translation of Greek authors has been exaggerated. See his Studies in Muslim Political Thought and Administration (2d ed., Lahore 1945), pp. 38–47.Google Scholar See also Mahmassani's, S. argument that Muslim jurists, believing the shari'a to be of divine origin, were little influenced by Roman law. See his Falsafat Al-Tashn Fi Al-Islam (translated by Ziadeh, F.J., Leiden, 1961), pp. 136–45.Google Scholar Scholarship reveals, however, the presence in Muslim law of a variety of elements of Roman or occidental provenance. E.g., see Gräf, E., Jagdbeute und Schlachttier im islamischen Recht (Mainz, 1959),Google Scholar pp. 194 ff., 202, 210 ff., 340 ff.; Schacht, J., The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Oxford, 1950;Google ScholarTyan, E., Histoire de Vorganisation judiciaire en pays d'lslam, 2d. ed., Leiden, 1960.Google Scholar

10 See Walzer, Greek into Arabic, chaps. 1–2, on role of Islamic philosophy. According to E. I. J. Rosenthal (op. cit., p. 6), “the Falasifa”, Arabic writers who based their study directly on the Greek text, “are strongly under the influence of the Shari'a” (i.e., that which is known as a result of divine revelation) in addition to that of Plato and Aristotle. See also Gibb, Mohammedanism, chap. 6; Levy, op. cit., chaps. 4, 6; Aghnides, op. cit., I, Part I; O'Leary, Arabic Thought, p. 135. According to Grunebaum, G.E. von, Medieval Islam (2d ed., Chicago, 1953), p. 110Google Scholar, “the very urge to have every detail covered by prophetic precedent forced a certain amount of forgery. Modern practices had to be justified or combated, and a hadīt was the only weapon to achieve either”. On circumstances affecting change in Islamic thought see also ibid., pp. 39–42, 231–32, 253–57, 283, 344; Aghnides, op. cit., pp. 26–29; pp. 12–13 of translation by A. Ben Shemesh, cited in note 6 above; Guillaume, Alfred, Islam (Harmondsworth, 1954), chap. 5, esp. pp. 91–101.Google Scholar On the extent to which the Muslim legal system was evolutionary see Mahmassani, op. cit., Parts 3–4. See also Majid Khadduri and Herbert J. Liebesny, Law in the Middle East, Vol. I, Origin and Development of Islamic Law, Washington, D.C., 1955. In reality, of course, Muslim law has proved less immutable in the face of changing conditions than some accounts suggest; see Anderson, J.N.D., Islamic Law in the Modern World, New York, 1959.Google Scholar

11 See Aghnides, op. cit., Part I, chap. 11; Levy, op. cit., chap. 6. Religious or ideological attitudes affected taxation, finance, and other dimensions of Muslim economic life. For example, payment of zakat, the tax intended principally for welfare purposes, has been described as an act of worship; Islamic finance as well as the economic system of Islam has been described as resting, at least in part, upon the sayings and practices of the Prophet. See Sh. Ata Ullah, Revival of Zakat (Lahore, n.d.), p. 17; Levy, op. cit., p. 341; Siddiqi, S.A., Public Finance in Islam (Lahore, 1952), p. xii;Google ScholarSiddiqi, Mazherrudin, Marxism or Islam (Lahore, 1954), chaps. 10–11.Google Scholar Actual practices do not, of course, always conform to prescribed standards. See Levy, op. cit., chaps. 6–7; Ashtor, E., on nonconformity of tax practice with theological theory, in “Le coøt de la vie dans l'Égypte médiévale”, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, III (1960), pp. 72–73;Google Scholar also Claude Cahen, “Contribution à l'étude des impôts dans l'Égypte médiévale”, ibid., V (1962), pp. 244–78.

12 “The idea of social progress through increase in knowledge is foreign to the Muslim Middle Ages”, observes Grunebaum, op. cit., p. 248; cf. p. 257. He identifies but one Muslim author, al Mas'ūdī (d. 957), with a strong belief in scientific progress (ibid., p. 347 n.) and points to the contempt in which the squalid masses were held by the leading castes as a factor contributing to the disinclination of Muslim ruling circles to support technical progress (ibid., pp. 343–44). Koranic injunctions respecting human equality were never more than partially observed. See Levy, op. cit., pp. 53–73.

13 Grunebaum, op. cit., pp. 202 ff.; Nicholson, op. cit., p. 444. On the tenth century Persian Renaissance, see Soheil Afnan, M., Avicenna His Life and Works (London, 1958),Google Scholar chap. 1. The absorption of the caste system of India (exclusive of the kshatriya) into Indian Islam, despite Islam's being in theory an egalitarian theocracy, may be attributable to Iranian influence inasmuch as. an explicitly four-class pyramid, together with very little interclass mobility, existed under the Sassanians. See Grunebaum, op. cit., pp. 202–203; Levy, op. cit., pp. 72–74; Ghirshman, R., Iran (Harmondsworth, 1954),Google Scholar pp. 309 ff. The caste system under Indian Islam is described in Sir Denzil Ibbetson's classic Panjab Castes (Lahore, 1916),Google Scholar based on the Census of 1881 and first published in 1883; see also Titus, Murray T., Indian Islam (London, 1930), pp. 168–72,Google Scholar 190–91; Jaffar, S.M., Some Cultural Aspects of Muslim Rule in India, Lahore, 1950.Google Scholar In his chapter on castes in India, al-Beruni, writing in the early eleventh century, describes the caste system (which he sketches) as the greatest obstacle to Hindu-Muslim “understanding” and remarks that “we Moslems … stand entirely on the other side of the question, considering all men as equal, except in piety”; but he does not indicate whether those converted to Islam became free of caste ties. See his India (translated by Edward C. Sachau), I (London, 1914), pp. 99–104, esp. p. 100. Al-Bērūnī often compares Indian and Greek views, but does not discuss political theory. Such comparisons are not set down, however, by Abul Fazl-I'Allami, in his Ain-I-Ākbari (3 vols., translated by H. Blochmann and H. S. Jarrett and revised by D. C. Philpott and Jadu-Nath Sarkar), Calcutta, 1939–48. In this work, a manual of Akbar's empire and a summary of Hindu history, customs, and philosophy, the caste system is briefly described, but not assessed in light of Muslim belief, and comparison “with the systems of Greece and Persia” is declared outside the author's intention. Ibid., III, pp. 126–32, 421–22. Writing as late as 1923, however, J. Stephenson reports that treatises on moral philosophy, by Nasiruddin TusI (1200–1274), Persian Muslim assimilator of Platonic and Aristotelian ideas, were still being read in India and Persia. See “The Classification of the Sciences according to Nasiruddin Tusi”, Isis, V (1923), pp. 329, 331. The widespread use of Persian in Muslim India may have fostered the reading of Tūsī's work. On his views see below.

