Ibn Khaldun Quotes

Throughout history many nations have suffered a physical defeat, but that has never marked the end of a nation. But when a nation has become the victim of a psychological defeat, then that marks the end of a nation.

في الدول التي يؤسسها البدو لابد من اللجوء الى العجم في كل ما يختص بشأن البناء

Those who are conquered," wrote the philosopher Ibn Khaldun in the fourteenth century, "always want to imitate the conqueror in his main characteristics—in his clothing, his crafts, and in all his distinctive traits and customs.

ولكون هذه النفوس مفطورة على النقص والقصور عن الكمال كان إدراكها في الجزئيات أكثر من الكليات

عندما تنهار الدول يكثر المنجمون والأفاقون والمتفقهون والانتهازيون؛ و تعم الإشاعة و تطول المناظرات؛ و تقصر البصيرة و يتشوش الفكر

The past resembles the future more than one drop of water resembles another.

People justify their own subservience to pleasure by citing men and women of the past who allegedly did the same things they are doing.

No one can stand up against the authority of truth, and the evil of falsehood is to be fought with enlightening speculation.

History, therefore, is firmly rooted in philosophy. It deserves to be accounted a branch of philosophy.

Muhammad said: Every infant is born in the natural state. It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a heathen.

[I]njustice can be committed only by persons who cannot be touched, only by persons who have power and authority.

Government decisions are as a rule unjust, because pure justice is found only in the legal caliphate that lasted only a short while.

[T]he purpose of human beings is not only their worldly welfare. This entire world is trifling and futile. It ends in death and annihilation. The purpose of human beings is their religion, which leads them to happiness in the other world.

In the case of all human qualities, the extremes are reprehensible, and the middle road is praiseworthy.

It was a great sage of Islam, ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), who saw that as a society becomes affluent it becomes more individualistic. It loses what he called its asabiyah, its social cohesion. It then becomes prey to the ‘desert dwellers’, those who shun the luxuries of the city and are prepared for self-sacrifice in war.

Every realm may have as large a militia as it can hold and support, but no more.

Happiness and profit are achieved mostly by people who are obsequious and use flattery. Such character disposition is one of the reasons for happiness.

Geography means destiny.” – Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldun discussed the calculations of the ninth-century astrologer and polymath al-Kindi regarding the predestined end of the ‘Abbasid dynasty.

it seems clear that Ibn Khaldun preferred al-Ghazali to Averroes. “He who wants to arm himself against the philosophers in the field of dogmatic beliefs should turn to the works of al-Ghazali.

When trouble arose between 'All and Mu'awiyah as a necessary consequence of group feeling, they were guided in (their dissensions) by the truth and by independent judgment. They did not fight for any worldly purpose or over preferences of no value, or for reasons of personal enmity. This might be suspected, and heretics might like to think so. However, what caused their difference was their independent judgment as to where the truth lay. It was on this matter that each side opposed the point of view of the other. It was for this that they fought. Even though 'Ali was in the right, Mu'awiyah's intentions were not bad ones. He wanted the truth, but he missed (it). Each was right in so far as his intentions were concerned.

Love your neighbor. Love the stranger. Hear the cry of the otherwise unheard. Liberate the poor from their poverty. Care for the dignity of all. Let those who have more than they need share their blessings with those who have less. Feed the hungry, house the homeless, and heal the sick in body and mind. Fight injustice, whoever it is done by and whoever it is done against. And do these things because, being human, we are bound by a covenant of human solidarity, whatever our color or culture, class or creed. These are moral principles, not economic or political ones. They have to do with conscience, not wealth or power. But without them, freedom will not survive. The free market and liberal democratic state together will not save liberty, because liberty can never be built by self-interest alone. I-based societies all eventually die. Ibn Khaldun showed this in the fourteenth century, Giambattista Vico in the eighteenth, and Bertrand Russell in the twentieth. Other-based societies survive. Morality is not an option. It’s an essential.

