Guglielmo Ferrero (1896), Ibn Kaldoun: an Arab Sociologist of the Fourteenth Century

Abstract

Ferrero introduces the life of ibn Khaldun and his Prolegomena to History, relying on William Mac Guckin de Slane's French translation of the work. Ferrero is one of the first Europeans to define ibn Khaldun as a sociologist and an original theorist of the concept of civilization as a sociological category. Ferrero's attention to the Khaldunian notion of the “spirit of the body” helps us understand what drives conflict and social change when nomadic and barbarous tribes come into contact with civilized peoples. Ferrero admired and saw contemporary value in ibn Khaldun's analysis of the mechanism behind the rise and fall of empires. Nations and groups are motivated by the zeal to obtain and protect their luxuries; heavy taxation to maintain the wealthy classes lays the ground for corruption and discontent, making societies vulnerable to invasion and control from an outside group, thus regenerating the cycle of civilizational history again.