From Sahara to Gobi

As I've been appointed mod without being a common user of the steppe forum, I thought it fit to present my views on history via a post about one of the writers I admire the most: Abou Zid Ribad al-Roukhimini Moukhamad  Bin  Khaldun al-Khadharimy, better known as Ibn Khaldun. He was a Berber stateman and historian who arguably has created modern social sciences. For instance, he had a lasting influence on the Annales school of thought via Fernand Braudel who was a great admirer of his work.
Ibn Khaldun most important contribution is al-Muqqadimah, an history of North Africa written in 1377, whose introduction, al-Kitab al-Iba, the book of advices, gives his methodology. Ibn Khaldun had a moral and cyclical vision of history. He divided the people between nomads and urbans and assumed the rulers and their dynasty had a crucial part to play.
In his view, because of luxury rulers were banned to become weak and feminine. On the countrary, nomads because of their lifestyle remained strong and pure. After a short while, necessarily, the nomads would overtake the urban dynasty and impose a new ruler. But after three generations, the new dynasty would become weak as well and would be overtaken by new nomads.
Ibn Khaldun assumed this system of selection allowed to preserve a overall well balanced government between nomadic strenght and urban refinement. But ultimately, these violent process weakened the Muslim nations and they were forced out of the sea by the Christians.

What Ibn Khaldun brilliantly discribed can be easily expended beyond his beloved North Africa. In Europe for instance, the role of the nomads was played by the highlanders. Just think about the Swiss, the Samites or the Scotts terrorizing the lowlanders and always seen as the best soldiers. But nowhere does his system applies better than in Central Asia.
The point I'm trying to make is that many Steppes forumers are concerned by questions such as who did it, "Uzbeck or Kirgiz?" more than why did they do it. Are questions such as "was this tribe 100% turkic?" really important? Look at Ibn Khaldun, the topic he was considering was plagued by tribal, religious and ethnic divisions but he managed to find some coherence in all that mess.
What were the structures of the nomadic lives? What endogenous changes affected the steppe peoples? How did they react to exogenous shocks?

M

Difference being that Ibn Khaldun was a groundbreaking theorician while Ibn Battuta was a traveler, interesting indeed, but merely following a centuries old tradition in the Muslim world.

Seems that you missed the point.

Besides, ultimately Ibn Khaldun was desapointed by Timur.


Edited by Maharbbal - 25-Feb-2007 at 15:54