The fifth stage is one of waste and squandering. In this stage, the ruler wastes on pleasures and amusements the treasures accumulated by his ancestors, through excessive generosity to his inner circle. Also, he acquires bad low-class followers to whom he entrusts the most important matters of state, which they are not qualified to handle by themselves, not knowing which of them they should tackle and which they should leave alone. The ruler seeks to destroy the great clients of his people and followers of his predecessors. (...)Thus, he ruins the foundations his ancestors had laid and tears down what they had built up. In this stage, the dynasty is seized by senility and the chronic disease from which it can hardly ever rid itself, for which it can find no cure, and eventually it is destroyed.

The inner meaning of history . . . involves speculation and an attempt to get at the truth, subtle explanation of the causes and origins of existing things, and deep knowledge of the how and why of events. (History,) therefore, is firmly rooted in philosophy. It deserves to be accounted a branch of (philosophy).

It is a sad commentary on the state of Muslim scholarship that Ibn Khaldun remained a virtual nonentity until he was discovered by Orientalists. Now that he has their stamp of recognition, many scholars - excepting Arab racialists and the extreme orthodox - have entered into a competition to see whose encomiums are the loudest

قد لا يتمّ وجود الخير الكثير إلا بوجود شرّ يسير.

The knowledge that has not come down to us is larger than the knowledge that has.

The capital of knowledge that an individual scholar has to offer is small. Admission (of one’s shortcomings) saves from censure.

People justify their own subservience to pleasure by citing the supposed doings of men and women of the past.

و من كلام عمر رضي الله عنه: من لم يؤدبه الشرع لا أدبه الله.

الموجودات التي وراء الحس و هي الروحانيات و يسمونه العلم الإلهي و علم ما بعد الطبيعة فإن ذواتها مجهولة رأسا و لا يمكن التوصل إليها و لا البرهان عليها لأن تجريد المعقولات من الموجودات

Generational Patterns Since the beginning of recorded time, certain writers and thinkers have intuited a pattern to human history. It was perhaps the great fourteenth-century Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun who first formulated this idea into the theory that history seems to move in four acts, corresponding to four generations. The first generation is that of the revolutionaries who make a radical break with the past, establishing new values but also creating some chaos in the struggle to do so. Often in this generation there are some great leaders or prophets who influence the direction of the revolution and leave their stamp on it. Then along comes a second generation that craves some order. They are still feeling the heat of the revolution itself, having lived through it at a very early age, but they want to stabilize the world, establish some conventions and dogma. Those of the third generation—having little direct connection to the founders of the revolution—feel less passionate about it. They are pragmatists. They want to solve problems and make life as comfortable as possible. They are not so interested in ideas but rather in building things. In the process, they tend to drain out the spirit of the original revolution. Material concerns predominate, and people can become quite individualistic. Along comes the fourth generation, which feels that society has lost its vitality, but they are not sure what should replace it. They begin to question the values they have inherited, some becoming quite cynical. Nobody knows what to believe in anymore. A crisis of sorts emerges. Then comes the revolutionary generation, which, unified around some new belief, finally tears down the old order, and the cycle continues. This revolution can be extreme and violent, or it can be less intense, with simply the emergence of new and different values.

Dynasty and government serve as the world's market place, attracting to it the products of scholarship and craftsmanship alike. Wayward wisdom and forgotten lore turn up there. In this market stories are told and items of historical information are delivered. Whatever is in demand on this market is in general demand everywhere else. Now, whenever the established dynasty avoids injustice, prejudice, weakness, and double-dealing, with determination keeping to the right path and never swerving from it, the wares on its market are as pure silver and fine gold. However, when it is influenced by selfish interests and rivalries, or swayed by vendors of tyranny and dishonesty, the wares of its market place become as dross and debased metals. The intelligent critic must judge for himself as he looks around, examining this, admiring that, and choosing this.

