BERNARD LEWIS ON IBN KHALDUN 14TH CENTURY ACCOUNT

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

BERNARD LEWIS ON IBN KHALDUN 14TH CENTURY ACCOUNT

This account dovetails with Randall Collins omission of Sub Saharan Africa in The Sociology of Philosophies. 

It seems I was off the mark in my prior post below, in that the Muslims rejected Sub Saharan Africa as civilized, or susceptible to Islamic Civilization as such, thus they were, for the Muslims, including the very knowledgeable intellectuals among the Muslims, like Ibn Khaldun, fit objects for slavery as uncivilized negroes.

 

"...beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings. Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated." Lewis, on Khaldun