Digressions&Impressions

Ibn Khaldun on The political and epistemic Dangers of Astrology

Astrologers think that astrology...enables them to know the things that are going to be in the world of the elements, before they are created. The positions of the spheres and the stars (are) thus (taken to) indicate every single kind of future event, both universal and individual.
The ancient (astrologers) were of the opinion that the knowledge of astral powers and influence is acquired through experience. It (thus) is something that all (human) lives combined would not be able to achieve, because experience is obtained through numerous repetitions which make the obtainment of (empirical)knowledge or conjectures possible. Astral revolutions may be very long. Greatly extended periods of time are required for their repetition. Even (all) the lives in the world (combined) would be too short for (observing) them.
Ptolemy and his followers were of the opinion that the stars are able to indicate (the future) as the natural result of a temper they produce in the elemental existing things...
It makes the weakness of the achievements of astrology clear. Knowledge of,or conjectures about, things that come into being can only result from knowledge of all their causes, that is, agent, recipient, form, and end, as has been explained in the proper place....Furthermore, the astral powers are not the sole agents. There are other powers that act together with (the astral powers) upon the material element (involved), such as the generative power of father and species contained in the sperm, the powers of the particular quality distinguishing each variety within the species, and other things. When the astral powers reach perfection and are known, they (still) are only one among many causes that go into the making of a thing that comes into being...

Such is the situation (even) if one's knowledge of the astral powers is accurate and without defect. Now, that is difficult. The ability to calculate the courses of the stars is required in order to know their positions. Moreover, it is not proven that every star has its own particular power....All this speaks against the assumption that it is possible to predict things that will happen in the world of the elements with the help of astrology.
Furthermore, it is wrong to assume that the stars exercise an influence on (the world) below them. It has been proven deductively in the chapter on the Oneness of God, as one has seen, that there is no agent but God....The divine power (would seem to) tie the two together, as it does with all created things, (both) high and low, especially since the religious law attributes all happenings to the power of God and does not want to have anything to do with anything else....
Prophecy also denies the importance and influence of the stars....Thus, the worthlessness of astrology from the point of view of the religious law, as well as the weakness of its achievements from the rational point of view, are evident. In addition, astrology does harm to human civilization. It hurts the faith of the common people when an astrological judgment occasionally happens to come true in some unexplainable and unverifiable manner. Ignorant people are taken in by that and suppose that all the other (astrological) judgments must be true, which is not the case. Thus, they are led to attribute things to some (being) other than their Creator.
Further, astrology often produces the expectation that signs of crisis will appear in a dynasty. This encourages the enemies and rivals of the dynasty to attack(it) and revolt (against it). We have (personally) observed much of the sort. It is,therefore, necessary that astrology be forbidden to all civilized people, because it may cause harm to religion and dynasty.--Ibn Khaldun, Muqqadimah, Book 6, Para 29, Translated by Franz Rosenthal.

A few days ago, I claimed that Ibn Khaldun was flattering Timur in his meeting with Timur. One (further) reason to think that he is flattering is that in the meeting, he treats Timur's rise as astrologically foretold, yet in the Muqqadumah he is very critical of astrology. He is clearly assuming that while he is famous for the (massive) book, the folk eager to consult him about his expertise, will not have really read it carefully.  In the chapter (partially quoted), Ibn Khaldun offers five main reasons to reject astrology:

1. Empirically, the cycles of the heaven are too long in time, for proper induction over them such that these patters can be mapped on yo the complexity of human affairs.
2. So in virtue of this we lack the kind of causal knowledge of all the relevant mechanisms that would accurate prediction possible.
3. There is no source in revelation that gives us access to the relevant data and causes. 
4. He calls attention to religious prohibition against astrology in some authoritative hadiths. 
5. Astrology is politically dangerous because it encourages crisis thinking.

The arguments underwriting Ibn Khaldun's first two reasons are clearly indebted to Al-Ghazali's views about empirical science (recall). The third one (no revelation) blocks a kind of move to somebody inspired by Al-Ghazali, who thinks that in the context of discovery, would be scientists require guided intuition of structure (or special properties). And that guidance, or inspiration, just is prophecy. Ibn Khaldun can grant the existence of prophecy (he does so in the Muqqadimah); all he needs for present purposes is that prophecy/guided intuition of structure is not sufficient to ground the kind of knowledge presupposed in astrology. (I omitted the details of his argument in the block quote--so you gotta trust me on this one.)

As an aside, I am fairly confident that Al-Ghazali is in the background here, because in this extended discussion, Ibn Khaldun relies  explicitly on a kind of occasionalist view of human affairs: there is no agent but God. Ibn Khaldun explicitly notes (in the quoted passage) that philosophy (deductive reason) and religious law (sharia) agree on this point. While others have defended occasionalism, it is, of those with a philosophical sensibility, something very much associated with Al-Ghazali.

The political argument against astrology is two-fold: first, it undermines civic religion -- here understood, in part, as a social practice like history conducive to political flourishing (recall) -- because when it gets lucky, it creates a new source of authority in the eyes of the people. For Ibn Khaldun, thinks that royal authority/sovereignty is founded on group cohesion, but this always presupposes a willing self-subordination to authority. This self-subordination is grounded in the (tacit) good opinion of the authority. (Of course, it's also shaped by it.) We may say that (recall) astrology risks becoming an influential political idol.

Second, astrology generates what we may call crisis thinking. People are encouraged to be on the look-out for extrinsic portents and signs that spell trouble. (I use 'extrinsic; to distinguish this from ordinary prudence and precautionary principles, which Ibn Khaldun praises.) As Socrates (Timaeus 40D) puts it, alarming portents of the things which shall come to pass hereafter become, Ibn Khaldun argues, coordination mechanisms and rallying cries for dissatisfaction and would be revolts. And so they become inherent source of instability. This is especially so because the purported meanings of signs are inherently malleable. 

We may, see, here, Ibn Khaldun challenging the art of statecraft as handed down by the ancients (Greek, Persian, Chinese, etc.) more generally. To sum up and simplify, the various competing schools taught the intellectual elites to either shape control of divination and astrology or to accept it and make it into an instrument of statecraft. Ibn Khaldun argues that this is a grounded on a mistake that undermines instability. Because the smart and educated benefit from the market for astrologers, this helps explain (recall) why Ibn Khaldun is so critical of the role of the learned in political life.

 

 

What to do if you meet the greatest Conqueror of all time?; Lessons from Ibn Khaldun on Flattery

“May God strengthen you—I have longed to meet you for thirty or forty years.” The interpreter, ‘Abd al-Jabbār, asked, “And why is that?”