It is curious to compare Ibn Khaldun with Edward Gibbon who in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88) presented that decline and fall as being due to barbarism and religion. By contrast, Ibn Khaldun presented barbarism and religion as the sources of empire, for, as we have seen, he believed that empires were regularly renewed by barbarian incursions and he believed that religion was a desirable supplement to ‘asabiyya for tribal conquerors who aimed to conquer an old regime and set up a new one.

اليمن إلى ساحل السويس قريباً من مصر و تحت باب المندب جزيرة سواكن و دهلك و قبالته من غربيه مجالات البخة من أمم السودان كما ذكرناه و من شرقيه في هذا الجزء تهائم اليمن و منها على ساحله بلد علي بن يعقوب و في جهة الجنوب من بلد زالع و على ساحل هذا البحر من غربيه ترى بربر يتلو بعضها بعضاً و

Averroes, the last of the great medieval Arab philosophers, was fighting a rearguard defense of philosophy that was under attack from theologians, and, though translations of his works were to be much read in the universities of Christian Europe, he had little influence on later generations of thinkers in the Muslim world.

For two thousand years, the closer to Carthage (roughly the site of modern-day Tunis) the greater the level of development. Because urbanization in Tunisia started two millennia ago, tribal identity based on nomadism—which the medieval historian Ibn Khaldun said disrupted political stability—is correspondingly weak. Indeed, after the Roman general Scipio defeated Hannibal in 202 B.C. outside Tunis, he dug a demarcation ditch, or fossa regia, that marked the extent of civilized territory. The fossa regia remains relevant to the current Middle East crisis. Still visible in places, it runs from Tabarka on Tunisia’s northwestern coast southward, and turns directly eastward to Sfax, another Mediterranean port. The

والانقياد إلى سواهم وسبب ذلك أن المذلة والانقياد كاسران لسورة العصبية وشدتها فإن انقيادهم ومذلتهم دليل على فقدانها فما رئموا للمذلة حتى عجزوا عن المدافعة ومن عجز عن المدافعة فأولى أن يكون عاجزاً عن المقاومة والمطالبة‏.‏ واعتبر ذلك في بني إسرائيل لما دعاهم موسى عليه السلام إلى ملك الشام وأخبرهم بأن الله قد كتب لهم ملكها كيف عجزوا عن ذلك وقالوا‏:‏ ‏"‏ إن فيها قوماً جبارين وإنا لن ندخلها حتى يخرجوا منها ‏"‏ ي يخرجهم الله تعالى منها بضرب من قدرته غير عصبيتنا وتكون من معجزاتك يا موسى‏.‏ ولما عزم عليهم لجوا وارتكبوا العصيان وقالوا له‏:‏ ‏"‏ اذهب أنت وربك فقاتلا ‏"‏‏.‏ وما ذلك إلا لما آنسوا من أنفسهم من العجز عن المقاومة والمطالبة كما تقتضيه الآية وما يؤثر في تفسيرها وذلك بما حصل فيهم من خلق الانقياد وما رئموا من الذل للقبط أحقاباً حتى ذهبت العصبية منهم جملة مع أنهم لم يؤمنوا حق الإيمان بما خبرهم به موسى من أن الشام لهم وأن العمالقة الذين كانوا بأريحاء فريستهم بحكم من الله قدره لهم فأقصروا عن ذلك وعجزوا تعويلاً على ما علموا من أنفسهم من العجز عن المطالبة لما حصل لهم من خلق المذلة وطعنوا فيما أخبرهم به نبيهم من ذلك وما أمرهم به‏.‏ فعاقبهم الله بالتيه وهو أنهم تاهوا في قفر من الأرض ما بين الشام ومصر أربعين سنة لم يأووا فيها لعمران ولا نزلوا مصراً ولا خالطوا بشراً كما قصه القرآن لغلظة العمالقة بالشام والقبط بمصر عليهم لعجزهم عن مقاومتهم كما زعموه‏.‏ ويظهرمن مساق الآية ومفهومها أن حكمة ذلك التيه مقصودة وهي فناء الجيل الذين خرجوا من قبضة الذل والقهر والقوة وتخلقوا به وأفسدوا من عصبيتهم حتى نشأ في ذلك التيه جيل آخر عزيز لا يعرف الأحكام والقهر ولا يسام بالمذلة فنشأت لهم ذلك عصبية أخرى اقتدروا بها علي المطالبة والتغلب‏.‏ ويظهر لك من ذلك أن الأربعين سنة أقل ما يأتي فيها فناء جيل ونشأة جيل آخر‏.‏ سبحان الحكيم العليم

