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 DOI: 10.1177/0040571X10391843

2011 114: 101TheologyJohn Kennedy

Prophets armed: Muhammad Ibn Khaldun and Niccolò Machiavelli  

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Theology

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DOI: 10.1177/0040571X10391843

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Article

Prophets armed:Muhammad Ibn Khaldunand Niccolo Machiavelli

John KennedyMethodist minister

Abstract

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) and Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) lived more than a

century apart. Ibn Khaldun’s intellectual formation was complex, but his central beliefs

were simple. He held that the glory of God was celebrated in the continual advance of

Islam through conquest and through competition between Muslim aspirants to achieve

this aim. Machiavelli was also born into a conflict-torn world in which Christian ideals

and reasons of state lived uneasily. Their thought is contrasted.

Keywords

conflict, Ibn Khaldun, Islam, Machiavelli

Two leading thinkers of their age were Abd-al-Rahman Abu Zayd ibn Muhammadibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun and Niccolo Machiavelli. Of equal interest is thecontrast in worldview between these two thinkers and the way in which theyresponded with such marked differences in their settings. It is partly true thatIbn Khaldun needs to be recovered for a new generation of theologians.Equally, the religious motivation of Machiavelli must also be delineated. Boththinkers have an empirical mode of approach, but each also holds powerful reli-gious convictions. Both lived in societies that were continually embattled. IbnKhaldun glorified religious conquest as wholly in keeping with the tenets ofIslam. Machiavelli looked for an end to constant strife but desired above all thatthe Church would practise peace rather than simply mouth the texts that called forit. It is important to outline these differences.

Both are controversialists, but Machiavelli is more mischievously so. Everybodyhas heard of Machiavelli, almost nobody of Ibn Khaldun. Their significance liespartly in the turbulent nature of their times, but it is chiefly founded on theirattempts to make empirical judgements on those times. Each was an experienced

Corresponding author:

John Kennedy, Methodist minister

Email: john.kennedy@waitrose.com

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public official. Ibn Khaldun travelled widely as a magistrate, from Granada toDamascus, a Berber in an Arab world. Machiavelli remained a short walk fromFlorence Cathedral. He saw it even in his hilltop exile, just ten kilometres away.Each endured a historic crisis; Ibn Khaldun survived his, Machiavelli did not. Eachhad a distinctive approach to religion in an age of faith.

Ibn Khaldun: Victim to perdition

Islam in the Middle East is seen as a relentlessly aggressive force, its successes markedby advancing boundaries over a thousand years. Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah:An Introduction to History, tells the story from a Muslim perspective. He acknowl-edges the God-given pattern of advance. He knew the disaster of the Reconquistain Spain. That country suffered a forceful campaign of recovery, which saw the fallof Seville in 1248, leaving only Granada to fly the banner of Islam. A centurylater, the lesson was clear to Ibn Khaldun. Islam appeared to be in continual decline.He points out how early this occurred in the Islamic period, from Abu Bakr around630 CE to ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib around 660. He has a laconic comment:

Somebody asked ‘Ali: ‘Why do the people disagree concerning you and why did they

not disagree concerning Abu Bakr and ‘Umar?’ Ali replied: ‘because Abu Bakr and

‘Umar were in charge of men like me, and I today am in charge of men like you!’ He

referred to the restraining influence of Islam.1

This ‘restraining influence’ simply meant uniting the warring Arabs of Islam as aforce of righteousness, eschewing all selfish or sectarian motives. The struggleshould continue, but now it must be about the mission of Islam.

