Security From Ibn Khaldun's Perspective

Security studies falls within the realm of applied knowledge and has the potential to produce tangible results for the human society. These studies, when combined with historical security experiences, can rid the society of the need for repeated trial and errors in the field of security. Ibn Khaldun is one of the thinkers who addressed security issues and expressed his views on historical security experiences in his works. This article aims to provide an understanding of Ibn Khaldun's security discourse, which had never been the subject of a dedicated study. Drawing on Ibn Khaldun's theoretical principles in the fields of history and security, his security discourse has been studied here within a conceptual framework comprised of seven key components, namely the meaning of security, aspects of security, level of security, friends and enemies, ways to achieve security, and strategic security solutions. The most important finding of the present study is that there is a similarity between Ibn Khaldun's security discourse and the principles of the realist schools of thought as well as the security discourse currently prevailing in the Muslim world and that his security discourse has proved ineffective in creating lasting security in the Muslim world.