We, on the other hand, were inspired by God. He led us to a science whose truth we ruthlessly set forth. If I have succeeded in presenting the problems of this science exhaustively and in showing how it differs in its various aspects and characteristics from all other crafts, this is due to divine guidance. If, on the other hand, I have omitted some point, or if the problems have got confused with something else, the task of correcting remains for the discerning critic, but the merit is mine since I cleared and marked the way. God guides with His light whom He will.

Ibn Khaldun wanted to discover the underlying causes of this change. He was probably the last great Spanish Faylasuf; his great innovation was to apply the principles of philosophic rationalism to he study of history, hitherto considered to be beneath the notice of a philosopher, because it dealt only with transient, fleeting events instead of eternal truths. But Ibn Khaldun believed that, beneath the flux of historical incidents, universal laws governed the fortunes of society. He decided that it was a strong sense of group solidarity (asibiyyah) that enabled a people to survive and, if conditions were right, to subjugate others. This conquest meant that the dominant group could absorb the resources of the subject peoples, develop a culture and a complex urban life. But as the ruling class became accustomed to a luxurious lifestyle, complacency set in and they began to lose their vigour. They no longer took sufficient heed of their subjects, there was jealousy and infighting and the economy would begin to decline. Thus the state became vulnerable to a new tribal or nomadic group, which was in the first flush of its own asibiyyah, and the whole cycle began again.

Know then that the arbitrary appropriation by the government of men’s property results in the loss of all incentive to gain, when men realize that what they have accumulated will be taken away firom them. A loss of incentive will lead to a slackening in enterprise, the slackening being proportional to the extent and degree of confiscation. Thus if confiscation is widespread, covering all forms of economic activity, there will be a general slackening, owing to the feeling that no branch offers any longer any hope of gain. If however confiscation be mild, there will be only a relatively slight falling off in economic activity. Now the state of a society and the prosperity of business depend on the intensity of human efforts and the search for gain; should, therefore, men slacken in their economic activity the markets would slump and the state of society deteriorate. People would forsake that country and migrate elsewhere in search of gain, the result being a general depopulation and the desertion of cities. And this deterioration in society would be followed by a weakening of the State, for the State is as the Form whose condition follows that of its Matter, Society. . . Oppression ruins society, while the ruin of society leads to the weakening and destruction of the State.

The opinion that the survival of Islam itself depended on the use of military slavery was shared by the great Arab historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun, who lived in North Africa in the fourteenth century, contemporaneously with the Mamluk sultanate in Egypt. In the Muqadimmah, Ibn Khaldun says the following: When the [Abbasid] state was drowned in decadence and luxury and donned the garments of calamity and impotence and was overthrown by the heathen Tatars, who abolished the seat of the Caliphate and obliterated the splendor of the lands and made unbelief prevail in place of belief, because the people of the faith, sunk in self-indulgence, preoccupied with pleasure and abandoned to luxury, had become deficient in energy and reluctant to rally in defense, and had stripped off the skin of courage and the emblem of manhood—then, it was God’s benevolence that He rescued the faith by reviving its dying breath and restoring the unity of the Muslims in the Egyptian realms, preserving the order and defending the walls of Islam. He did this by sending to the Muslims, from this Turkish nation and from among its great and numerous tribes, rulers to defend them and utterly loyal helpers, who were brought from the House of War to the House of Islam under the rule of slavery, which hides in itself a divine blessing. By means of slavery they learn glory and blessing and are exposed to divine providence; cured by slavery, they enter the Muslim religion with the firm resolve of true believers and yet with nomadic virtues unsullied by debased nature, unadulterated with the filth of pleasure, undefiled by the ways of civilized living, and with their ardor unbroken by the profusion of luxury.