14 See Stephenson, op. cit., pp. 334–36; Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 143, 165, 269. On the classification of sciences by Aristotle (who distinguished theoretical, productive, and practical sciences, with ethics and politics the main practical branches) and later writers, see Sarton, George, Introduction to the Hisiory of Science, III Baltimore, 1927), pp. 76–77;Google Scholar also Randall, John H. Jr., Aristotle, New York, 1960, chaps. 3, 12–13.Google Scholar Al-Fārābī's treatment of the sciences has recently been translated by Palencia, A.G. as Catálago de las Ciencias, Madrid, 1953.Google Scholar On his and Avicenna's treatment see also Ülken, Hilmi Ziya, La Pensee de L'Islam(translated by Bilen, G. Dubois Max, and the author, Istanbul, 1953), chaps. 22–23,Google Scholar esp. pp. 398–414, 430–35. Ülken touches on the sciences in his accounts of several other authors. Averroes, following Aristotle, described politics as a practical science of action. See Rosenthal, E.I.J. (trans.), Averroes' Commentary on Plato's Republic (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 111–12,Google Scholar 150–51, 255, 264. Al-Ghazālī gave politics a partially religious orientation. See his The Book of Knowledge (translated by Faris, N.A.) (Lahore, 1962), pp. 27–30.Google Scholar Much of Al-Ghazālī is in summary form in Bousquet, G.H., Ihyā' ‘Oloum ed-Dīn ou vivification des sciences de la foi, Paris, 1955.Google ScholarThe Book of Knowledge is the first book in the first part of the Ihyā', the second part of which deals with economic and other ethics.

15 On these sciences and changes in Muslim classifications, see Grunebaum, Islam (No. 4 of Comparative Studies of Cultures and Civilizations, edited by Robert Redfield and Singer, Milton, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, April, 1955),Google Scholar chaps. 5, 9. See also Levy, op. cit., pp. 150, 215–41, chap. 10; Rosenthal, Franz, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden, 1952), pp. 28–48;Google Scholar Mahdi, op. cit., pp. 82 ff., 139–46; Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, pp. 282–84, also 362–64; Browne, E.G., Literary History of Persia, I (Cambridge, 1929), pp. 383–88;Google Scholar M. Plessner, Die Geschichte der Wissenschaften im Islam (Philosophic und Geschichte, No. 31), Tubingen, 1931; Gardet, L. and Anawati, M.M., Introduction à la théologie musulmane (Paris, 1948), pp. 101–24Google Scholar on “le Kalam et les sciences musulmanes”.

16 See Grunebaum's description of government in Islam as envisaged in classical, medieval Islamic political science, Islam, chap. 7; also Gardet, Louis, La cité musulmane; vie sociale et politique (Paris, 1954),Google Scholar esp. Parts I–II, and Rosenthal's, E.I.J. evaluation of this work in the Islamic Quarterly, II (1955), pp. 237–39.Google Scholar On the role of authority in and before Islamic times see A. L. Tibāwī, “The Idea of Guidance in Islam”, ibid., III (1956), pp. 139–56. Indicative of the economically regulatory role of Islam in urban centers are the manuals designed to guide the muhtasib (or censor) in the definition and performance of his religio-political duties. Among the few of these manuals known today is one influenced by Ghazali (see Donaldson, op. cit., pp. 160ff.) and others, the Ma'ālim al-Qurba, by Ibn al Ukhuwwa, probably an Egyptian, who died in 1329 A.D. This work, translated and edited by Reuben Levy, in the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, No. 12, n.s., was published in the original and translated in 1938 (Cambridge). On the role of the muhtasib see Levy, Social Structure of Islam, pp. 333–39; also under “sinf” (gild) in the Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden, 1934), IV, pp. 436–37;Google Scholar also Grunebaum, Islam, pp. 137–38, where it is indicated that the muhtasib “is the successor of the agoranomos of the Greek and Hellenistic cities”. See also ibid., chap. 8, on Muslim town structure.

17 At least one major author, al-Ghazālā, classifies politics (in conjunction with which he treats economic matters) as one of the sciences connected with religion as were also metaphysics, ethics, and psychology. See Sherwani, op. cit., pp. 155–56; al-Ghazālī, The Book of Knowledge, pp. 27–30, 36–41, 45–46, 53–54, and the third book, in the second part of the Ihya', dealing with “The Ethics of Earnings and Livelihood”. Muslim thought did not, of course, remain completely static any more than does any system of thought, though the changes probably were not of significance for economic science until modern times. On the susceptibility of Muslim thought to change see Gibb, op. cit., passim; Hans, J., Dynamik und Dogma in Islam, Leiden, 1960;Google Scholar Ülken, La Pensée de L'Islam; Smith, W.C., Islam in Modern History (New York, 1961), chaps. 1–2;Google ScholarBaljon, J.M.S., Modern Moslem Koran Interpretation (Leiden, 1961), esp. pp. 116–18Google Scholar on riba (interest); Austruy, Jacques, L'Islam face au développement économique, Paris, 1961.Google Scholar

18 See, for example, Wensinck, A.J., A Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition (Leiden, 1927),Google Scholar esp. under alms, barter, coins, credit, debts, usury, wealth.

19 Illustrative are the sections “On Selling”, in the Al-Sahīh (Cairo, 1334 A.H.),Google Scholar by Abu al-Husayn Muslim al-Nīsābūri (206–261 A.H.), one of two such authentic compilations. See S. Mahmassani, op. cit., pp. 71–72. For example, Muslim insists on the importance of a buyer's examining an article prior to its sale and he lays down various conditions which must be present before higgling can eventuate in a valid sale. Cheating is described as unjust. The sale of unripened crops is forbidden since such a transaction might involve speculation or usury which is forbidden. While rent of land for money was permitted, rent for a share of the crops was prohibited inasmuch as such arrangement involved speculation and risk. It was permissible, however, to collect 0.2–0.5 of the crops on land owned by Jews and Christians in areas invaded by Muslims. Trade in wine and pork was prohibited as were transactions involving futurity and interest. Monopoly was prohibited since it involved excessive profits. Sale to a non-partner of a partner's share of property owned in partnership is permissible only in the event a partner does not want it at the going price. See Vol. I, pp. 600–42. North African ulema ranked Muslim's compilation most worthy after the Koran. Mahmassani, op. cit., p. 72. On trading companies, profit distribution, etc., see “Shirka”, Encyclopedia of Islam, IV, pp. 380–81.

