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Ibn Khaldun’s social inquiry
Reading guide · 1 reading
The Muqaddimah asks how political authority is established and maintained. The reading places this inquiry in Ibn Khaldun’s experience of North Africa and Muslim Spain, and keeps its religious setting in view.
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Solidarity and changing power
Trace how mutual support can establish a ruler and how success can change that relationship. Then ask what evidence would support the explanation in a particular case.
Guided course · Module 8 · Lesson 41
Can a society explain its own changes?
Ibn Khaldun explains how solidarity, asabiyya, can carry a group to power, and how success changes a ruler’s relationships. What evidence could support this explanation of political change?