Economics of Ibn Khaldun: Revisited

A close look at the writings of the Middle Eastern and North African scholars who lived in the Middle Ages (roughly between A.D. 476-1500) reveals an immense body of theoretical knowledge pertaining to the humanities, and behavioral and social sciences. A partial list of the scholars who wrote on these issues includes names such as Abu Yusuf (8th century), Abul-Fadl Al-Dimishgi (9th century), Al-Farabi (10th century), Al-Ghazali (11th century), Nasiruddin Tusi (13th century), Ibn Taimiya (14th century), and Ibn Khaldun (14th century). In this tradition, Abdel Rahman Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406), who was a diplomat, jurist, historian, politician, sociologist, and economist is the most prominent figure. Unlike the writings of his predecessors and contemporaries, his writings on economic topics transcend the tradition of making disjointed remarks on and isolated references to important questions of political economy. Ibn Khaldun's rationalistic approach to economic reasoning, his power of abstraction, and his pioneering works in developing economic models are unparalleled among the writers of Medieval times. Ibn Khaldun was introduced to the West in the early 19th century when some of his writings were translated into French by Silvestre de Sacy in 1806 (Schmidt 1967). In the field of economics, primarily due to the efforts of Nashat (1945), Issawi (1950), Spengler (1964), Boulakia (1971), Essid (1987), and Kuran (1987), Ibn Khaldun is relatively well known. Nashat's work is an abridged version of his dissertation in Arabic which was presented to the faculty of the d'Economie Politique at the University of Fouad el Awal in Egypt. Nashat makes an effort to appraise Khaldun's economics in light of economic theory known to him in the 1940's. His analysis, however, contains certain errors, omissions, and misinterpretations in evaluating Khaldun's economics. Issawi's treatment of Ibn Khaldun's economic ideas is mainly for