La stabilizzazione razionale dell’instabilità politica nel nuovo “senso profondo della storia” di Ibn Khaldun

In 1377, at a moment of intellectual retreat from the burdens of political life, in a world marked by deep crisis and instability, the proto-sociologist Ibn Khaldun wrote the massive seven-volume history called Kitab al'ibar (book of lessons from history). Even if this work sought to revolutionize the structure and style of historical inquiry itself, and consequently also its function, heading to sociology, it took a long time for it to emerge out of the shadows, even in the Islamic world itself. The working hypothes in this essay is that its huge and innovative effort must have come in direct response to a deeply felt need to make intelligible the apparently chaotic world of his time.