Episode 4: Ibn Khaldun and Early Muslim Strategic Thought

Like many other Muslim works of the Middle Ages, the two works were greatly influenced by Greek and Roman literature that had become available in translation or, to very educated scholars, in the original texts.

Both the anonymous mid-9th century manual on war and the works of Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) show an aversion to simplistic principles devised for the conduct of war and emphasise the need to tailor responses to each conflict with its own configuration. Ibn Khaldun especially emphasises the need to factor in contingency and unpredictable events, and that, by using their own discernment and reason, the commander must seek to make the best of each situation.

Thus, it is not surprising that both authors have no time for any notion of fate or kismet, but focus instead on the commander’s skills and talents, and on the ability of humans to influence events in the interest of protecting and extending a virtuous Islamic Empire – a tolerant republic modelled on ancient Persia in which multiple civilisations could thrive.

Professor Malik Mufti completed a PhD at Harvard and teaches at Tufts University in the US. He is the author of Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (1996), Daring and Caution in Turkish Strategic Culture (2009), and The Art of Jihad: Realism in Islamic Political Thought (2019).

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Ibn Khaldun's Al-Muqaddima, trs. by Franz Rosenthal in three volumes (New York: Pantheon Books, 1958). Also online at: http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/index.htm.

Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj, Al-Jihad: Al-Farida al-Gha'iba [Jihad: The Neglected Duty], translated into English in Johannes J G Jansen, The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat's Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 159–234.

Yasin Suwayd, Al-Fann al-Askari al-Islami: Usuluhu wa Masadiruhu [Islamic Mililtary Science: Its Foundations and Sources] (Beirut: Sharikat al-Matbu`at lil-Tawzi` wal-Nashr, 1988).

Malik Mufti, ‘The Art of Jihad’ [on the Anon.: Mukhtasar Siyasat al-Hurub], History of Political Thought, Vol. 28 No. 2 (Summer 2007).

Malik Mufti, ‘Jihad as Statecraft: Ibn Khaldun on the Conduct of War and Empire’, History of Political Thought, Vol. 30 No. 3 (Autumn 2009).

Malik Mufti, The Art of Jihad: Realism in Islamic Political Thought (State University of New York, 2019).