I replied, “Two reasons: the first is that you are the supreme sovereign of the universe and the ruler of the world, and I do not believe that there has ever been a ruler like you among men from Adam until this era. Verily, I am not the type of individual who merely speaks about things based on conjecture, for I am a scholar and I will explain why I say this: Sovereignty exists only because of group solidarity (‘asabiyya), and the greater the number in the group, the greater is the extent of sovereignty. Scholars, in the past and the present, have agreed that the most populous groups among human beings are the Arabs and the Turks. Surely you know how the sovereignty of the Arabs was established when they became united in their religion in following their prophet [Muhammad]. As for the Turks, their rivalry with the kings of Persia and the seizure of Khurasan from the latter by their king, Afrāsiyāb, is evidence of their royal origin. None from among the kings of the earth—not Khusraw, nor Caesar nor Alexander nor Nebuchadnezzar—is comparable to them with regard to the extent of their group solidarity (‘asabiyya). As for Khusraw, he was the leader of the Persians and their king, but the Persians fall utterly short of the Turks! As for Caesar and Alexander, they were kings of the Greeks [al-rūm], but again the Greeks cannot be compared [in terms of their greatness] with the Turks! As for Nebuchadnezzar, he was the chieftain of the Babylonians and the Nabateans, but what a difference between these nations and the Turks! This constitutes a clear proof of what I have maintained concerning this king [Timur].

“The second reason why I have wanted to meet him relates to what I have heard from the astrologers and the Muslim saints in the Maghrib,” and I mentioned what I have related before in this regard. [Interestingly, one of Timur’s titles was Sāhib-i Qirān (the Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction), a reference to these astrological portents of his appearance]--Ibn Khaldun from Tārīkh Ibn Khaldūn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmīyya, 2010), ed. Adel ibn Sa’d Vol. 7, pp. 543–552; Ibn Khaldun, Rihlah Ibn Khaldūn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmīyya, 2019), ed. Muhammad al-Tanji, pp. 286–299]translated by Mohamad Ballan.

Ibn-Khaldun met Timur after the (partial) surrender of Damascus. His report on their meetings is clearly self-serving. But since he lived to tell it, it can't be wholly false. Timur clearly though Ibn-Khaldun's knowledge of Egypt and North Africa would be useful to any would-be-future conquest. Interestingly enough, Ibn Khaldun reports on how he supplied him with detailed information (which surely could have been interpreted as an act of treason back home). 

In the passage quoted, Ibn Khaldun offers a glimpse of his own political science. Timur's power is due to the group-solidarity (I like 'group cohesion')* and favorable demographics that can support his large army. There are, in fact, multiple ways toward such group-cohesion (recall this post). One means toward such cohesion -- and it is really notable that Timur uses this example at once --  is religion and when properly directed it allows for the great success of (to nod to Machiavelli) armed prophets.

I am going to assume the religiosity of Ibn Khaldun, but that's compatible with having a functional analysis of religion.+ Clearly Ibn Khaldun implies that part of Muhammad's skill is the ability to shape group cohesion. (Part of the trickiness of Ibn Khaldun's account is that [recall] group cohesion can make a people receptive to a leader, but also that good leadership can generate group cohesion.) But it's also notable that Muhammad and his followers got lucky that the Arab population was so large (on the significance of population size in Khaldun, recall this post). 

This is not to deny that Ibn Khaldun takes providence seriously. For he embeds his flattery ("the supreme sovereign of the universe and the ruler of the world") in a providential prophecy grounded in astrology (which is the bit after I cut off my quote). My purpose here is not to debate whether Ibn Khaldun believes in prophecy and astrology, but rather to show that he treats it as something highly functional within religion. Several of the greatest astrologers he invokes are in fact themselves preachers ("the mosque-preacher of the city of Constantine, Abū ‘Alī ibn Bādīs, who was an authority in the astrological sciences") and metaphysians including Ibn Khaldun's own teacher Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ābilī.**

The point of the astrology is not just to predict the rise of Timur. But he uses these astrological forecasts, also to convey a brief version of Ibn Khaldun's account of the military superiority of the rough nomadic tribes over civilized, sedentary peoples. Ibn Khaldun's speech would have resonated with Timur and his retinue because they had just conquered Damascus!

I don't mean to suggest that Ibn Khaldun is an instructing Timur on the art of politics. Unlike, perhaps the (intended?) reader of Ibn Khaldun's account, Timur is clearly not in need of it. Rather I think Ibn Khaldun is aiming to convey to Timur that he understands and respects the source of Timur's power and that his (Ibn Khaldun's) celebrity itself warranted. But most amazingly, the point of inserting Timur into a providential-prophetic narrative, is to encourage Timur to think he may be able, if not surpass, then at least near-equal the achievements of the prophet.  

That's sufficient for my present purposes. But here's a brief concluding thought: I would love to find out if Machiavelli somehow read Ibn Khaldun's autobiography. Because structurally this move is Machiavelli's at the end of The Prince. He tries to make De Medici believe that he can equal Moses as redeemer of Italy. 

Ibn Khaldun On Self-Domestication and Autonomy

Not everyone is master of his own affairs. Chiefs and leaders who are masters of the affairs of men are few in comparison with the rest. As a rule, man must by necessity be dominated by someone else. If the domination is kind and just and the people under it are not oppressed by its laws and restrictions, they are guided by the courage or cowardice that they possess in themselves. They are satisfied with the absence of any restraining power. Self-reliance eventually becomes a quality natural to them. They would not know anything else. If, however,the domination with its laws is one of brute force and intimidation, it breaks their fortitude and deprives them of their power of resistance as a result of the inertness that develops in the souls of the oppressed, as we shall explain.
...
When laws are (enforced) by means of punishment, they completely destroy fortitude, because. the use of punishment against someone who cannot defend himself generates in that person a feeling of humiliation that, no doubt, must break his fortitude. When laws are (intended to serve the purposes of) education and instruction and are applied from childhood on, they have to some degree the same effect,because people then grow up in fear and docility and consequently do not rely on their own fortitude.
For this (reason), greater fortitude is found among the savage Arab Bedouins than among people who are subject to laws. Furthermore, those who rely on laws and are dominated by them from the very beginning of their education and instruction in the crafts, sciences, and religious matters, are thereby deprived of much of their own fortitude. They can scarcely defend themselves at all against hostile acts. This is the case with students, whose occupation it is to study and to learn from teachers and religious leaders, and who constantly apply themselves to instruction and education in very dignified gatherings. This situation and the fact that it destroys the power of resistance and fortitude must be understood.
It is no argument against the (statement just made) that the men around Muhammad observed the religious laws, and yet did not experience any diminution of their fortitude, but possessed the greatest possible fortitude. When the Muslims got their religion from the Lawgiver (Muhammad), the restraining influence came from themselves, as a result of the encouragement and discouragement he gave them in the Qur'an. It was not a result of technical instruction or scientific education. (The laws) were the laws and precepts of the religion, which they received orally and which their firmly rooted (belief in) the truth of the articles of faith caused them to observe. Their fortitude remained unabated, and it was not corroded by education or authority. 'Umar said, "Those who are not educated(disciplined) by the religious law are not educated (disciplined) by God." (This statement expresses) 'Umar's desire that everyone should have his restraining influence in himself. It also expresses his certainty that the Lawgiver (Muhammad) knew best what is good for mankind.
(The influence of) religion, then, decreased among men, and they came to use restraining laws. The religious law became a branch of learning and a craft to be acquired through instruction and education. People turned to sedentary life and assumed the character trait of submissiveness to law. This led to a decrease in their fortitude.
It has thus become clear that governmental and educational laws destroy fortitude, because their restraining influence is something that comes from outside.The religious laws, on the other hand, do not destroy fortitude, because their restraining influence is something inherent. Therefore, governmental and educational laws influence sedentary people, in that they weaken their souls and diminish their stamina, because they have to suffer (their authority) both as children and as adults. The Bedouins, on the other hand, are not in the same position,because they live far away from the laws of government, instruction, and education.'--Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Chapter 2, Section 6. (Translated by Franz Rosenthal.)

