CONTENTS OF VOL. 34, No. 4, 2009 |
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AHMED GUNNY: The Role Of Nineteenth-Century French Scholars In Rediscovering And Assessing Ibn Khaldūn ABSTRACT: Few Arab-Muslim writers command as much respect in the contemporary world as Ibn Khaldūn (1332-1406), the Tunisian philosopher and historian. So much has been written about him in traditional publications and on the web that it is by no means easy to offer a worthwhile contribution in a short article. Yet there are aspects of his work that need further exploration. This is what this article attempts to do by looking at some of the ways Ibn Khaldūn was used in the 19th century. It is not primarily a study of him in his relation to sociological theory, the theory of state or colonial politics. It rather seeks to explain what part 19th century Orientalists, particularly French, played in discovering and making him accessible to a wider French reading public and why the Muqaddima, the first volume of his universal history, the Kitab al‘Ibar, received from the 19th century much greater acclaim than some of the later volumes. It also aims to contribute to the lively debate on the wider question of Orientalism. To make clearer the general introduction to the reception and translation history of the Kitab al‘Ibar in France, it places some of Ibn Khaldūn’s ideas in context.
HARRY T NORRIS: Mauritanian Medicine ABSTRACT: The Mauritanian tabib may be both shrewd and effective. Striking ideas are frequently expounded by scholars who make no special claim to medical skills and whose acquaintance with medicine is subsidiary to their claim to speak with authority as jurists or as theologians. In fact, no clearly defined line divides the tabib from the murabit and if, by and large, the former is far rarer in the region than the latter, in a sense every scholar of the Zawiya academic fraternity may be a doctor, if he is called upon to undertake rites or ceremonies to banish evil or otherwise achieve a supernatural deliverance, or in some way heal a man’s body or his mind. In acting thus he is not overstepping professional etiquette. The academic search of the tabib is pursued in two directions: in reading and absorbing the Islamic sciences which he discovers in his manuscripts; and in acquiring a practical knowledge of his desert habitat – its plants, its animal life, and its mineral properties – and observing the reaction of his fellow Moors to climatic change or to the ill-effects of air, water or food in their seasonal migrations.
AZIZ AL–AZMEH: Bibliography Of Ibn Khaldūn ABSTRACT: This bibliography was originally published in Aziz Al-Azmeh, Ibn Khaldūn in Modern Scholarship, London 1981. Although this work was published more than 28 years ago, it is still the fullest reference work available on Ibn Khaldūn.
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