Ibn Khaldun gives a complex empirical account of his society. He has an intrigu-ing discussion on the merits of Aristotle and Avicenna.2 But his central beliefs aresimple. Islam needs to show the unique truth of God’s universal power through thewitness of conquest. Once the spoils are shared, however, the aggressors tend torelax into luxury. But there is always a supply of hungry, violent people whobelieve their depredations to be divinely justified. That was so throughout theperiod of the Caliphate, as S. E. Finer testifies in his History of Government. TheCaliphate struggled to remain intact, but conflict continued at its periphery, focus-ing on the need to pursue justice against the unbeliever. By 1150, the immense forceof the Crusades was resisted, but the successors to the Caliphate, the Seljuk Turks,wilted under the power of Timur in 1400. It is only with the coming of theOttomans, just after Ibn Khaldun’s time, that the provinces were tamed.3

Ibn Khaldun had taken part in the religiously motivated uprising of 1360. Heknew that the means of conquest are there for whoever risks grasping them. Heclaimed that what is needed above all is the sense of ‘asabiya, the kind of groupfeeling, or solidarity, that creates victory. This is a sharper notion than mere con-sensus. Solidarity, in contrast, is ideologically shaped. When deployed in battle, itholds death and wounds in contempt, reckoning only victory as the greater glory.

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Ibn Khaldun recognizes that the term has many sources, but it becomes specialin the case of Islam; there, it has the general property of utility and the specificvalue of truth. A veteran dissident, he has a sharply negative attitude to like-minded folk; insurgency always carries risks, and the combination of force andsolidarity can usually be justified only with hindsight. Pretence is disastrous:

If someone merely pretends to achieve religious reforms in order to gain political

leadership, he deserves to . . . fall victim to perdition. Religious reforms are a divine

matter that materializes only with God’s pleasure and support, through sincere devo-

tion to Him and in view of good intentions towards Muslims.4

The situation remained dynamic, with competing Arab tribes seeking to fulfiltheir God-given mandate. This creed had certain sustainability: a predatory beliefis likely to succeed if it requires skill and valour, which are consequently rewardedwith plunder. Both these conditions appeared to obtain for more than a millen-nium. The original Arab force appeared to be continually renewed by a cycle ofcivil war, the promise of plunder and religious conviction. But the Arab forcefaltered from around 1000 CE, allied by the Seljuk Turks, among others. They inturn collapsed under an eastern threat in 1400, and the final conquest of Byzantiumwas achieved by hordes of Ottoman Turks only in 1453. So the remarkable achieve-ment of Arab Muslim hegemony seems less so given the dynastic realities of thetime.

Ibn Khaldun takes a sophisticated view of God’s purposes. The age of miracleshas now passed, and a more naturalistic version of history was in play. Solidarity,especially the kind that may be regarded as a gift from God, makes everythingeasier.

Group feeling is the secret divine factor that restrains people from splitting up and

abandoning each other. It is the source of unity and agreement, and the guarantor of

the intentions and laws of Islam. When this is understood, God’s wise plans with

regards to His creation . . .will become manifest.5

Ibn Khaldun claimed that the hopes of Islam depended on the power of God.This claim was soon put to the test. Timur, known to us as Tamerlane, rose topower in Damascus, and the inhabitants were massacred. Ibn Khaldun argued forthe survival of the city, knowing that merciless destruction awaited it. He deployedall the rhetorical resources at his disposal. With the destruction of the city, hesimply commented: ‘This was an absolutely dastardly and abominable deed, butchanges in affairs are in the hands of Allah – He does with His creatures as hewishes, and decides in His Kingdom as He wills.’6

The brevity speaks volumes. This terrible atrocity is recognized, yet it is con-signed entirely to the will of God. Ibn Khaldun’s main text is somewhat sanitizedagainst atrocities, but a greater good than human ethical judgement is clearlydominant here.

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Machiavelli: In many a snow

In April 1478, Mass was celebrated in the Cathedral in Florence. FrancescoSalviati, the young Archbishop of Florence, had arranged for Lorenzo and hisbrother Giuliano to be murdered as he raised the Host. Giuliano died, but hisbrother barricaded himself behind the great bronze doors of the Sacristy. TheMayor of Florence captured Salviati. When he tried to escape, he was hurledfrom the second floor of the Signoria with a rope around his neck. Many notableFlorentine artists were gathered and scribbled away, among them Leonardo daVinci; so we have an immortalized depiction of mortality in the death of the prel-ate. Nearby was Niccolo Machiavelli. He was nine years old.