According to Ibn  Khaldun (recall) the institution of justice, which he thinks in its origin co-extensive with properly functioning royal authority, originates  only after the division of labor has generated some surplus worth fighting over; it follows from the need to prevent people from harming each other in virtue of our innate aggressiveness and tendency toward mutual harm. Aggressiveness is not all bad; the properly cultivated version (when royal authority is "kind and just") is a form of spirited-ness (akin to the greek thumos) or courage, which he calls fortitude.  

Before I continue, I must clarify that Ibn Khaldun, like his great successors (Hume, Smith, Marx) identifies (at least three) major stages of of economic and social development: (i) the necessary civilizations of nomadic tribes (who live near starvation levels); (ii) sedentary agricultural societies, which generate sufficient surplus to live comfortably; and (iii) commercial cities (which can double as seats of royal power) where, when taxes are kept low, the arts and sciences can flourish amidst luxury goods.  Originally this scheme characterizes a historical-logical, even teleological development from (i) to (iii), but in practice the three forms of society can live alongside each other at the same time and have complex modes of interaction (which can be captured in familiar patterns of development). 

Not unlike the Roman historians and their great admirer, Rousseau, Ibn Khaldun treats luxury as a source of corruption. (The story is more complicated than that sentence allows because he also recognizes that a society with arts and sciences has definite advantages, including military ones.) But what is especially notable is that Ibn  Khaldun treats the effects of civilization as a form of domestication. And that is because, according to Ibn Khaldun, it is constitutive of advanced civilization that it is characterized by a great number of influential social institutions which impose the rule of, what we may call, external law upon its subjects; these institutions shape the inhabitants of wealthy places into the compliant character types needed by the advanced division of labor. They do so with a great deal of force and generate docile population types. The force is not recognized as such because, unlike the tyrant's brutality and willful unpredictability, it is continuous and (to introduce a touch of anachronism) rule following. 

If one rejects civilization and tyranny, one may think one is left with anarchism. And indeed, ordinarily, Bedouin life is characterized by an anarchic "freedom from authority" without "subservience to authority." (Chapter 2, section 25) Again anticipating Rousseau and Adam Smith, Ibn Khaldun associates some of the noblest qualities with this kind of anarchic, savage character who is free and equal to his peers and who can endure seemingly limitless hardship.

The main problem with such anarchic freedom is that it is a barrier to joint action. To make joint action possible another species of law is needed; freely accepted religion helps solve coordination problems and supplies a shared end worth dying for. For, as Ibn Khaldun points out not all forms of law extinguish fortitude. A self-imposed law, which is the product of belief in the truth of its principles, can enhance naturally existing fortitude. When it coincides with what Ibn Khaldun elsewhere calls group feeling (mutual sympathy/co-affectation), groups animated by freely, self-imposed laws become invincible on the battlefield.* With this in place, Ibn Khaldun can explain how economically backward Bedouin Arab tribes, could defeat two ancient and numerically superior superpowers in an extraordinary short period.+ 

The point here is not just the non-trivial understanding -- recently popular thanks to Foucault's domestication and application of Nietzschean ideas -- of the embrace of civilization as a form of self-domestication and open-ended indoctrination into servitude (which gets mislabeled as 'education').  There is a more surprising and salient point lurking here; while civilized man is in chains, the (savage's) free embrace of a law that one takes to be true just is constitutive of autonomy. And so prophecy is a prerequisite for the very possibility of autonomy.  

On Ibn Khaldun, Biblical Criticism and Spinoza and Hume

For example, al-Mas'udi and many other historians report that Moses counted the army of the Israelites in the desert. He had all those able to carry arms, especially those twenty years and older, pass muster. There turned out to be 600,000 or more. In this connection, (al-Mas'udi)  forgets to take into consideration whether Egypt and Syria could possibly have held such a number of soldiers. Every realm may have as large a militia as it can hold and support, but no more. This fact is attested by well-known customs and familiar conditions. Moreover, an army of this size cannot march or fight as a unit. The whole available territory would be too small for it. If it were in battle formation, it would extend two, three, or more times beyond the field of vision.
How, then, could two such parties fight with each other, or one battle formation gain the upper hand when one flank does not know what the other flank is doing! The situation at the present day testifies to the correctness of this statement. The past resembles the future more than one (drop of) water another. Furthermore, the realm of the Persians was much greater than that of the Israelites. This fact is attested by Nebuchadnezzar's victory over them. He swallowed up their country and gained complete control over it. He also destroyed Jerusalem,their religious and political capital. And he was merely one of the officials of the province of Fars. It is said that he was the governor of the western border region. The Persian provinces of the two 'Iraqs, Khurasan, Transoxania, and the region of Derbend on the Caspian  Sea were much larger than the realm of the Israelites. Yet, the Persian army did not attain such a number or even approach it. The greatest concentration  of Persian troops, at al-Qadisiyah, amounted to 120,000 men, all of whom had their retainers. This is according to Sayf  who said that with their retainers they amounted to over 200,000 persons. According to 'A'ishah and az- Zuhri, the troop concentration with which Rustum advanced against  Sa'd at al-Qadisiyah amounted to only 60,000 men, all of whom had their retainers.
Then, if the Israelites had really amounted to such a number, the extent of the area under their  rule would have been larger, for the size of administrative units and provinces under a particular dynasty is in direct proportion to the size of its militia and the groups that support the  (dynasty), as will be explained in the section on provinces in the first book. Now, it is well known that the territory of the (Israelites) did not comprise an area larger than the Jordan province and Palestine in Syria and the region of Medina and Khaybar in the Hijaz.--Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal.