20 The above statements are based on Ukhuwwa's Ma'ālim al-Qurba, pp. 6–29, 40–43, 46–47. See also Encyclopedia of Islam, under “riba” (ibid., III, pp. 1148–50), and “tidjara” (ibid., IV, pp. 747–50), and “sarf” or money-changing (ibid., IV, p. 169). According to Fischel, W.J., Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieval Islam (London, 1937), p. 13,Google Scholar tenth-century Arab sources “reveal a prodigious desire to accumulate money” and great fear of losing it.

21 Ma'ālim al-Qurba, pp. 30–40, 43–68, 89–98. See also Levy, Social Structure of Islam, pp. 220, 255–58, 336–38. “These various restrictions upon normal commerce have either been openly disregarded by many Muslims, so that trade has been carried on according to local custom, or have led to the adoption of subterfuges and legal fictions in order that the letter of the law might be observed while transactions went forward as necessity and custom demanded.” Ibid., p. 256, also pp. 257–58 on evasive expedients and dependence upon the protection of custom. See also “riba”, Encyclopedia of Islam, IV, p. 1150; Mahmassani, op. cit., pp. 119–26, 154–55, 203–04. Despite their evasion of religious restrictions on finance and speculation, Muslim merchants were handicapped thereby, Lopez, R.S. concludes. See his account in Postan, M. and Rich, E.E., eds., The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, II (Cambridge, 1952), pp. 283–88.Google Scholar On medieval Arab letters of credit, government borrowing, and insecurity of wealth, see Fischel, Jews in … Islam, pp. 13–29, 73, 87, also Cahen, Claude, “Un traite financier inedit d'epoque Fatimide-Agyubide”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, V (1962), pp. 139–59.Google Scholar See note 30 below.

22 See Browne, Literary History, I, pp. 378–83; Sarton, op. cit., III, pp. 1771–72; Solomon Gandz's note on “The Rule of Three in Arabic and Hebrew Sources”, Isis, XXII (1934), pp. 219–22.Google Scholar This rule is discussed in Arabic algebras (which usually contained a chapter on business transactions even as did European works), apparently having been introduced (along with loan words describing “general, fixed market” prices and individual prices arrived at through higgling) by Aramaic-speaking merchants trading directly or indirectly with Arabs, Persians, and Hindus centuries before Islamic times. Gandz refers particularly to an early ninth-century Arabic algebra. Ibn Khaldun refers to a number of Spanish Muslim business arithmetics (III, pp. 126–27). See also Bernadelli, H., “The Origins of Modern Economic Theory”, Economic Record, XXXVII, 1961, pp. 320–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 How numerous, varied, and specialized were crafts in Muslim parts of the Mediterranean area is suggested by Goitein's, S.D. “The Main Industries of the Mediterranean Area as Reflected in the Records of the Cairo Geniza”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, IV (2), 1961, pp. 168–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Specialization in food supply did not, of course, insure hygiene (ibid., pp. 194–95), the absence of which, however, seems to have exacted heaviest toll among the holy, Tomas of Margâ's account of the death of Rabban Gabriel suggests. “And the holy man fell ill of a disease of the bowels and suffered from diarrhoea for four months, like the majority of holy men who have departed and will depart from the world.” See The Book of Governors: The Historia Monastica of Thomas, Bishop of Marga A.D. 840 (translated from the Syriac by Budge, E.A.W.), II (London, 1893), p. 680.Google Scholar The tenth-century Pure Brethren, while defining those trades as essential, dignified the work of all tradesmen by noting that each imitated the Creator. See Marquet, Y., “La place du travail dans la hiérarchie ismā˛ilrenne d'aprés I'Encyclopédie des Fréres de la Pureté”, Arabica, VIII (1961), pp. 232–36.Google Scholar

24 E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 3, 41, 50, 63–83, 221–22, 249, 251–56; Richter, G., Studien zur Geschichte der Alteren Arabischen Fürstenspiegel, Leipzig, 1932.Google Scholar Two late eleventh-century “mirrors” have been translated into English: Iskander, Kai Kā'ūs ibn, A Mirror for Princes (The Qābūs-nāma), translated by Levy, Reuben, London, 1951;Google Scholaral-Mulk, Nizam, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings (The Siyasat-nama), translated by Hubert Darke, , London, 1960.Google Scholar Moderateness in taxation and rent collection is counseled in the latter (chaps. 4–7, 37) while in the former advice is given respecting buying and selling, the use of wealth, and the conduct of agriculture, merchandising, and other crafts (pp. 90–95, 109–11, 211–12, 156–65, 237–39). The counsel is expressed quite simply, and without analysis. Economic matter was not included in Le Livre de L'Agriculture (Kitab al-Felahah), by Ibn al-˛Awamm, translated from the Arabic by J. J. Clement-Mullet and published in Paris in 1864. This work was composed in Seville in the twelfth century A.D. (ibid.,, I, preface, pp. 17–18) and was known to Ibn Kbaldun (see III, pp. 151–52).

25 Some knew the Topica or the Rhetoric but did not find therein a basis for developing a theory of the margin. E.g., see my “Aristotle on Imputation and Related Matters”, Southern Economic Journal, XXI (1955), pp. 371–89.Google Scholar There were Arabic translations of the first book of Economics, wrongly attributed to Aristotle, and of “the book of Rufus” possible the work of a Philodemus. See under “tadbīr”, Encyclopedia of Islam, IV, p. 595.

26 E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 143, 165, 187, 269, 285, 295, 300; Afnan, op. cit., pp. 231–32. The role of the unidentified Greek, “Bryson”, or “Brason”, or Brasson (Brússon), whose work was unknown to the West, is treated by Plessner, Martin in Der O1KONOM1KOC des Neupythogoreers ‘Bryson’ and sein Einflusz auf die Islamische Wissenschaft, Heidelberg, 1928; see pp. 1–8Google Scholar on “Bryson” and pp. 9–143 on the translations and their influence; texts and translations are given, pp. 144–274. An annotated English translation setting the work in its late Hellenistic context is needed. On Platonism among the Arabs see Rosenthal, Franz, “On the Knowledge of Plato's Philosophy in the Islamic World”, Islamic Culture, XIV (1940), pp. 387–422.Google Scholar

