The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1054 page)

 
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Ibn Is
q
(author of life of Mu
ammad)
:

see MU
AMMAD IBN ‘ABD ALLAH.

 
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(1332–1402 (AH 733–808)).
Muslim historian and philosopher who discerned recurrent patterns in the movements of social groups in Muslim (and other) history, and who has therefore been called ‘the father of sociology’.
His greatest work is the
Muqaddima
, or
Prolegomenon
, to his
Kit
b al-‘Ibar
… (The Book of Examples and the Collection of Origins of the History of the Arabs and the Berbers). Going back to the biblical story of
Cain
, ibn Khald
n discerned a constant conflict between desert and town. The nomads, far removed from the decadence associated with towns, periodically move towards the easier, or more predictable life on the edge of the deserts, herding sheep and goats, and beyond that, herding cattle, which demands fixed pastures. This creates an interior pressure toward the conquest of towns, bringing in a new regime. The new rulers bring with them vigour and innovation, but after three generations the first vigour is dissipated. The fourth generation believes that it possesses power ‘as of right’, as a consequence of birth: they receive all and give nothing, and thus open themselves to a new wave of conquest.