The quoted passage is from the Introduction to the Muqaddimah. As I have noted before (here and here) the book is embedded in a framework derived from Aristotelian science.* To say this is revealing in lots of ways, but today I want to point to some of his evidential strategies -- Ibn Khaldun calls it "probing with the yardstick of philosophy...[and]  the help of knowledge of the nature of things...speculation and historical insight" -- in which he anticipates methods we are more likely to associate with Spinoza and Hume. I have quoted the first, instructive example of the claim that "historians, Qur'an commentators and leading transmitters have committed frequent errors in the stories and events they reported." The underlying point is to show how one can do source criticism by appealing to non-demonstrative principles that, nevertheless, have the status of robust commitments or generalizations that help one constrain or interpret the data (or some causal claim, etc.). I will call such principles, practical, empirical generalizations. 

Here are some such practical generalizations.

• [A] Every realm may have as large a militia as it can hold and support, but no more.
• [B] An army has [given technological and physiological constraints] a maximum size in which it can fight as a unit.
  • The size of an army/militia is constrained by the requirements of battle-field communication;
  • The size of an army/militia is constrained by field of vision;
• [C] The size of administrative units and provinces under a particular dynasty is in direct proportion to the size of its militia and the groups that support the (dynasty),

The epistemic status of such practical, empirical generalizations is grounded in or based on historical and practical experiences, reflection on human and social nature, underlying political economy, demographics, group psychology,and principles of analogy (etc.). As Ibn Khaldun says, he will show the robust veracity of [C] in a separate chapter. I don't mean to suggest that these are only empirical generalizations. For example, [A] borders on a tautology. But the point of [A] is not to offer an a priori truth, but to make the reader reflect on the demographic, geographic, and economic, !etc.) constraints on the possible size of a militia.  And given the plausibility of such constraints [A] can, in turn, by an informed constraint on the interpretation of source material. (Hume is a master of using informed and empirically grounded constraints to sift data in his work on demographics and political economy. This works in both directions.)

In addition, in practice, [A-C] also assume a further principle of human nature:

• [D] that if military might exists, it will be used to expand territory until it gets checked by an opposing power. 

This principle, [D], is the conatus/will-to-power principle of Ibn Khaldun's historiography. In order to avoid misunderstanding, I don't mean to suggest that for Ibn Khaldun that military power is sui generis or an explanatory primitive; it is grounded in group feeling, demography, economy, leadership qualities, etc. 

Of course, some of the claims that Ibn Khaldun's source criticism relies on are not merely such practical generalizations, but they are connected to more fundamental metaphysical principles. So, for example, one of the principles he explicitly relies (again see the quote above)on is this:

• [E] The past resembles the future,

That Ibn Khaldun embraces [E] is especially notable because he also thinks an unthinking reliance on a version of [E] is simultaneously one of greatest dangers in the writing history because it can license (i) a form of anachronism that prevents understanding of the past (this is familiar enough), and (ii) also (and more interesting) a misunderstanding of the present based on familiarity with works of history. The example he offers is that the content and status of particular political and legal offices have, without changing names, dramatically shifted in character. So, he claims that in the early caliphate and also the conquest of Spain a judge was often somebody who either had the power of the sword or was very closely affiliated to the center of power (due to group feeling); in his own age the judge is more an administrative functionary.+ Contemporary readers, may misunderstand their own time, and "aspire to similar positions" if they think that judges are still at the center of political power.

The last paragraph also hints at the fact that point of source criticism for Ibn Khaldun history is not just an understanding of the past, but also a better understanding of the present. In addition, Ibn Khaldun recognizes that works of history can motivate readers to courses of action. Some other time I return to that. 

Here I want to close with a final observation because the title of this post promises something riviting than Ibn Khaldun's source criticism. In the quoted passage, Ibn Khaldun calls attention to the greatest military victory of early Islam, the battle at al-Qadisiyah. In this battle the numerically inferior Arabs defeated one of the great superpowers of the Ancient worlds, the mighty Persian Sassanid empire. It opened the 'East' to Muslim expansion. The significance of the battle would have been familiar to Ibn Khaldun's readers and a source of group pride. 

Ibn Khaldun's official point of reminding the reader of this famous battle is to undermine the plausibility of historians's reports that Moses's army turned out to be 600,000 or more. Such an army would have been the basis of world domination not the occupation of a small bit of territory. Ibn Khaldun deftly shows that this number is implausibly large.

The interest of the example is, however, not just illustrative correction of bad scholarship. There is a more important point lurking here. For the implausibly large number is (as is well known) in the Biblical source-material. Numbers 1: 45-46 states, "And all those that were numbered of the children of Israel by their fathers' houses, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel; even all those that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty." As it happens, the Quran recounts the story of exodus and the further exploits of Moses and Israelites, but without the claim to (exaggerated) exactitude of the sort the Hebrew Bible offers.

So, it is quite clear that the historians that Ibn Khaldun criticizes have embellished their account of the Biblical history re-narrated by the Quran by glancing at the Hebrew Bible (itself a sacred text familiar to Muslim scholars). The error is in the historical source not just the scholarship. What to do? After engaging in such source criticism, a pious and prudent scholar can't respond by claiming that the error "occurs only in the Torah which as is well  known, was altered by the Jews" (for reasons of self-aggrandizement, bias, etc.). Even to an Islamic scholar this response is unavailable "since custom prevents people who have a revealed religion from dealing with their divine scriptures in such a matter."

The problem is obvious, if one allows that sacred Hebrew scripture has been corrupted by interests motivated by group-loyalty one is stuck claiming that it is possible other sacred scriptures could also have been corrupted. This is the road to Spinozism. 

From the vantage point of Spinozism, Ibn Khaldun's response is disappointing. He claims that such passages have to be treated as miracles. This is not the end of the matter, of course, because one must understand what a miracle is. But that's for another time. Here I close with the observation that for Ibn Khaldun one can only speak of such miracles after engaging with source criticism. And this means that he has quietly invited us to apply his methods also to the Quran.