27 On the highly commercial character of pre-Islamic Mecca, see Lammens, Henri, La Mecqua àla Veille de L'Hégire (Beirut, 1924), chaps. 8–13.Google ScholarGrierson, P. notes, however, that in Arabia in Muhammad's time payments were made mostly in bullion. See “The Monetary Reforms of ˛Abd Al-Malik”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, III (1960), p. 257.Google Scholar See also Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, pp. 215–17; also Hitti, P.K., History of the Arabs (2d ed., London, 1940), pp. 58–59Google Scholar on traders in Southern Arabia in pre-Islamic times. When Mohammad clothed his theology in the language of trade, he reflected the generations-old commercial background of his city and people who readily comprehended Koranic statements which described the mutual relations between Allah and man in marketing and accounting terminology. See Lammens, op. cit., pp. 216–20; Torrey, Charles C., The Commercial-Theological Terms in the Koran (Leiden, 1892), esp. pp. 2–6,Google Scholar 35–36, 46–50; also Cohn, E., Der Wucher in Qor'an, Chedith und Fiqh, Berlin, 1903;Google ScholarArin, F., Recherches Historiques sur les Operations Usuraires et Aléatoires en Droit Musulman, Paris, 1929.Google Scholar

28 See undār “tidjara” (commerce) in Encyclopedia of Islam, IV, p. 747.

29 Beazley, C.R., The Dawn of Modern Geography, London, 1897, pp. 393–468;Google Scholar Nicholson, op. cit., pp. 356–57; Issawi, Charles, “Arab Geography and the Circumnavigation of Africa”, Osiris, X (1952), pp. 117–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Mahdi, op. cit., pp. 142–43. New acquaintance with Greek geographical works also stimulated Muslim interest in geography. Ibid., pp. 142–43.

30 In his preface to his Journal d'un bourgeois du Caire (Paris, 1945),Google Scholar an annotated translation of Ibn Iyas's chronicle of events in 1501–1510, Gaston Wiet comments on the “disconcerting incuriosity” of Arab authors respecting economic events. On historiography see F. Rosenthal, Muslim Historiography, pp. 29–31–47. Rosenthal (ibid., p. 46) refers to a certain wazir, Ibn Al-Tiqtaqa (“the rapid talker”), who disliked having “the ruler study historical works, since they might teach him to exploit his subjects on his own and to dispense with the services of the wazir”. See his Al Fakrhi (translated by Whitting, C.E.J., London, 1947), p. 3.Google Scholar This wazir's political theory resembled both that of Ibn Khaldu (who was not affected thereby) and the Indian thesis that a ruler owes his subjects protection in exchange for their allegiance and support. See E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 62–67. Information on taxation, banking, etc., is to be found in some historical works. E.g., see The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate, by Miskawaihi (d. 1030 A.D.) and translated by Amedraz, H.F. and Margoliouth, D.S., Oxford, 1921;Google Scholar also Gaston Wiet's translation, “Le traité des famines de Maqrīzī”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, V (1962). pp. 1–90,Google Scholar on crop failure, famine, taxation, and depreciation of money.

31 See Plessner's translation, in op. cit., pp. 214 ff. The lot of the slave seems to have been easier under Islam than in late Greek times. E.g., see on slavery in Islam, Levy, Social Structure of Islam, pp. 73–89; Goitein, S.D., “Slaves and Slavegirls in the Cairo Geniza Records”, Arabica, IX (1962), pp. 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 See “Tadblr”, Encyclopedia of Islam, IV (Leiden, 1934), pp. 595.Google Scholar Plessner identifies a number of the authors influenced by Bryson in op. cit., pp. 29–49, 104–43. Miskawaih (died A.D. 1030) includes a reference to Bryson's discussion of child-rearing in his moral philosophy based largely on Galen and commentators on Plato and Aristotle. See Walzer, Greek into Arabic, pp. 220–22.

33 Sherwani, op. cit., p. 46. Plessner, however, assigns this author to the thirteenth century. Op. cit., pp. 32–34. Dunlop, D.M. convincingly shows he came after al-Fārābī. See Dunlop's annotated translation of al-Fārābi's Fusūl Al-Madani, Cambridge, 1961, pp. 5–7.Google Scholar

34 See Sherwani's summary, op. cit., pp. 49–50, 55. Ibn Abī'r-Rabī˛ advocates that agriculture, because of its importance, be taxed lightly, and that state expenditure fall short of state income. Ibid., pp. 50, 59. The role of slavery, together with public and private uses of “wealth”, is discussed in ibid., pp. 58–60. Giving each “his due” is enjoined, within limits, in The Koran, 17, 24 ff., also 30. See translation by N. J. Dawood of The Koran (Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth), pp. 229, 189. For a somewhat different translation see Arberry, A.J., The Koran Interpreted (London, 1955), II, pp. 108–09;Google Scholar I, p. 305.

35 See Fusūl Al-Madanī, (cited in note 33 above), pp. 36–37, 82. See also E. I. J. Rosenthai, Political Thought, pp. 125–29, 273–74; Sherwani, op. cit., pp. 86–91, also 76–78 on al-Fārābī's anticipation of Hobbes's compact theory.

36 Fusūl, pp. 55–56. The function of habit is not discussed at this point though the role of habit in fixing virtue in the individual is treated earlier. Ibid., pp. 31–33. Love as well as mutual need bind the components of a city together. Ibid., pp. 36–37, 53–54.

37 Ibid., pp. 54–55, 56–57. Al Farabl distinguished between the ideal city or state to which the comments above apply and alternative theoretical and actual forms. Ibid., pp. 39, 55, 82; also Dieterici, F., Die Staatsleitung von Alfarabi (Leiden, 1904), pp. 50–89,Google Scholar and his translation, Der Musterstaat (Leiden, 1904),Google Scholar of al-Fārābī's account of the model state, esp. pp. 84–128. See also E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 126–28, 133, 135–37. Plato had mentioned support of priests and secretaries in his Politicus, 290 A-E.

38 Sherwani, op. cit., pp. 75–76; E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 118, 165, 269. Avempace (d. 1138) played down economics as a science even as did al-Fārābī. Ibid., pp. 118, 165, 269. Averroes (1126–98) also subordinated economics to politics. See Rosenthal, E.I.J., “The Place of politics in the Philosophy of Ibn Bajja (Avempace)”, Islamic Culture, XXV (1951),Google Scholar pp. 199 ff., and Averroes' Commentary, pp. 150–51, 264–65. Averroes, perhaps reflecting Bryson's influence, came close to expressing a nominalist view of money. Ibid., pp. 148–49, 211–12, 286–87.

39 Plessner, op. cit., pp. 42–47; E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 143, 151–54, 239, 269, 285; Afnan, Avicenna, pp. 230–32.