The intellect (mind), indeed, is a correct scale. Its indications are completely certain and in no way wrong. However, the intellect should not be used to weigh such matters as the oneness of God, the other world, the truth of prophecy, the real character of the divine attributes, or anything else that lies beyond the level of the intellect. That would mean to desire the impossible. One might compare it with a man who sees a scale in which gold is being weighed, and wants to weigh mountains in it. The (fact that this is impossible) does not prove that the indications of the scale are not true (when it is used for its proper purpose). However, there is a limit at which the intellect must stop. It cannot go beyond its own level. Thus, it cannot comprehend God and His attributes. It is but one of the atoms of the world of existence which results from (God). This shows that those who give the intellect preference over (traditional) information in such matters are wrong, deficient in understanding, and faulty in reasoning. This, then, explains the true situation in this respect.

In the early stages of the state, taxes are light in their incidence, but fetch in a large revenue; in the later stages the incidence of taxation increases while the aggregate revenue falls off. Now where taxes and imposts are light, private individuals are encouraged to engage actively in business; enterprise develops, because business men feel it worth their while, in view of the small share of their profits which they have to give up in the form of taxation. And as business prospers the number of taxes increases and the total yield of taxation grows. As time passes and kings succeed each other, they lose their tribal habits in favour of more civilized ones. Their needs and exigencies grow.... owing to the luxury in which they have been brought up. Hence they impose fresh taxes on their subjects -farmers, peasants, and others subject to taxation; sharply raise the rate of old taxes to increase their yield; and impose sales taxes and octrois, as we shall describe later. These increases grow with the spread of luxurious habits in the state, and the consequent growth in needs and public expenditure, until taxation burdens the subjects and deprives them of their gains. People get accustomed to this high level of taxation, because the increases have come about gradually, without anyone’s being aware of who exactly it was who raised the rates of the old taxes or imposed the new ones. But the effects on business of this rise in taxation make themselves felt. For business men are soon discouraged by the comparison of their profits with the burden of their taxes, and between their output and their net profits. Consequently production falls off, and with it the yield of taxation. The rulers may, mistakenly, try to remedy this decrease in the yield of taxation by raising the rate of the taxes; hence taxes and imposts reach a level which leaves no profits to business men, owing to high costs of production, heavy burden of taxation, and inadequate net profits. This process of higher tax rates and lower yields (caused by the government’s belief that higher rates result in higher returns) may go on until production begins to decline owing to the despair of business men, and to affect population. The main injury of this process is felt by the state, just as the main benefit of better business conditions is enjoyed by it. From this you must understand that the most important factor making for business prosperity is to lighten as much as possible the burden of taxation on business men, in order to encourage enterprise by giving assurance of greater profits.

The opinion that the survival of Islam itself depended on the use of military slavery was shared by the great Arab historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun, who lived in North Africa in the fourteenth century, contemporaneously with the Mamluk sultanate in Egypt.

According to Mustafa Elhussein, secretary of a center for Muslim intellectuals known as the Ibn Khaldun Society, “There is a great deal of bitterness that such groups have tarnished the reputation of mainstream Muslims” because “self-appointed leaders . . . spew hatred toward America and the West and yet claim to be the legitimate

الأول في العمران البشري على الجملة و أصنافه و قسطه من الأرض.

And he (Gabriel) choked me until it became too much for me; then he released me. Then he said, “Read”, and I replied, “I cannot read.” ‘ He did this a second and a third time, as the tradition tells.

The conditions, customs and beliefs of peoples and nations do not indefinitely follow the same pattern and adhere to a constant course. There is rather, change with days and epochs, as well as passing from one state to another ... such is the law of God that has taken place with regard to His subjects.