Some 20 years later, Florence was again in turmoil. The radical Dominicanmonk, Girolamo Savonarola, had ruled the city for four years. He had ragedagainst usury, sodomy and the Jews. Pope Alexander VI had forcibly intervened;Savonarola was hanged and burned in the Piazza della Signoria. The Pope took theunusual step of leaving the existing government in place, despite its commitment toa vision in which only Christ is King. Machiavelli was appointed the ThirdSecretary, responsible for foreign affairs, over 14 years. It is significant to notethis continuity with the aspirations of the Savonarola government. The combina-tion of Savonarola and Machiavelli may appear outlandish, but it represents anhonesty about the prospects for Florence, although it proposes rather differentvisions of a renewed Christian polity.

Machiavelli aimed to replace the continual pack of mercenaries, who tended tocharge a fortune and who would treacherously switch to the opposing troops. Hetravelled north of the Alps to seek advice on creating his force. He joked that hisepitaph should be ‘For the sake of his country, he pissed in many a snow.’7

Eventually the militia defended themselves against the Spaniards at the fortressof Prato. Insults were yelled from the battlements, the militia fled and the inhab-itants were massacred, according to custom. Machiavelli fell, suffered exile andwrote – first The Prince (possibly 1514) and then The Discourses on the First TenChapters of Livy (possibly 1517). He saw the urgent need to arm his city, and hewanted the logic of this process to be evident. Civil life clearly required the creationof a Repubblica Bene, or Good Republic. Such a polity was, of course, an oligarchyrather than a democracy; power attached only to the relatively few who claimed tohave distinguished themselves.

A problem remained. Only force makes things happen, and forcible men tendnot to share power. The problem is solved in The Prince, after a fashion.Dependable government lies within human capability, but it is not the sort thatany perceptive person would wish. Machiavelli frequently teases his readers withaccounts of the atrocities that go with princely success, but that they simply cannotstomach.

Machiavelli takes Ferdinand of Aragon, the most famous princein Christendom, as his example. His holy mission was beyond doubt, ashe had reconquered Spain in the name of Christ. Machiavelli reveals his

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other characteristics. He tells the story of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain.Ferdinand played off the barons against one another, while aiming at his ownrelentless acquisition of power, by force or fraud. According to Machiavelli:‘[A]lways using religion as a plea, so as to undertake greater schemes, he devotedhimself with a pious cruelty to driving out and clearing his kingdom of the Moors;nor could there be a more admirable example, or one more rare.’8

‘Pious cruelty’ is a fine turn of phrase. Machiavelli then offers an exhilarat-ing proposal for his Prince. His vision has two aspects, one deployed by Fortuna,the other by Virtu. The first property is that of Fortune, better styled ‘Lady Luck’.Virtu, in contrast, is emphatically not the conventional practice of virtue but ofdoing the necessary – the mastery of prowess. So Lady Luck and Captain Prowessdominate the scene. Daring is invaluable, in Machiavelli’s notorious phrase:

It is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman and if you

wish to keep her under it is better to beat and ill-use her. And it seems she allows

herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more

coldly. She is, therefore, always woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are

less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her.9

Machiavelli’s moral and confessional sense begins to betray itself, however. Hemocks the God of the Church, but he claims that God is just, and must thereforevalue justice for Italy:

With us there is great justice, because that war is just which is necessary, and arms are

hallowed when there is no other hope but in them . . .Further than this, how extraord-

inary the ways of God have been manifested beyond example! The sea is divided, a

cloud has led the way, the rock has poured forth water, it has rained manna, every-

thing has contributed towards your greatness; you ought to do the rest.10

Decisions about the divine justice of war cannot be left simply to the warriors.‘Arms are hallowed’ if the choice is just. So Machiavelli has a passionate hope for astable civil order, though it refuses to come about. In The Discourses, he reflectsendlessly on the issue. He banks on one key feature, however – the fact that politicsrequires continual change. A diverse population has a better chance than any otherto achieve success:

