Exhibit 1222 ยท Historical theory (translation)
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Chapter III, section 12: Dynasties have a natural life span like individuals (Rosenthal translation, Dawood abridgement)
However, as a rule no dynasty lasts beyond the life span of three generations.
Ibn Khaldun says a dynasty as a rule lasts no longer than three generations of about forty years. The first generation keeps desert toughness and the strength of group feeling, the second loses part of it, and in the third group feeling disappears completely.
- Source
- Ibn Khaldun; translated by Franz Rosenthal; abridged by N. J. Dawood (Princeton University Press, 2005)
- Date
- 1377 (original); 2005 (abridged English edition)
- Quoted from
- Muqaddimah, Chapter III, section 12 (Rosenthal numbering), Princeton 2005 abridged edition, archive.org full text
- Grade
- Primary record
- Document
- https://archive.org/details/the-muqaddimah-an-introduction-to-history-2005-ibn-ibn-khaldun
- Accessed
- 2026-11-10
- Cited by
- Findings citing this exhibit
- Note
- The archive.org copy is a scan of an in-copyright edition. Replace with a library copy of the Rosenthal translation (Bollingen, 1958; Princeton) before public citation. Also read: 'Group feeling disappears completely.' The Muqaddimah offers the cycle as a model for North African and Near Eastern dynasties, not a tested law.