Wikipedia: Asabiyyah 'Asabiyyah or 'asabiyya … is a concept of social solidarity with an emphasis on unity, group consciousness, and a sense of shared purpose and social cohesion, originally used in the context of tribalism and clannism. Asabiyya is neither necessarily nomadic nor based on blood relations; rather, it resembles a philosophy of classical republicanism. In the modern period, it is generally analogous to solidarity. … The concept was familiar in the pre-Islamic era, but became popularized in Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah, in which it is described as the fundamental bond of human society and the basic motive force of history … Ibn Khaldun argued that a dynasty (or civilization) has within itself the plants of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to emerge on the peripheries of existing empires and use the much stronger asabiyya present in their areas to their advantage, in order to bring about a change in leadership. This implies that the new rulers are at first considered 'barbarians' in comparison to the previous ones. As they establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax, less coordinated, disciplined and watchful, and more concerned with maintaining their new power and lifestyle. Their asabiyya dissolves into factionalism and individualism, diminishing their capacity as a political unit. Conditions are thus created wherein a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control, grow strong, and effect a change in leadership, continuing the cycle.

In business, only a third of family firms make the transition to a second generation; less than ten percent survive into the third generation. The important, North African, political thinker Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) predicted a similar cycle of rise and decline for all Arab dynasties. In his influential book the Muqaddimah or Introduction, with which King Salman is almost certainly familiar, Ibn Khaldun described how Arab dynasties usually last for three generations or 120 years—whichever came first.

মানুষ অভ্যাসের, তার প্রিয় প্রবৃত্তির দাস; এক্ষেত্রে তার প্রকৃতি, তার মানসিকতা কোন কাজেই লাগে না। সুতরাং, সে বিভিন্ন অবস্থায় যে বিষয়কে প্রিয় করে তোলে, তাই তার চরিত্র, শক্তি, অভ্যাস, এমনকি আরও গভীরভাবে তার প্রকৃতিতে রূপান্তরিত হয়ে যায়।

মানুষ স্বভাবতই প্রশংসাকাতর এবং পার্থিব সম্মান ও সম্পদ লাভে একান্ত আগ্রহী। এ কারণে তারা সৎগুণ অবলম্বন বা সৎলোকের প্রতি শ্রদ্ধার ভাব খুব কমই পোষণ করে।

সাধারণভাবে অধিকাংশ শাসন ব্যবস্থাই অত্যাচারী হয়ে থাকে। কারণ নির্ভেজাল ন্যায়বিচার একমাত্র ধর্মানুমোদিত খেলাফতেই পাওয়া সম্ভব; অথচ তা একান্তই স্বল্পকাল স্থায়ী।

অবশ্য অভ্যাসই মানুষকে তার স্বাভাবিক প্রবৃত্তির পরিবর্তে অস্বাভাবিককে প্রিয় হিসেবে গ্রহণ করতে বাধ্য করে। কেননা মানুষ তার পিতা-মাতার নয়, অভ্যাসের সন্তান।

Blind trust in tradition is an inherited trait in human beings.

أن المغلوب مولع أبدا بالاقتداء بالغالب في شعاره وزيه و نحلته و سائر أحواله و عوائده

All these acute observers wondered at the horror that had, wrote Ibn Khaldun, ‘swallowed many of the good things of civilization and wiped them out’. Petrarch asked, ‘How will posterity believe that there has been a time when…well nigh the whole globe remained without inhabitants? Houses vacant, cities deserted, countryside neglected and a fearful and universal solitude over the whole earth?…Oh happy people of the future, who haven’t known these miseries and perchance will class our testimony with the fables.’ The Destructive Death inspired a new sense of God’s higher power, but also an appreciation of the value of humanity itself, God’s greatest creation. Petrarch, looking back at the light of classical culture, called the intervening centuries ‘the Dark Ages’. He was heralding a new lightness – the celebration of learning and beauty, including that of the human body, that became the Renaissance.