40 The Book of Knowledge, pp. 27–30, 146; Sherwani, op. cit., pp. 154–55, 157–62, also p. 171 on the necessity that taxation be conducted in full compliance with the law. See also Plessner, op. cit., pp. 131–36; E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 39, 239. In keeping with the widely accepted Muslim view that trade and craftsmanship are honorable sources of livelihood, and with his own view that their pursuit provided support in this world and access to the next world, Ghazālī believed, Grunebaum states, that only “the ascete, the mystic, the scholar, and the public official are exempt from the duty of earning bread by the work of their hands or by commerce”. See Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, p. 215. “The markets”, wrote Ghazall, “are God's tables and whoever visits them will receive from them”. Cited in ibid., p. 215. For other favorable views of trade and crafts, see ibid., pp. 215–18. His nominalist view of money clearly reflects Bryson's influence. See Bousquet, G.-H., “La monnaie selon un mystique musulman du Xle siécle”, Revue d'economie politique, LXIII (1935), pp. 238–40.Google Scholar

41 Browne, op. cit., II, pp. 12–13, 456–57, 484–86.

42 Plessner, op. cit., pp. 62–104. “Tūsī's Economics was regarded for all-time in Islam as the final model”. See “Tadblr”, Encyclopedia of Islam, IV (Leiden, 1934), p. 595.Google Scholar Some of Tūsī's work was known to Ibn Khaldūn (I xlv; III, 148, 315).

43 Idid., pp. 104 ff.; E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 211–13, 246–47, 299–301. Al-Dawwānī's work was translated into English by Thompson, W.F., under the title, Practical Philosophy of the Mohammedan People, London, 1839.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., pp. 245–311. “Abùssan” (i.e., Bryson) is referred to in the discussion (pp. 245–50) of the household economy. On the “mean” occupations see Brunschvig, R., “Metiers vils en Islam”, Stadia lslamica, XVI (1962), pp. 41–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Ibid., p. 251.

46 Ibid., pp. 123–29, also pp. 399, 406, on the Prince's equity-preserving role. Equity is described as the paramount virtue, superior even to wisdom, courage, and temperance. Ibid., pp. 52–64, 112ff., which follow Tūsī closely. Aristotle's geometrical proportion arrangement is employed. Ibid., pp. 124–25

47 Ibid., pp. 320, 373–75. Elsewhere he identifies four main occupational classes: men of pen (lawyers, divines, “statisticians” [record-keepers?], etc.); men of business (merchants, artisans, craftsmen); men of sword (soldiers, guardians); and husbandmen, who alone produce what had no previous existence in contrast to the others who add “nothing”, merely changing the form, place, or ownership of a thing. Ibid., p. 389. See also ibid., pp. 391–94, for five-fold classification of men based on their ethical qualities. Compare the various class systems mentioned in Levy, Social Structure of Islam, chap. 1, esp. pp. 59–71. In a forthcoming study Grunebaum will present evidence that divisions of society into four occupational classes are of Persian ancestry whereas divisions into three are of Greek ancestry. See also note 13 above. Maqrīzī divided the medieval Egyptian population into seven economic classes. See Wiet, “Le Traité …”, loc. cit., pp. 71–75.

48 Al-Dawwānī, op. cit., 318–22, 326–27.

49 This influence is present also in Ibn Abī al-Rabī's Kitâb sulûk al-malik fī tadbīr al mamâlik, written in the 13 th century. See Ritter, Helmut, “Ein arabisches Handbuch der Handelswissenschaft”, Der Islam, VII (1917), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

50 For Ritter's translation of this booklet see ibid., 45–91, and for his introduction, including comments on Bryson's influence, Arabic treatment of commodities, and Islam's economic ethic, see ibid., pp. 1–45. Dimashqi's title indicates that his booklet has to do with the virtues and good points of trade, the judging of commodities, and the tricks of swindlers.

51 Ibid., pp. 47–53.

52 He who would conserve his wealth spends no more than he takes in, provides against unforeseen contingencies, refuses to engage in activities for which he is not equipped, avoids investment in that for which demand is small and irregular (e.g., a scholarly book), and sells fixed capital instead of commodities only when the profit realizable from the former sale is very much higher than that on the latter (ibid., pp. 75–77). One must also avoid waste and guard one's property against confiscation, etc. (ibid., pp. 79– 91) as well as administer it well and be free of the prompting of avarice, niggardliness, etc. (ibid., pp. 77–79).

53 Ibid., pp. 53–54, 56–58, 62–63, 71–75. On the classification of possessions into gold and silver, commodities, fixed capital, and living creatures (slaves, draft and other animals) see ibid., pp. 45–46, also Ritter's comments, pp. 16–26. On professional, practical, and mixed occupations other than trade and on earnings based on power see ibid., pp. 55–61.

54 Ibid., pp. 54–56, 59.

55 Ibid., pp. 55–56.

57 Ibid., pp. 63–65. In his comments on household economy he indicates that foodstuffs should be bought when plentiful and then stored; that winter clothing should be bought in summer and summer clothing in winter when prices are low; that slaves, cattle, and houses should be bought when subsistence is expensive, and land, mills, etc., when subsistence is cheap; and that weapons should be bought in times of quiet when they are not in demand. Ibid., p. 79.

58 Ibid., pp. 66–70.

59 On this problem see Parsons, Talcott, Structure of Social Action, New York, 1937Google Scholar, passim. The Hobbesian assumption of persisting conflict in the absence of absolute rule had wide acceptance in the world of Islam where (as in other parts of Asia) great weight was attached to the regulative sanction of fear. E.g., see deVaux's, Baron Carra account of al-Fārābī's ignorant and error-ridden state, in his Les penseurs de l'lslam, IV (Paris, 1923), pp. 12–18.Google Scholar

60 Plessner, op. cit., p. 142. Ibn Khaldun's direct knowledge of Greek authors was very limited. See Fischel, W.J., Ibn Khaldūn and Tamerlane (Berkeley, 1952), p. 84.Google Scholar

61 Systematic treatment apparently was an essential ingredient of science. E.g., see III, p. 80, where he implies that systematic treatment made a “science of sufism” as well as of Koranic interpretation, jurisprudence, “the science of tradition, and other disciplines”.

