Christian Arabs (about 800’s A.D.) had translated the works of Plato and Aristotle into Arabic. Later in the history of thought, specifically, in the 12th century, Arabic-speaking Jews translated Greek and Arabic works of science and philosophy from Arabic into Latin. The Aristotelian literature, i.e., a variety of Aristotle’s major works had become known in Europe fthrough the translations from Greek into Arabic (though translations were soon made direct into Latin from Greek); and had been accompanied by translations of Muslim philosophers’ works in Spain (Al-Andalus). Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi, Abu ‘Ali Husayn Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina and Abu’l-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd (of Cordoba) were well known in the universities of medieval Europe under the Latin forms of their names, namely, Alfarabi/Alfaribius, Avicenna and Averroës.

It could be argued that a majority of the literature on political philosophy in the Islamic world is based on the relations between ethics and politics, as well as idealized criteria for rulerse.g. philosopher and/or prophet-kings (modelled on the personality of Muhammad the prophet). Especially, in the early middle ages, Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna-both from Transoxiana-supported the ideal of philosopher/prophet-king, an ethically perfect individual, as the head of virtuous polity. Although Al-Fârâbî’s political philosophy takes some inspiration from Plato, it transforms the legacy in important and interesting ways to reflect a very different world and adapt it to this world. In other words, instead of a monolingual and monoethnic city state, Al-Fârâbî’s vision suggests a vast multicultural, multilingual, and multi-religious empire; despite the fact that city (madinah)-adapted from Plato’s polis- is a dominant term in his political philosophy.

Al-Fârâbî’s written works on politics-as well as his other works on philosophy- appear to have a familiarity with Plato and Aristotle. However, when political philosophy is the case, his direct resources of inspiration are as follows: 1. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; 2. Plato’s Republic; and, 3. Aristotle’s Politics, which was only partially available in Arabic. However, his major works The Perfect State, The Political Regime or The Principles of Beings begin with a metaphysical part presented as a descendant of Neo-Platonic legacy followed by a second part dealing with the organization of the city or state and do not treat of being and unity as the most universal notions.

Avicenna is considered to be a descendant of Alfarabi as he continued the Neoplatoic emanationist scheme of existence. In contrast with the classical Muslim theologians, he rejected creation ex nihilo and argued that cosmos has no beginning but is a natural logical product of the divine One; which would later be attacked by Al-Ghazâlî. The superabundant, pure Good- i.e. the One cannot fail to produce an ordered and good cosmos that does not succeed him in time. The cosmos succeeds God merely in logical order and in existence (Rizvi, n.d.). As Dimitri Gutas suggested, Avicenna’s system of thought, “…In its integral and comprehensive articulation of science and philosophy, it represents the culmination of the Hellenic tradition, defunct in Greek after the sixth century, reborn in Arabic in the 9th”.

When Islamic civilization is the case, political issues are largely based on the Quran and sunnah. The possible ways of inferring and judging what must be done are shown through the traditional science of law (ilm al-fıqh); and the executers of the law-i.e. the rulers/imams/caliphsshould have substantiv  knowledge and a strong will so that they judge with justice. So, unlike the West where the realms of state and religion are departed these two realms are intertwined in Islam; even today.

Conditio sine qua non is a Latin term most frequently used in logic; and it means the condition in the absence of which something cannot be: So, politics cannot be understood without any reference to fiqh.

The political writings of Al-Mâwardi may be seen as the sum of two distinct styles: 1. The format focusing on the individual ruler as a social figure, as well as his ideal characteristics and lessons learned from the preceding generations, the “Mirrors for Princes” format, which has an important role in the advising tradition in Islam (nasîhatnâmah); 2. The format in which the theory of the caliphate (imâmah) is put forward, which is more complicated in structure and focused on issues of government. Within the context of the first style, it is convenient to count The Advice to Kings (Nasîhat Al-Muluk); and within the second, Al-Ahkâm As-Sultâniyyah.