For Ibn Khaldun, asabiyah meant “that emotional attachment to a group which causes men to overcome their selfish aims to act in the collective interest.

The Arabs,” Ibn Khaldun also writes, “barely coming out of their nomadic existence and having become spectators of the way of life in a sedentary civilization, were too busy … because of their position in the armies … even to pay attention to scientific knowledge. They made up the highest class in the state and made up the armed force that sustained the empire; they were the only depositors of authority and, what is more, they despised culture.

They tore down many others to use their superior construction materials, including marble, gold, and silver (traditional Arabic architecture used poor construction materials such as plaster, wood, and brick, evident in Andalusian palaces such as the Alhambra, and this is one of the reasons why Ibn Khaldun claimed that the constructions of the Arabs were not solidly built and quickly fell into ruins).

أمير المؤمنين أبي الحسن ابن السادة الأعلام من ملوك بني

Where there is little acquaintance with knowledge mistakes do not bring remorse. Where there is little remorse, there can be no wisdom. Where there is no wisdom, life has little meaning.

A tradição africana recorria a um conselho de anciãos ou, por vezes, a uma matriarca, para decidir a sucessão. Isto poderá parecer uma vantagem sobre a sucessão automática pela linhagem, visto excluir os candidatos mais estúpidos e fracos. No entanto, deu também origem a desavenças sobre o vasto território de um império que se revelaram impossíveis de resolver. E, segundo outro historiador árabe, Ibn Khaldun, nem sempre tivera como resultado bons reis. Um dos antecessores de Musa «era fraco de espírito e costumava disparar flechas contra o seu povo, matando súbditos por desporto. Eles então revoltaram-se e mataram-no».

Muslims pursued knowledge to the edges of the earth. Al-Biruni, the central Asian polymath, is arguably the world's first anthropologist. The great linguists of Iraq and Persia laid the foundations a thousand years ago for subjects only now coming to the forefront in language studies. Ibn Khaldun, who is considered the first true scientific historian, argued hundreds of years ago that history should be based upon facts and not myths or superstitions. The great psychologists of Islam known as the Sufis wrote treatise after treatise that rival the most advanced texts today on human psychology. The great ethicists and exegetes of Islam's past left tomes that fill countless shelves in the great libraries of the world, and many more of their texts remain in manuscript form. In the foreword of "Being Muslim. A Practical Guide" by Dr. Asad Tarsin.

. But things are not what they seem. The normal Arabic word for “philosophy” was and is falasifa and a “philosopher” is a faylasuf. Plato was a faylasuf and so were Aristotle, Avicenna, Averroes, and al-Farabi. But the word that Rosenthal has translated as “philosophy” in the passage quoted above is hikma, and hikma has a subtly different range of meaning.

It can be translated as “wisdom,” or “what prevents one from ignorant behaviour.” Hikma described those sciences that did not derive from the Qur’an and hadith. It was also used to describe a body of literature that offered aphorisms, wise counsel, and improving examples taken from the lives of kings, sages, and (yes) philosophers.

the fantastical and damned Iram City of the Columns reappeared in some of the stories of the twentieth-century horror writer H. P. Lovecraft

contrast with, say, Whig historians, such as Macaulay in nineteenth-century England, is striking. The Arab historians had no belief in the progress of humanity. Instead they waited for God to declare the End of Time.

Ibn Khaldun, though a conservative in certain aspects of his belief, was nevertheless dismayed by the negative attitudes towards learning among the Muslims. He writes: When the Muslims conquered Persia and came upon an indescribably large number of books and scientific papers, Sa'd bin Abi Waqqas wrote to Umar bin al-Khattab asking him for permission to take them and distribute them as booty among the Muslims. On that occasion, Umar wrote him: 'Throw them in the water. If what they contain is right guidance, God has given us better guidance. If it is error, God has protected us against it.