62 Ibn Khaldūn was under the influence of the tradition that Alexander had transmitted Persian sciences to the Greeks who improved them, with Islam reviving interest in them after Christianity had neglected them. In reality, various Greek works had been translated into Persian and in turn from Persian into Arabic. See Rosenthal's, F. interesting The Technique and Approach of Muslim Scholarship (Analecta Orientalia, No. 24, Rome, 1947), p. 73.Google Scholar

63 The Turkish amirs in Egypt “built a great many colleges, hermitages, and monasteries, and endowed them with mortmain endowments that yielded income” and “saw to it that their children would participate in the endowments, either as administrators” or otherwise. The amirs did this “because chicanery and confiscation are always to be feared from royal authority” and they were “slaves or clients” of the “Turkish dynasty” (II, p. 435). Ibn Khaldun was generally alert, as in this instance, to the economic motive underlying some action.

64 He advises the student not to study “logic” until after he has become “saturated with the religious law and has studied the interpretation of the Qur'an and jurisprudence”, (III, pp. 250–58). He condemns astrology because it would disclose God's “secrets” (III, p. 264) and alchemy because it would undertake to accelerate natural processes and foil God's plans (III, pp. 275–79). The alchemist, were he successful in cheapening gold and silver, would undermine God's intention that “gold and silver, being rare, should be the standard of value by which the profits and capital accumulation of human beings are measured” (III, p. 277). Proponents of alchemy were likely to be philosophers (such as al-Fārābī) who could not make a living, or “students” bent on fleecing seekers after easy wealth (III, pp. 270, 280).

65 I, pp. 77–78, 343 ff.; H, pp. 426–27. See also below; also Mahdi, op cit., pp. 82–84, 156–59, 166–72, 228–32, 289–91. See note 68 on several earlier writers who manifested a socio-phychological approach in explaining human behavior, though not Ibn Khaldūn's great knowledge of nomadic life and culture. See also Rosenthal's Introduction to his translation, I, pp. lxxiii–vi, on the possible influence of Avicenna and others on his thought.

66 Scholars abstract ideas “from the sensibilia and conceive (them) in their minds as general universals, so that they may be applicable to some matter in general but not to any particular matter, individual, race, nation, or group of people… Scholars are accustomed to dealing with matters of the mind and with thoughts. They do not know anything else. Politicians, on the other hand, must pay attention to the facts of the outside world and the conditions … When they look at politics, (scholars) press (their observations) into the mold of their views and their way of making deductions. Thus, they commit many errors … The average person restricts himself to considering every matter as it is … His judgment is not infected with analogy and generalization … Such a man, therefore, can be trusted when he reflects upon his political activities … “ III, pp. 308–10.

67 However, see next paragraph. On the role of history see Franz Rosenthal, Muslim Historiography, pp. 14–15, 29–40; Mahdi, op cit., chap. 3. Ibn Khaldun believed that human affairs might be subject to supernatural influence, but only occasionally and in so restricted a sense that the processes of history remained unaffected (I, pp. lxxii ff.).

68 Politics per se, being prescriptive and non-explanatory, did not suffice. “Politics is concerned with the administration of home or city in accordance with ethical and philosophical requirements, for the purpose of directing the mass toward a behavior that will result in the preservation and permanence of the (human) species” (I, p. 78). Elsewhere he indicates “the common people” to be a “stupid mass” (II, p. 196), and rhetoric a means toward their control (I, p. 78; III, p. 368). Ibn Khaldūn could have gotten a notion of ordered change and complex social interdependence from al-Mas˛ūde, with some of whose work he was acquainted. See Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, pp. 284, 331, 339–40 n., 347 n. As-Sakkākī (d. 1229) also had noted the influence of milieu on thought. Ibid., pp. 339–40 n., and “As-Sakkākī on Milieu and Thought”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, LXV (1945), p. 62.Google Scholar

69 “The purpose of human beings is not only their worldly welfare. The entire world is trifling and futile… The purpose (of human beings) is their religion, which leads them to happiness in the other world” (I, p. 386). “Political laws consider only worldly interests … it is necessary, as required by religious law, to cause the mass to act in accordance with the religious laws in all their affairs touching both this world and the other world” (I, p. 387). Hence the importance of the caliphate which embodied religious authority (I, pp. 387 ff., 415 ff.).

70 E.g., see E. Blochet's comments on this disregard in his introduction (p. 7) to Introduction à l'histoire des Mongols, by Ed-Din, Fadel Allāh Rashīd, London, 1910Google Scholar; Rosenthal, Muslim Historiography, pp. 100–04. See Mahdi, op. cit., pp. 232–84 and passim on Ibn Khaldūn's concern with causation.

71 E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought, p. 84. “Islam knows no distinction between a spiritual and a temporal realm, between religious and secular activities. Both realms form a unity under the all-embracing authority of the Sharī'a”, or prophetically revealed law of Islam based on the Koran, the Sunna (or exemplary life of Mohammed), and Hadith (or authentic traditions). See ibid., pp. 2, 8; also, on egalitarian theocracy, Louis Gardet, La cité musulmane, pp. 31–68. In reality, however, as Ibn Khaldūn observed, the caliphate, or “earthly political form” of this theocracy, becomes transformed into “the mulk or power-state” when, as often happens, the “authority of the Sharfa is impaired”. See Rosenthal, Political Thought, pp. 117, 84–86, 92, 94–97. On types of authority in the Muqaddimah see I, pp. 380–82, also 414–28. On types of state see II, pp. 137–39, where after distinguishing between the rational state and the state based on divine law, together with the Utopian state, Ibn Khaldun further distinguishes between the welfare-orientated rational state of the Persian philosophers and the rational state in which the ruler is interested (as “all rulers” are) in maintaining his rule “through the forceful use of power”.

72 On the functions and behavior of the secretary or bureaucrat see II, pp. 29–35. Ghazālī, of whose theological works Ibn Khaldūn approved (III, pp. 28–29, also p. 229), had divided the population of countries “into (i) farmers, husbandmen, and handicraftsmen, (ii) men of the sword, and (iii) those who take money from the first grade in order to distribute among the second, whom he calls the Men of the Pen.” See Sherwani, op. cit., p. 160. Ghazālī endorsed the opinion of the sages that “religion depends on kingship, kingship on the army, the army on wealth, wealth on material prosperity and material prosperity on justice.” See Lambton, A.K.S., “The Theory of Kingship in the Nasīhat Ul-Mulūk of Ghazāli”, Islamic Quarterly, I, 1954, p. 54.Google Scholar

73 See F. Rosenthal's comments, I, p. lxxxv. Ibn Khaldun also mentions the eleventhcentury Al-Māwardī's Ordinances of Government, translated by E. Fagnan as Les statuts gouvernementaux, Algiers, 1915; but this author is concerned with political and religious issues in their ethical aspects rather than with economic issues other than taxation, public expenditure, and the prevention of fraud. See E. I. J. Rosenthal, op. cit., pp. 27–37, 235–38; Grunebaum, Islam, chap. 7, and Medieval Islam, pp. 156–66; Sherwani, op. cit., pp. 107–22.