 

Plato, Ibn Rushd, Eugenics, and Being an (Accidental) Straussian

Since for everything that has come into being destruction is appointed, not even such a fabric as this will abide for all time, but it shall surely be dissolved, and this is the manner of its dissolution. Not only for plants that grow from the earth but also for animals that live upon it there is a cycle of bearing and barrenness for soul and body as often as the revolutions of their orbs come full circle, in brief courses for the short-lived and oppositely for the opposite; but the laws of prosperous birth or infertility for your race, the men you have bred to be your rulers will not for all their wisdom ascertain by reasoning combined with sensation, but they will escape them, and there will be a time when they will beget children out of season. Republic, Book 8, 546ab, Translated by Paul Shorey.

In the quoted passage, Socrates confronts (recall here, and here) the limits of his eugenic, breeding program. I tend to describe it (somewhat anachronistically) as his recognition that sexual desire among the carefully, artificially selected beautiful-of-mind-and-body-guardians cannot be controlled and falls outside scientific cognition. At one point, fairly recently, Eric Brown, a distinguished philosopher, who I have looked up to my whole academic career, objected to this characterization as Straussian. (It was not intended as a compliment.) Rather (and I summarize informally) Socrates claims that the cause of the decline of Kallipolis is the reliance on sensation/sense perception. Brown is not alone in this--in the summary to their translation of book 8, Grube/Reeve assert that kallipolis "will decline because the philosopher-kings have to rely on sense perception in putting their eugenics policy in practice." (213) Let's call this the standard reading. By contrast, the "Straussian" reading has an unhealthy interest in sexual desire.*

And, indeed, the standard reading is well grounded in the text. But the Straussian reading is not silly because what sense perception misses is  copulation by the guardians. And what this shows that even a state carefully organized around moderation and properly cultivated dispositions (by way of indoctrination, drilling, censorship, noble lies, and eugenics, etc.) and learning flounders on a mixture of natural drives and cognitive limitations. The standard reading emphasizes these cognitive limitations, whereas the Straussian reading emphasizes the former. The standard reading does justice to the plain meaning of the text. But the Straussian reading is on this point not based on some fancy esoteric numerology+ --  in fact, it's the Socratic eugenicist-philosopher-kings who have to deploy such fancy numerology --, but a fairly straightforward interpretation of why the cognitive limitations induced by sense perception matter.**

So, my objection to the standard reading is not that it is decidedly prudish (although I think that, too, of course), but that it kind of fails to do justice to the very grounds of rejecting the true/healthy city, and to embark on the Kallipolis which is, in part, (recall and more elaborately here) grounded in what's possible for beings like us (the true city assumes we're like pigs/animals). And in analyzing the causes for its decline, it turns out there are limited to improving our human nature (cognitive limitation, sexual desire)* when we are dealing with populations (and population improvement).

As it happens, this week, I am teaching Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic (translated from the Hebrew by Ralph Lerner; this Third Treatise 87.20ff.) Here is how he treats the issue in question:

Here the guardians are blamed for the failure of the eugenics problem in two ways: (i) they are not paying sufficient attention to the copulation (of their fellow guardians); (ii) they are not sufficiently ruthless enough in removing or -- to use a term from Al-Farabi -- weeding out the bad offspring that are the product from improper copulation. (Recall that he seems to suggest that Sharia is also offering a breeding program.)

Now, Ibn Rushd's commentary, which presents itself as an epitome that only presents the demonstrable parts of the Republic, here is offering, in one sense, a misleading summary. It's possible that this is due to the manuscript-translation of the Republic he had access to, or to a mistake in the Hebrew translator of Ibn Rushd. But I will assume that the change is deliberate. (There are other places in the commentary where the changes are evidently deliberate.) 

Ibn Rushd is frank about the significance of copulation as the proximate cause of decline (so that's like the Straussian). But what (i)-(ii) have in  common is that he puts much more emphasis on, we may say, a failure of policy, even a loss of nerve, among the guardians (who are in a sense not ruthless enough in spying and killing, that is, the kind of Straussianism associated, fairly or not, with the neocons). And the underlying sensibility is that, while the best regime is certainly not stable, it is in some sense both more attainable (recall) and also more enduring if one were willing to make one's hands dirty.

Ibn Rushd on the transition problem; On Multi-Generational Political Projects.

Someone might say: If the existence of this city [kallipolis] can only come about if people such as these happen to exist, and their existing with these qualities [is contingent on] their having grown up in this city, why then there is no way in this city can come into being. What we were laying down in speech and had then thought to be possible is [now seen to be] impossible.--Ibn Rushd Commentary on Plato's Republic, Treatise 2, 62.24, translated by Ralph Lerner.

The toughest version of the the transition problem (recall and here) is how to create an ideal political future with a population raised under bad institutions (or worse, that is, bad breeding). One of the central philosophical tasks according to Socrates (recall my treatment of Republic 592ab) is the ongoing theoretical exploration of ideal models of political orders that are humanly possible (in the sense of not violating known human nature), but de facto unavailable given the near-impossibility of solving the transition problem.

In his commentary, Ibn Rushd articulates the transition problem very nicely, but skips the paragraph (Rep 592) in which Socrates acknowledges it.*  In particular, he offers his own distinctive, solution to it. This has three features. First, and here he echoes a commitment expressed by Socrates, he allows that would-be-philosophical legislators can originate under bad circumstances (62.27). Philosophies can be cultivated, but they can also be natural flukes born anywhere.

Second, such a would-be-philosophical-legislator has pre-existing materials, including (a) not what he calls the "general common nomos;" it is not entirely clear  what he means by this, but in a note, the translator, Lerner ,plausibly suggests it is a kind of natural standard for any human association. This standard is something short of natural law, but more the kind of thing that regulates (to use a phrase of Adam Smith) "the usual strain" of in-group relations. In addition, (b) would-be legislators may be able to work with, and adapt pre-existing religious laws. This, too, fits with an import commitment of Socrates, which presupposes (recall) at the founding of the Kallipolis, a rationalized version of existing religious practices and theology (see Republic 427bc & 469a). For, (c) the pre-existing religious laws partake in some sense of the rational order that is achieved (were the transition problem solved.) Rather than seeing religion as opposed to rational political order, it is a natural stepping stone to it. (This fits in with the larger, Platonizing tendency (recall Al-Farabi) to treat religion as a politically functional, symbolic representation of the truth and indicative of the truth/rational order.)

Strikingly, Ibn Rushd explicitly asserts that these pre-conditions exist in his own time and in Sharia. I call this striking because he is also extremely critical of the political conditions and (religious) intellectuals of his time. One may understand Ibn Rushd's Decisive Treatise as the work that explains how such rationalized religion is possible within Islam.

