Ibn Khaldun in Iran: How Contemporary Iranian Scholars Interpret Ibn Khaldun, by Seyed Javad Miri

Description

Despite his enduring influence on world scholarship, Ibn Khaldun has remained a surprisingly marginal figure in contemporary Iranian social and political thought. This book explores the intellectual, institutional, and ideological conditions that have shaped his reception in Iran, asking why key concepts such as ‘asabiyyah, ‘umran, state formation, and civilizational decline have seldom become enduring tools of social analysis. Challenging the dominance of Eurocentric paradigms and fragmented approaches to classical Islamic thought, it argues for a critical reconstruction of Khaldunian theory as a framework for understanding the crises of state, power, and social change in modern Iran. Bridging intellectual history, political theory, and sociology, this volume repositions Ibn Khaldun as a vital interlocutor for contemporary debates and a significant resource for developing a historically grounded, non-Eurocentric social science.

SEYED JAVAD MIRI is a Swedish-Iranian sociologist, public intellectual, and professor of sociology at the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies in Tehran, Iran. He is known for his expertise on social theory and Islamic and critical thinkers. He has published over 100 books in English, Persian, and Swedish.

Paperback. 262 Pages

Published: August 2026

ISBN: 978-1-971333-10-6

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