Ibn Khaldūn's "Muqaddimah," the introduction to his universal history, founded what he called 'ilm al-'umrān, a systematic science of society and civilization. Its central concept, 'aṣabiyyah (group solidarity), explains the rise and fall of dynasties as a recurring cycle in which strong kin-based solidarity builds states, while the settled luxury of urban life erodes that solidarity over roughly three or four generations until the dynasty is overthrown by a fresh, more cohesive group.
Intellectual setting
Ibn Khaldūn wrote the Muqaddimah while in political retreat in Algeria in the 1370s after a turbulent career serving multiple rival Maghrebi and Andalusian courts, drawing on his direct experience of the instability of North African dynastic politics to generalize a theory of political rise and decline.
Key ideas
'Aṣabiyyah and the cycle of dynasties
Ibn Khaldūn argued that strong group solidarity, typically rooted in tribal or kin ties, is the force that builds and sustains states, but that the comfort and luxury of settled urban rule gradually weakens this solidarity across generations, making the dynasty vulnerable to conquest by a group with fresher, stronger 'aṣabiyyah.
'Ilm al-'umrān, the science of civilization
Ibn Khaldūn proposed a systematic, causal method for analyzing social and political organization - covering economic production, urbanization, and group psychology - rather than merely narrating historical events, effectively founding a proto-sociological science of society.
Legacy
Ibn Khaldūn is widely regarded as a founder of historiography, sociology, and economic thought avant la lettre; his cyclical theory of dynastic change influenced later Ottoman statecraft theory and continues to be cited in modern social science as an early systematic theory of social change.