Fuqaha is the plural form of faqih. Faqih is the person who either is specialized in the Islamic science of law (ilm al-fıqh) or the execution of law.

The philosophy of Ibn Rushd (or Averroës, as he was known in Latin) could be argued to share with Al-Fârâbî’s motivations in some respects: attaining happiness and human perfection while safeguarding the continuity of the transmission of philosophy. Averroës had begun with the contention that the study of philosophy was commanded by shari‘ah. Many Quranic verses, such as “Reflect, you have a vision” (59: 2) and “they give thought to the creation of heaven and earth” (3: 191), command human intellectual reflection upon God and his creation. This is best done by demonstration, drawing inferences from accepted premises, as performed by both lawyers and philosophers. Since such obligation is a part of the religion, then a person who has the capacity of “natural intelligence” and “religious integrity” must begin to study philosophy (Hillier, n.d.). The fundamental assumption of Averroës on the relation between philosophy and religion is expressed in Fasl al-Maqâl as follows: “…Since this Law (shari‘ah) is true and calls to the reflection leading to cognition of the truth, we, the Muslim community, know firmly that demonstrative reflection cannot lead to something differing with what is set down in the Law. For the truth does not contradict the truth [al-khaqq lâ yuddâd al-khaqq]; rather, it agrees with and bears witness to it”. 

Averroës, different from Al-Fârâbî, evaluates the relationship between philosophers and nonphilosophers as static.

When we quickly look through the history of thought in the Islamic world after the death of Averroës (1198), we see that the Islamic civilization, in terms of flourishing philosophical thought and/or originality/ productivity, has started to vanish. This applies to the time period of Ibn Khaldûn’s lifetime as well, as regards Andalus and North Africa, along with the political and civil life. De Boer argues that, this vanishing is due to the fact that philosophy had gradually been swept aside and left as a study which had no influence in culture and in other affairs in life long before the battles lost against the Christians in Andalus (ibid). Consequently, continues De Boer, both the material existence-i.e. the sovereignty, and cultural aspects of the Islamic civilization were in decline; and, during Ibn Khaldûn’s early childhood and youth, the Islamic civilization in the West suffered a severe instability. According to Marshal Hodgson, it is possible to talk about a period of collapse in the Islamic societies after the Mongolian conquests in 1259, under the circumstances of very little renovation or progress in culture.

The term ‘Maghrib’ in Muqaddimah refers to the following regions in North Africa: Ifrikiyyah, or Maghrib Al-Ednâ, to Tunis, El-Magribu’l-Ewsât, to Algeria; and, el-Maghribu’l-Aksâ, to Morocco.

The Muqaddimah is the sum of the Foreword, the Introduction and the First Book of Kitâba’l-Ibar, which Ibn Khaldûn intended as a comprehensive history of world civilizations. However, the analyses and the visionary thoughts on politics, civilization and history have overshadowed what were written in the remaining of Kitâba’l-Ibar; moreover, the studies on Ibn Khaldûn’s thought after his death (1406) have focused more on The Muqaddimah. In the Introduction of The Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldûn started with setting forth his evaluation on the science of history; and in the First Book, with elaborating the following subjects and the reasons underlying them in general: the nature of ‘umrân in the world, and the rural life without the nomadic-settled distinction (bedâwah), sedentary culture and urban life (khadârah), taghallub (sovereignty over winning wars/battles), income, making a living, sciences and education, crafts, etc. This general content was separated into six chapters afterwards; and each subject, was elaborated and discussed in ‘encyclopedical’ details, so to speak.