Not without good reason is the voice of the populace likened to the voice of God. For

public opinion is remarkably accurate in its foresight, so it seems as if the populace has

by some hidden power discerned the evil and the good that was to befall it.11

This is a fine, early insight into the potential virtues of the Republic, containing,however, its own pattern of illusion. In 1527, the hope of the Good Republic fell.The armies of Charles V advanced on Rome and inflicted rape and massacre ontheir co-religionists. Italy then became part of a patchwork empire governed by a

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series of petty princelings. Machiavelli was taken fatally ill on horseback, seeking tosave the city he had so graphically depicted a decade before. Reasonable, electivegovernance remains a feature of life still anticipated by Italians.

True believers: Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli

Here we see the contrast between two societies – each similarly cruel, but bothembracing sharply different creeds. Both are marked by violence, from assassina-tion to siege. But for Ibn Khaldun, all this is part of the Godly plan, whereas forMachiavelli the hypocrisy attaching to such violence demands examination. Thesesocieties behaved in rather similar ways, but the accounts they gave of themselvesare dramatically different.

Ibn Khaldun goes with the grain of Islamic thought, and this is the clue to hisprimacy in competition with Machiavelli. He felt his society to be in almost con-tinual decline, but Machiavelli was clear about the means to reverse its fortunes. Heremained ardent in his hope for a true and effective expression of solidarity, butsceptical as to its likely success.

In Florence, the position was more complex: the city was notionally ruled by thePrince of Peace, but in the meantime the prudent went armed to the teeth. Suchprecautions were evident in the city, including Lorenzo’s cathedral, and even morein the world outside. Machiavelli takes life as he sees it, yet his hopes remainundiminished, even to the point of his death. We may deplore his desire to makeour flesh creep; but his realism is broad enough to show that proper flourishing cantake place only in a heavily armed civil order.

Ibn Khaldun is steel-clad, as his beliefs require. But Machiavelli is uncomfort-able in armour; he has the resource to look open-eyed at the worst horrors, yet tohope realistically for a civil regime. His commitment to the Good Republic had fewillusions about the world. For the defence of his city, he looked to common braveryrather than to death-defying fanaticism. He knew that resistance to such God-givenconquest has to be overwhelming if it is to succeed. He gained some encouragementfrom its collective talents, not least from the conviction that God is just. ForMachiavelli, that justice is rooted in the vision that he has for a civil order,whose terms he spells out in The Discourses.

So ethical issues remained clearly opposed, and for our purposes theymay be regarded as representative. For Ibn Khaldun, it is possible to jus-tify unspeakable atrocities in the name of God, even when the victims are hisown. It is impossible for Machiavelli to accept Ibn Khaldun’s view that theworst is divinely willed. Unorthodox and sarcastic Machiavelli may be, and hisbraggadocio certainly irritates and confuses; but his aspiration is clearly for a civilregime that rejects much of the injustice of his age. Both The Prince and TheDiscourses deal in hypothetical positions, but the latter is clearly the area inwhich his hopes lay.

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Notes

1. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. and intr. FranzRosenthal, abr. and ed. J. J. Dawood, with a new introduction by Bruce B. Lawrence(Princeton, NJ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), p. 168.

2. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, p. 383–6.3. S. E. Finer, The History of Government from the Earliest Times, 2, The Intermediate Ages

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 725.

4. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, p. 127.5. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, p. 170.6. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, pp. x–xi.

7. S. de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989),p. 269.

8. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, trans G. Bull (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 174.9. Machiavelli, The Prince, pp. 123–4.

10. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 431.11. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick (Harmondsworth: Penguin,

1970), p. 255.

Author Biography

John Kennedy is a Methodist minister. He served as Secretary for Political Affairsin the Methodist Church and as Secretary for Church and Society in the Council ofChurches for Britain and Ireland.

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