74 Ibn Khaldūn is not referred to in Lovejoy's, A.O. classic The Great Chain of Being, Cambridge, 1936Google Scholar. It has been incorrectly inferred that both Ibn Khaldūn and Al-Bĕrūnī (whose work could have been known to Ibn Khaldūn) anticipated Darwin. Al-Bĕrūnī (973–1048) sometimes expressed himself in quasi-Darwinian terms. Thus he observed (see India, chap. 47) that since “increase” due to “sowing” is “unlimited, whilst the world is limited”, there is selection either by “the agriculturalist” or by “Nature”, and if “the earth is ruined, or is near to be ruined, by having too many inhabitants, its ruler…sends it a messenger for the purpose of reducing the too great number”; or at least he so interpreted Indian thought. As J. C. Wilcynski shows, however, al-Bĕrūnī did not appreciate the significance of his observations or attempt to weld them into a coherent theory. See “On the Presumed Darwinism of Alberuni Eight Hundred Years before Darwin”, Isis, L (1959), pp. 459–66Google Scholar. See also Bosch, K.G., “Ibn Khaldun on Evolution”, Islamic Review, XXXVIII (5, 1950), pp. 26 ff.Google Scholar

75 I, pp. lxxxiii–lxxxv; II, pp. 424–33; section IV of this essay. Muslim historians probably attached as much importance to experimentation as did Muslim scientists who did not (as did medieval European scientists) assign increasing significance thereto; they occasionally stressed the importance of eyewitnesses. It was assumed that Muslim scholars, in or near their late teens, would have mastered as much knowledge as they would ever acquire; so there was “not much room for the concept of individual development in Muslim civilization”. F. Rosenthal mentions several scholars who believed that knowledge would continue to cumulate, but he indicates that “change rather than development was supposed to govern the relationship of successive generations”. Similarly, Muslim theories about the interdependence of civilizations merely implied the existence “of a certain element of change, which may mean improvement, or deterioration”; while those about the origins of science “also did not favor the assumption of progressive development”. See Rosenthal, F., The Technique and Approach of Muslim Scholarschip, pp. 65–69, 74.Google Scholar

76 See however Mahdi, op. cit., chaps. 4–5.

77 On the four generations see I, pp. 278–80, 285, 313–22, 342–46, 372–74; II, pp. 118–23, 284, 297–301; and on the five stages, I, pp. 353–55. See also I, pp. 356–81 on inter-dynasty differences in wealth, revenue, and expenditure, on how wealthy a few dynasties were, on the ruler's loss of support among his own people and his increasing resort to hirelings and clients who gradually win control over him and thus prepare the dynasty's demise. On the nature and the exploitative character of the Muslim revenue system at the time when the simpler Umayyads gave way to the luxurious Abbasids, see Levy, op. cit., pp. 299–328; also Donaldson, op. cit., chaps. 1–2, on the simpler tastes and values initially regnant in the Arab world.

78 The five sentences preceding are based upon II, pp. 89–102, 108–11, 117–28. On famine and pestilence, see II, pp. 135–37. It is after the second generation that decay sets in (II, pp. 97–98, 135; I, p. 346).

79 One might reduce Ibn Khaldūn's argument to terms of a model reminiscent of Hicks's, J.R., but without a rising floor and ceiling. See his A Contribution to the Theory of the Trade Cycle (Oxford, 1950), pp. 96–98Google Scholar. Studies of price movements suggest greater price stability than Ibn Khaldūn's cyclical theory might call for. See Ashtor, , “Le coût de la vie”, loc. cit.; “L'évolution des prix dans le proche-orient à la basse époque”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, IV (1961), pp. 15–46Google Scholar; “Matériaux pour l'histoire des prix dans l'Egypte médiévale”, ibid., VI, 1963, pp. 158–89.

80 The nature of the concept of “group feeling” is discussed by Ritter, Helmut, in “Irrational Solidarity Groups: A Socio-Psychological Study in Connection with Ibn Khaldun”, Oriens, I (1948), pp. 1–44Google Scholar. This finding may be compared with Giddings', F.H. “like-mindedness” and “consciousness of kind”, in his Elements of Sociology (New York, 1898), chap. 12.Google Scholar

81 “Dynasty and royal authority have the same relationship to civilization as form has to matter. (The form) is the shape that preserves the existence of (matter) through the (particular) kind (of phenomenon) it represents. One cannot imagine a dynasty without civilization, while a civilization without dynasty and royal authority is impossible, because human beings must by nature co-operate, and that calls for a restraining influence. Political leadership, based either on religious or royal authority, is obligatory as (such a restraining influence). This is what is meant by dynasty… The disintegration of one of them must influence the other” (II, pp. 300–01).

82 II, pp. 89 ff., 95, 103, 135, 146. Ibn Khaldūn emphasized the depressive influence of the Black Death which carried away both his parents as well as many of his associates (I, xl), This “destructive plague” greatly decreased “civilization” by devastating nations and populations and laying waste to cities, buildings, roads, etc. (I, p. 64). He does not indicate when recovery set in or whether, as Karl F. Helleiner supposes, the resulting demoralization checked economic development for many decades (see “Population Movement and Agrarian Depression in the Later Middle Ages”, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, Vol. 15 (1949), pp. 368–77)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Elsewhere (II, pp. 1 3 6 –37), however, he indicates that in the later and declining years of dynasties pestilences are more frequent, being sequels to famines, unrest, and “corruption” of the air consequent upon excessive concentration of the population in cities. Presumably North Africa had not recovered from destruction brought by nomadic invasions after the mid-eleventh century.

83 How specialization and co-operation increased output per worker is not analyzed as it was later, for example, by Adam Smith and his successors. Presumably specialization made for proficiency, co-operation made possible undertakings beyond the power of an individual, and skill and knowledge accumulated where men were congregating and cooperating. E.g., see I, pp. 89–91; II, pp. 271–74, 418–19; also II, pp. 238–39, 241 on the use of power-multiplying machines when the extent of co-operation and (pre sumably) demand for such service were great enough. Craft specialization too gave rise to cumulating skill and sometimes also to skill- or knowledge-favoring spill-over effects. Acquisition of craft skills and of the habits underlying them made for “increase in intelligence” and apparently for behavior in conformity with more exacting “scientific norms” (II, pp. 406–07).