The first chapter consists of a description-in general framework- of the human civilization, its classes and
the places occupied by those civilizations on earth. In the second chapter, the rural societies and their civilizations, i.e. the lives of the societies making a living on agriculture and stockbreeding in rather primitive ways, regardless of the fact that they are nomads or settled as villages, are taken up (In Ibn Khaldûn’s words, ‘badawî ‘umrân’). The third chapter-which also could be read as Ibn Khaldûn’s political theory/philosophy- is an analysis of the idea(s) of state, dynasties, caliphate, rulership and the stages in the organization of state as well as positions in bureaucracy and their duties. The fourth chapter reflects Ibn Khaldûn’s elaboration of the urban societies and their civilizations –i.e. ‘khadarî ‘umrân’, as well as cities and sedentary cultures. The fifth chapter briefly outlines Ibn Khaldûn’s theory of economics; and the majority of the chapter consists of the ways of making a living, in both stages of ‘umrân. The sixth and the last chapter covers an analysis of the sciences, how they are acquired, and transferred to posterity through education.

When Ibn Khaldûn took ‘umrân together with aspects like ‘human civilization’ and ‘social organization’, he equipped this concept with a specifical and technical meaning, and, used it in a way to refer to basic events arising from human beings’ lives and organization as societies, but more than that, to institutions. In The Muqaddimah, ‘umrân bears the following meanings: 1. To settle down/live at a given place, 2. Visiting a location, 3. Building up a construction (‘imar’), 4. To be settled with, as humans and animals with regard to the place itself, to be frequently visited, be held in good condition, 5. To take care
of a given place, cultivate. This last one enables us to interpret ‘umrân with regard to progress as well. For Ibn Khaldûn, using ‘umrân within this context also paves the way to justify that development and progress in civilizations is good. However, Ibn Khaldûn did not conceive of progress in connection with a single aspect; rather, he argued that progress should be supplied with aspects like morals, state, society,
population and should be sustainable.

The impact of The Muqaddimah on later thought owes much to the highly sophisticated conceptual framework involved in the investigation of the patterns of social life and their implications in history and politics. When it comes to political thought and civilization, we should pay some attention to both what asabiyyah, mulk, and ‘umrân refer to, and, how they are mutually related in Ibn Khaldûn’s thought.

The fundamental aspect which makes room for the existence of the organization of state-or mulk, according to Ibn Khaldûn- is asabiyyah. The following signify the determining role of asabiyyah on ‘umrân: 1. States-especially the great ones- depend upon ruling through lineage and/or alliance; 2. The great state is the one in which rulers succeed one another in a long period of time; this is the fundamental rule in sovereignty and applies until the decay; 3. The rightful ownership is taken from the hands of those who lost it through the asabiyyah possessed. Furthermore, justice cannot be the case fully in the absence of asabiyyah; because asabiyyah paves the way for the realization of human activities which are agreed to be useful for the society, as well as for supplying the demands remaining outside the scope of mutual protection and maintenance, which also contributes to the development of crafts; hence, economy.

The goal of ‘umrân is sedentary culture/civilization and economical wealth. Just like in the life cycles of the living beings in nature, ‘umrân, too, starts to get old and deteriorates after reaching its goal.

Ricâl refers to high officials, dignitaries, i.e. to men of importance/high bureaucracy in the Islamic tradition (including the Ottoman Empire).

The One (to hen, in Greek) is the term used by Plotinus in his Enneads. The Islamic Aristotelians, especially Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna, had used this term in their metaphysics to refer to “Allah”.

Related with the social side of religion, Avicenna added a fourth tract to practical philosophy (in addition to ethics, household management, and politics), which he called “the discipline of legislating”. The prophet, through his supremely developed ability to find out the middle terms of syllogisms, is able to possess all knowledge (all the intelligibles actually thought by the active intellect) “either at once or nearly so”. This acquisition “is not an uncritical reception [of this knowledge] merely on authority, but rather occurs in an order which includes the middle terms: for beliefs accepted on authority concerning those things which are known only through their causes possess no intellectual certainty”. With this secure and syllogistically verified knowledge, the prophet then is in a position to legislate and regulate social life as well as have a legitimate ground for gaining consent. The subjects of all parts of practical philosophy are covered briefly also at the very end of The Cure.