"Ibn al-Azraq (d. 896/1491) was a renowned Andalusian jurist (faqih) and statesman who lived during the final period of the Nasrid emirate of Granada. His most famous work, Bada'i' al-Silk fi Taba'i' al-Mulk (Unprecedented Lines about the Nature of Political Rule), is a political treatise that builds upon Ibn Khaldun's (d. 808/1406) social theory ('ilm al-'umran). In The grand critic of Ibn Khaldun Elena Sahin critically analyses the major aspects of Ibn al-Azraq's political thought. In this contributionon the field of the history of Islamic political thought, Elena Sahin demonstrates that while Ibn al-Azraq integrates the thrust of Ibn Khaldun's approach, Ibn al-Azraq's work should be regarded as part of a larger conversation amongst various scholars, engaging, for example with the Andalusian jurist al-Shatibi's (d. 790/1388) theory of Maqasid al-Shari'a. Widening the analysis of Ibn al-Azraq's work illuminates that Ibn al-Azraq's political theory was in opposition to that of Ibn Khaldun, and thus gives us a better understanding of the dynamic debates within Andalusian political thought"--
In The Grand Critic of Ibn Khaldun Elena Sahin critically analyses the major aspects of Ibn al-Azraq’s (d. 896/1491) political thought as presented in Bada i? al-Silk fi ?aba i? al-Mulk (Unprecedented Lines about the Nature of Political Rule).
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Current State of Research
2 The Two Modern Editions and Extant Manuscripts of Badāʾiʿ al-Silk
3 Is Badāʾiʿ al-Silk a Piece of Advice Literature?
4 The Labyrinth of Ibn Khaldūn Research
5 The Cambridge School’s Precepts: A Major Source of Methodological Inspiration
6 Studying Non-Western Political Thought
7 Technical Clarifications
1 BS and the Muqaddima Reception Therein
1 Ibn al-Azraq in the Context of His Time
2 Ibn al-Azraq’s Badāʾiʿ al-Silk—A Theory of State and Statecraft Based on Islamic Normativity (sharʿ)
3 From the Muqaddima to Badāʾiʿ al-Silk fī Ṭabāʾiʿ al-Mulk
2 Cornerstones of Ibn al-Azraq’s Political Theory
1 State Formation and State Disintegration in Ibn al-Azraq’s Political Thought
2 Ibn al-Azraq’s Different Categories of Political Rule
3 Arkān al-mulk (the Pillars of Institutional Rule): The Governmental, Religious, and Military Class as the Guardians of Continuity
3 The Relation between Islamic Normativeness (sharʿ) and Political Rule in Ibn al-Azraq’s Political Thought
1 Ibn al-Azraq’s All-Encompassing Notion of sharʿ with regard to Political Rule and Statecraft
2 Construing an All-Encompassing Notion of sharʿ with regard to Political Rule in Relation to Ibn Khaldūn’s Social Theory
3 Conclusions: Ibn al-Azraq’s BS—Bringing Together al-Shāṭibī’s Theory of maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa and Ibn Khaldūn’s ʿilm al-ʿumrān in a Theory of State and Statecraft
4 Summary and Outlook
Bibliography
Index
Elena ahin, Dr. phil. (2022), is an independent scholar of Islamic political thought receiving her doctorate from the Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. She held positions in the department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, was a research fellow at the Orient Institut Beirut and was granted a doctoral fellowship by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung.