84 Size of population appears to play a double role in the generation of prosperity. On the supply side it makes possible greater volume of output and, because of the effects of co-operation, greater output per worker; and on the demand side, it gives rise to a larger aggregate demand, in the absence of which there would be less or none at all of some goods and services produced. “Income and expenditure balance each other in every city” (II, p. 275). See II, pp. 272–74, 351–52, 434–35; III, pp. 149–50.

85 Ibn Khaldun is referring to the effect of the loss by Muslims of their better land to Spanish Christians; he does not distinguish between average and marginal cost, but refers instead to the greater labor and fertilizer inputs required on poor than on good soils (II, pp. 278–79).

86 Ibn Khaldūn remarked that “whatever is obtained by one is denied to the other, unless he gives something in exchange (for it)” (II, p. 311).

87 In a work supposedly written in the eighth or ninth century by Abū' al-Fadl, the author advised merchants to invest in commodities for which there was a mass demand, not in expensive specialities, or items fancied by scholars. See Lopez, in Postan and Rich, op. cit., p. 283. Whether this is the work cited above in note 49, I am not sure; it reflects Bryson's influence.

88 Commerce did not, of course, embrace interest-taking, or usury, which had Koranic disapproval (II, p. 293); while it involved cunning and trickery, it did not involve “taking away the property of others without giving anything in return” and so it was legal (II, p. 317, also pp. 110, 343) though “honest (traders) are few” and the “judiciary is of little use” in the prevention of fraud, deceit, etc. (II, p. 342). Because of the risks involved in commerce and the need of the merchant to be aggressive, disputatious, quarrel some, cunning, etc., only persons with such qualities were suited to be merchants; but these qualities were “detrimental to and destructive of virtuousness and manliness” and affected the “soul” toward “evil”. Merchants were inferior in character, therefore, to “noblemen and rulers”; for only most rarely was a merchant a man of rank who could leave all “business manipulations” to his agents and servants (II, pp. 342–45). Undoubtedly Ibn Khaldūn's experience as a judge as well as his strong disposition to look to his own interests (see I, pp. lxiii–iv) made him alert to the necessity the merchant was under to disguise his motives and behavior. E.g., see Levy, op. cit., pp. 255–60, 340.

89 “The value realized from one's labor corresponds to the value of one's labor and the value of (this labor) as compared to (the value of) other labor and the need of the people for it. The growth or decrease of one's profit, in turn, depends on that” (II, p. 328, also p. 330). “Most” merchants, farmers, and craftsmen, however, if without rank, “make only a bare living, somehow fending off the distress of poverty” (II, p. 330). Even today connection with persons of rank is deemed highly useful in parts of the Islamic world (as well as in other parts), particularly when such a person can be put under obligation.

90 “People help him with their labor in all his needs, whether these are necessities, conveniences, or luxuries. The value realized from all such labor becomes part of his profit. For tasks that usually require giving some compensation (to the persons who perform them), he always employs people without giving anything in return. He realizes a very high value from their labor. It is (the difference) between the value he realizes from the (free) labor (products) and the prices he must pay for things he needs. He thus makes a very great (profit). A person of rank receives much (free) labor which makes him rich in a very short time. With the passing of days, his fortune and wealth increase. It is in this sense that (the possession of) political power (imārah) is one of the ways of making a living” (II, p. 327). For this reason merchants with rank were in a very favorable situation (II, pp. 327, 344–45). “Many jurists and religious scholars and pious persons” who had acquired “a good reputation” also enjoyed the benefits of rank, since the masses believe “they serve God” by giving these people presents (II, p. 327). He looked upon the advantages attaching to rank as an undesirable by-product of a prerequisite (i.e., rank or hierarchy) to orderly co-operation, an accidental evil associated with a source of good, illustrative of a type of association that frequently existed (II, pp. 329–30).

91 “Obsequiousness and flattery are the reasons why a person may be able to obtain a rank that produces happiness and profit, and that most wealthy and happy people have the quality (of obsequiousness and use flattery). Thus, too, many people who are proud and supercilious have no use for rank. Their earnings, consequently, are restricted to (the results of) their own labors, and they are reduced to poverty and indigence” (II, p. 331). He suggests that some religious officials and teachers are poor in part because they answer to this description (II, pp. 334–35). “Obsequiousness and flattery toward the ruler, his entourage, and his family” finally win positions of rank for “many common people”, often at the expense of those previously in this entourage who had become arrogant there (II, pp. 333–34).

92 “If the labor of the inhabitants of a town or city is distributed in accordance with the necessities and needs of those inhabitants, a minimum of that labor will suffice. The labor (available) is more than is needed. Consequently, it is spent to provide the conditions and customs of luxury and to satisfy the needs of the inhabitants of other cities. They import (the things they need) from (people who have a surplus) through exchange or purchase” (II, p. 272). Inasmuch as the activities associated with a town usually embraced considerable agricultural activity, this statement may be interpreted to imply a capacity on the part of agriculturalists to produce a surplus of foodstuffs for urban consumption (I, p. lxxvii; II, pp. 283–84).

93 The processes referred to under (b) and (c) have already been discussed and are further discussed in (6) following. While taxes could be increased, there was a limit to such increase (II, pp. 297–98). “The amount of tax revenue, however, is a fixed one. It neither increases nor decreases. When it is increased by new customs duties, the amount to be collected as a result of the increase has fixed limits” (I, p. 340). Accordingly, if dynastic luxury is further increased, military expenditure must be decreased (I, p. 341; n, pp. 122–24).

94 E.g., see my account of mercantilism in Bert Hoselitz, F., ed., Theories of Economic Growth (Glencoe, 1960), chap. 1 and appendix.Google Scholar

95 See Toynbee's account of events after Ibn Khaldun's death in op. cit., I, pp. 366–67, 379, 383–84, 387–88, 393–98.

96 See F. Rosenthal's introduction to his translation, I, pp. lxvi–vii, cvii–viii; Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939 (New York, 1962), pp. 41, 52, 71–72, 78–79, 88, 90, 152, 326, 328, 344.Google Scholar

97 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was virtually no interest in European science, nor much manifestation of that desire to better one's condition by which classical economists set so much store. Indeed, a Turkish student in Paris in the late 1820's recorded as strange the fact that each Frenchman hoped to go further than his ancestors. Ibid., pp. 41, 58, 77. See also Adnan, A. (Adivar), La science chez les Turcs Otomans, Paris, 1939.Google Scholar

98 Hourani, op. cit., pp. 43–44, 105. More influential in Egypt were some of the followers of Saint-Simon, though his ideology never caught on. Ibid., pp. 53, 76–77.