Third, he suggests that one can build the conditions for the emergence of Kallipolis over time, when "virtuous kings" come to rule in succession, "one after another and for a long time--not ceasing to incline these cities gradually until the situation in them, by the end of time, comes to be good governance." (Again, "these cities" refer to the political situation of his own time.) Here Ibn Rushd reverses a template that is familiar both from Al-Farabi and the history of early Islam, in which a succession of second best, but good kings preserves a perfect founding absent a philosopher-king; but he uses the possibility of such a series of second bests, as a a gradual ascent toward the best city. 

Such second-best good kings, must nudge the polity toward dispositions that facilitate good beliefs and virtuous deeds simultaneously. Ibn Rushd assumes here that it is possible that political rulers are capable and willing of seeing their own rule as part of a larger architecture or plan. This is is not silly because plenty of rulers (can) understand themselves in terms of dynastic or national interests; religiously inspired rulers do not find it difficult to understand their temporary rule in terms of a providential plan/order. (Ibn Rushd is quiet to what degree such rulers would have to share their long-term plan with their subjects.) Scientists today routinely understand their own work and contributions in terms of open-ended projects that will outlive them.

The starting points of such a multi-generational political project differs in space and time. So, for example, Ibn Rushd is explicit that in his own time the inclination toward virtuous deeds is "more likely than their inclining to good beliefs," (79.5; as noted above he is very critical of the intellectual atmosphere of his own era). 

One may think that a multi-generational, top-down political project carried by a cognitive elite, and centered on their decision-making, on behalf of a very idealistic ideals is an outlandish possibility. (In response, Ibn Khaldun will argue that dynasties have natural cycles of rise and fall.) That such a proposal this does not really address the transition problem. But it is worth reminding ourselves that inspired by (recall Kant's Perpetual Peace  (who drew on a more dismal picture of human nature), the European Union has been engaged in such a project. And while it is quite possible that we will witness the collapse of it in the near future, it also also possible that it will sustain itself. The comparison with the EU is a bit fanciful, but Ibn Rushd could count on his readers to imagine such a multi-generational political project in terms of a caliphate.

 

Ibn Tufayl and the Three Kings

§3.  they say, that there lay, not far from this our Island, another Great Island very fertile and well peopled; which was then govern'd by a Prince of a Proud and Jealous Disposition: he had a Sister of exquisite Beauty, which he confin'd and restrain'd from Marriage, because he could not match her to one suitable to her quality. He had a near Relation whose Name was Yokdhân, that courted this Princess, and Married her privately, according to the Rites of Matrimony then in use among them; it was not long before she prov'd with Child, and was brought to Bed of a Son; and being afraid that it should be discovered, she took him in the Evening, and when she had Suckled him she put him into a little Ark which she closed up fast, and so Conveys him to the Sea shore, with some of her Servants and Friends as she could trust; and there with an Heart equally affected with Love and Fear, she takes her last leave of him...  

§98. They say that there was an Island not far from that where Hai Ebn Yokdhan was born (no matter according to which of those two different Accounts they give of his Birth) into which one of those good Sects, which had some one of the ancient Prophets (of pious Memory) for its Author, had retir'd. A Sect which us'd to discourse of all things in Nature, by way of Parable and Similitude, and by that means represent the Images of them to the Imagination, and fix the Impressions of them in Men's Minds, as is customary in such Discourses as are made to the Vulgar. This Sect so spread it self in this Island, and prevail'd and grew so eminent, that at last the King not only embrac'd it himself, but oblig'd his Subjects to do so too.'--Ibn Tufayl  The Improvement of HUMAN REASON, Exhibited in the LIFE of Hai Ebn Yokdhan [also known as Philosophus Autodidactus], translated by Simon Ockley (1708).

Regular readers know, I think of Ibn Tufayl's book as one of the great gems of the history of philosophy with great thought experiments, a beautiful account of humanity's place in the order of things, and a serious reflection on the tensions between a philosophical life and living in society. It's also a book that invites a lover of riddles to try to unravel the many little mysteries lodged in the book. (Ibn Tufayl  closes the book with a reminder that it contains "hidden Knowledge." §120) Today's post may be a garden path, and evidence for the kind of scholarly chase that Umberto Eco ridiculed so well in Foucault's Pendulum (and lovingly described in The Name of the Rose). But here goes; it presupposes, alas, some knowledge of the narrative. 

Ibn Tufayl's text mentions three kinds of kingship. I have quoted the pertinent passages of two of these in passing. The first kind of kingship is tyranny. The sister of this tyrant, Hayy's mom (in the version of his origins that emphasizes ordinary birth--in the other (recall) he is generated spontaneously), is not allowed to marry. The underlying politics are barely disguised: the tyrant wishes to use his sister for his dynastic ambitions. In addition we can infer that he clearly lacks off-spring, and so his sister's progeny are  a danger to his throne. I call him a tyrant because his court his characterized by fear. It is also characterized (and this is even more speculative) by political faction because Hayy's mom is said to have friends she can trust. (In the context of a tyranny the personal is, to adapt a famous slogan, political.)*

The second kind of kingship is mentioned very briefly, but it is, in the terms of Islamic political philosophy, a democratic king, that is, one whose rule is grounded in the opinion of the people. This king adapts to their changing views on religion, and once he is confident that the majority is one his side he is willing to use force to convert the rest of his population.

I am assuming that this democratic king is the same king under which Absâl and Salâman grow up together. (That's not entirely clear because it could also be a king who lived longer in the past; I think not because it is explicitly said that Absâl and Salâman meet with the religious sect, and the wording implies that they do so before it is state religion.) So, if this is correct, than prior to establishing a state religion, this king permitted religious diversity (and again, this fits with calling it a democracy--see Al-Farabi.) In addition, he allowed freedom of movement, in particular, the right to exit. That this is so is established by the fact that Absâl is allowed to leave the island undisturbed. That this is significant, is made clear by the fact that when Salaman becomes ruler, he thinks a right to withdrawal is explicitly un-lawful.** 

The third king is Salaman. He is explicitly one of the three characters we are instructed to focus on by the narrator/Ibn Tufayl in his introduction. The name is significant of cause because it echoes King Solomon, the Biblical king who is also venerated in Islam, (in New Atlantis, Bacon uses (recall) a similar device) and recalls a famous companion of Muhammad. We are not told how he gains power. We are given some information that he rules in his own image: he is disinterested in further religious innovation and he focuses on the literal meaning of Scriptures, showing a marked lack of intellectual curiosity. He himself follows the religious rites strictly (§99). He is outgoing, and sees society being in society as a means to (useful) self-disciplining (§100). He has a clear dislike of pluralism -- and this is the cause of his falling out with one-time friend, Absal-- and this makes him intolerant.++  

It's not entirely clear how to evaluate Salaman. From the perspective of political order, he is a very successful king: his subjects echo his attitudes and they are obedient. They reject abstract and mystical knowledge, sticking to material world and sensory evidence. This is not a society that will produce great innovations in knowledge and science. Moreover, his people are described as small-minded, committed to acquisitiveness and show little regard for the (possibility of) the afterlife (§115-116). These are observant, but not godly people, slaves to their appetites. 

I want to close with a reflection. The book naturally raises the question what role a (mystic) philosophy can have in society. Hayy's and Absal's return to exile is dramatic. In so doing the book also clearly demonstrates the political limits of theoretical knowledge absent understanding of political rhetoric and the ways one can rule through the effective use of symbols (Al-Farabi calls this 'religion'; see also here.) The means of the "true religion," which is the one that forces the conversion of the second king, succeed where Hayy's methods of preaching fail (see the quote from §98 above). The truth is not self-vindicating among those not made receptive toward it. 

But the question that Ibn Tufayl pursues is more subtle. In Deliverance from Error (a text mentioned by Ibn Tufayl at the start of his book), Al-Ghazali had grandly and self-confidently rejected a form of inherited religious, servile conformism un-grounded in inquiry. And after some time in self-imposed exile and contemplation of Sufi mysteries, he re-entered society in order to teach again (and call people to God's way). One way to understand Ibn Tufayl is to see in him the suggestion that religion is a tool for strict conformism, which generates political order and stability. If one values such stability, then, perhaps, the costs (no science, knowledge, etc.) may be a price worth paying. But, perhaps, the more remarkable observation lurking here -- and this is very much in the spirit of Al-Ghazali -- is that such conformist religious practice, focused on rule-following and obedience, is also fundamentally hollow when it is not a means toward further spiritual development and the only end it serves is political stability.

 

 

 

Ibn Rushd and Functional Explanation of Scriptures

Copulation ought not to be permitted them [the guardians] whenever they wish and with whomever they wish, since we wish that this activity be human among them and that their copulations not be of any chance character. The arrangement of their procreation will be the best possible with respect to their conditions of guardianship, but at fixed times an with determined individuals and characteristics. This is, as it were, common to the other conventions and Laws [Shari'a], though as it appears the adherents of the Laws differ from one another in the force of the statements. We ourselves will here briefly what Plato asserts about these things.---Ibn Rushd on Plato's Republic, the first treatise, 54.20-8, translated by Ralph Lerner.

At the start of the quoted passage, Ibn Rushd is referring to the breading program of the guardians of Socrates's Kallipolis (see Republic, 457-8). It is part of a larger passage, which is explicitly presented as a what "he said" (see 54.19).* But at the second to last sentence of the quoted passage he has slipped into his own voice, something he then calls attention to in the last sentence. The next paragraph then starts with a "we say,"and Ibn Rushd is officially speaking in his own voice. But what concerns me here is the second to last sentence {This is, as it were, common to the other conventions and Laws [Shari'a], though as it appears the adherents of the Laws differ from one another in the force of the statements.} This claim is not in the Republic, and it's Ibn Rushd's addition. 

But to see what's at stake we must first turn to the first sentences of Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic; these tell us that Ibn Rushd's "epitome" only presents the scientific, that is, demonstrative elements of the Republic. (Ibn Rushd claims to have  removed the dialectical arguments.) To be clear, Ibn Rushd does not present a summary of the Republic, but rather only conveys the bits that can be taken to be true,+ and useful (because it is a practical science).  So, this is an epitome in both senses: it's the best parts of the Republic and a synopsis.

As an aside, the most immediately striking omissions are that Book I of the Republic is skipped almost entirely (because as he says at the of the  third and final treatise, "it is entirely dialectical arguments") and the contents of Book 10 are barely conveyed. In addition, the dialogical structure of the Republic is entirely effaced. Socrates himself is only mentioned once, en passant, to remind the reader that Socrates chose death when he could not serve the polity anymore.** Ibn Rushd mentions this to convey accurately one of Socrates's claims (that physicians should not cure those who can't contribute in their functional role to society anymore), but this detail is absent in the Republic.

Okay, let me return to the main point. Two key claims of Ibn Rushd's Decisive Treatise are (a) that the hidden meaning of allegorical interpretation of Scriptures should not be shared with the masses, and (b) that (recall) such hidden knowledge can only put in texts that are demonstrative treatises, but these may only circulate among the cognitive elite. As I noted, the reason for (a) is that Ibn Rushd thinks this is the cause of (religious and political) faction; the reason for (b) is that the demonstrative sciences are recondite, and so ordinarily of little interest to the masses. (One can imagine him thinking that a text about Plato would be of even less interest!) Of course, the commentary on the Republic, does not advertise itself as offering evidence of the hidden meaning of Scriptures as revealed by allegorical interpretation. And, now we can return to the point at hand.

In the passage, Ibn Rushd is claiming that Kallipolis is not the only political constitution in which constraints on copulation serve an eugenic or domestic/artificial selective purpose. He says that this is also the point of other polities, including Islamic Sharia. And, in fact, the Quran and the Haddith, regulate, for example, when sex is and is not allowed. De facto, Ibn Rushd is offering a functional explanation of the meaning behind some of Scriptural practices.++ Another function of Sharia is to point (or to use the language of the Decisive Treatise, indicate) to the significance of good governance and good counsel (48.17).

A very important instance of Ibn Rushd's engaging with a kind of functional interpretation of Scripture occurs just after he has explained why woman ought not just be, in principle, guardians (as they are in Kallipolis), but that there is empirical evidence that they can be quite capable warriors (praising the Berber, female warriors of the dessert). And just before he goes on to explain (recall) that the institutions of his own time have the effect of dumbing down women (and causing economic hardship), he briefly pauses to note that Sharia has a tendency to prevent women from being part of the clerisy. He explains this fact as a consequence of an empirical regularity in which -- presumably in the time of revelation -- there are fewer capable women. But as the next page makes clear this regularity is itself a consequence of badly designed institutions. So, here, Ibn Rushd comes extremely close to saying that Scriptures didn't know any better based on the empirical evidence available; and that [the author(s) of] Scripture lacked the demonstrative understanding to correct for this. So, this is a case in which the hidden functionality of Scriptures reveals a defective understanding of nature.***

 

Íbn Rushd and the Meaning of Scripture

[A] So we affirm definitely that whenever the conclusion of a demonstration is in conflict with the apparent meaning of Scripture, that apparent meaning admits of allegorical interpretation according to the rules for such interpretation in Arabic. [B] This proposition is questioned by no Muslim and doubted by no believer. But (a) its certainty is immensely increased for those who have had close dealings with this idea and put it to the test, and (b) made it their aim to reconcile the assertions of intellect and tradition. [C] Indeed we may say that whenever a statement in Scripture conflicts in its apparent meaning with a conclusion of demonstration, [C*] if Scripture is considered carefully, and the rest of its contents searched page by page, there will invariably be found among the expressions of Scripture something which in its apparent meaning bears witness to that allegorical interpretation or comes close to bearing witness.--Ibn Rushd, Decisive Treatise, Chapter 2, Translated by George Hourani. [Letters added--ES]

Earlier in the Decisive Treatise, Ibn Rushd had established that Scripture cannot conflict with demonstrative knowledge/science. The first sentence of the quoted passage [A] is an implication of Ibn Rushd's tendency to rationalize scripture. So, that allegorical interpretations of Scripture are invited whenever these are required to have Scripture come out true by the lights of demonstration/reason and when the apparent meaning of the text would seem to violate it. (Spinoza scholars are familiar with this position because it is the one Spinoza attributes to Maimonides and criticizes; I ignore here the tricky question to what degree, if any, Ibn Rush influenced Maimonides or the other way around.)

As an aside, it is notable that [A] is explicitly treated by Ibn Rushd as a kind of political axiom, and so perhaps constitutive, of the Muslim community: [B] "This proposition is questioned by no Muslim and doubted by no believer." And he goes on to point out that while the axiom [B] is accepted unquestionably, those few, the cognitive elite,+ that put it to work (a) both come to hold it more firmly [suggesting that unquestioned acceptance is perhaps more fragile than it seems] and (b) end up being committed to a reconciliation project between science and revelation/traditional religion. the ways in which inherited religion and reason can be reconciled. (What the exact relationship between (a) and (b) is, is left unclear--perhaps the Arabic makes clear if this conceptual, logical, or contingent.)

This reconciliation project by the cognitive elite presupposes that Scripture is (and this anticipates Spinoza) primarily aimed at the masses who require opinions to be "guided." That is, Scripture is fundamentally a work of social, ethical, and political significance. (In the first sentence of this paragraph, I say 'primarily' because Ibn Rushd also claims that the apparent tension between reason and Scripture are deliberately there "in order to draw the attention of those who are well grounded in science to the interpretation which reconciles them,"--that is to say, Ibn Rushd claims that Scripture has an esoteric message for those that can understand.) The reconciliation project is explicitly not in the service of public Enlightenment because Ibn Rushd argues later in the Decisive Treatise that (recall) allegorical interpretations by the cognitive  elite should not be shared with ordinary folk. This may entail that the reconciliation project is merely for private edification of the cognitive elite.* 

The final sentence [C] is extraordinary. And it can be taken in (at least) two ways: first, the pious way affirms the miracle of Scripture, which is a holistic work in which any passage can, when taken literally be used,to illuminate some  obscure or evidently false passages, which require allegorical interpretation by the cognitive elite. Second, the scandalous way, which suggests that Scripture can be made to say literally just about anything that, in the hands of the skilled cognitive elite, can support the truths they already know!** 

 

On Written Law and the Rise of the Caliphate according to Al-Farabi

82. If there happens to be an association of these kings at a single moment in a single city, a single nation, or many nations, then their whole association is like a single king due to the agreement in their endeavors, purposes, opinions, and ways of life. If they succeed one another in time, their souls will be as a single soul. The second will proceed according to the way of life of the first, and the one now present according to the way of life of the one who has passed away. Just as it is permissible for one of them to change a Law he legislated at one moment if he is of the opinion that it is more fitting to change it at another moment, so may the one now present who succeeds the one who has passed away change what the one who has passed away has already legislated. For the one who has passed away would change [it] himself, were he to observe the [new] condition. When there does not happen to be a human being of this condition, the Laws that the former [kings] prescribed or ordained are to be adopted, then written down and preserved, and the city is to be governed by means of them. So the ruler who governs the city by means of written Laws adopted from past leaders is the king of traditional law.--Al-Farabi, Political Regime, Translated by Charles Butterfield

In context it is clear that "these kings' are akin to Platonic philosopher-kings ("king in truth according to the ancients," (80)). The most visible difference is that for Al-Farabi, but not Plato, a philosopher-king can rule over an empire ("many nations") whereas Plato limits their rule to an explicitly delimited city-state/polity [Republic, 423b]. Another important difference -- not evident from this quote, but crucial -- is that in the Republic, Socrates farms out to the oracle of Apollo the fundamental laws pertaining to the divine (427),* so that the philosopher-kings of the Republic , which then inherit the oracle's injunctions, are more akin to an executive of earthy matters than a constitutional-onto-theological-legislator. Al-Farabi stresses this difference when he  points out that rather than calling one of them a philosopher king, it's better "of whom it ought to be said that he receives revelation." (80) 

A reader familiar with early Islamic history, is likely to read in this passage, the era of Muhammad and (at least) the four righteous caliphs, which came to an end . Unlike, say, Ibn Rushd later (recall here), he treats the period of the four righteous caliphs not as an imitation of the virtue of Muhammed, but as a continuation of the best kind of polity founded by Muhammad.+ For the sake of argument, I call this a continuity thesis. The continuity comes to an end, when under the Umayyad dynasty caliphs onward, judges and jurists are appointed who rely on and interpret written law.

This continuity thesis has an interesting implication: that the according to the four righteous caliphs contextually necessitated changes away from Muhammad's practice and example are not really changes, as it were, of the inner meaning of the law. It's only when Caliphs started to rely on written law that the polity becomes, at best, an imitation of virtue. This second-best structure is due to the lack of talent at the top. 

Of course, there is an alternative way to read the passage, which suggests that the collection and canonization of the Quran is indicative of this decline. The tradition assigns the completion of this process to the period of the third (righteous) Caliph, Uthman, although it was started under the first. It follows from this, that according to Al-Farabi, already the Rishdun caliphate became an imitation of the best.

Be that as it may, while it is tempting to see in Al-Farabi's position an echo of Socrates' bias against writing. It is important to recognize that for Al-Farabi this is merely a symptom; what he calls rule by "traditional law" is a consequence of a lack of available ruling talent or at least a mechanism by which it can come to rule.

We moderns are inclined to reflect on the selection mechanism or process of the right ruler. But that's not how Al-Farabi sees it. We can put the significance of his point as follows: if you can't govern by personal authority you must rely on written law; this reflects a lack of prudential wisdom.