0021-1818_islam_98-1-2-i-259

118 Nasser Rabbat
Nasser Rabbat
Was al-Maqrizi’s Khit ˙ at ˙
a Khaldunian History?
DOI 10.1515/islam-2012-0007 ISLAM 2012; 89(2): 118–140
Abstract: Mu1ammad Taqiyy al-D\n al-Maqr\z\ is undoubtedly the historian with
the most expansive repertoire of the entire fifteenth century Arabic historiography.
His al-Mawa^iz wa-l-i^tibar bi-dhikr al-khitat wa-l-athar (abbrev. Khitat),
in particular, is a unique achievement, which manages to present a general historical
discourse through the chronicling of buildings and topography. This unprecedented
book, this paper argues, may have benefited from the author’s extended
association with Ibn Khaldun, the great interpreter of the notion of ^umran
(civilization, in the sense of human settlements). Ibn Khaldun was al-Maqr\z\’s
revered teacher for at least thirty years. He seems to have influenced his pupil’s
thinking about the city as the domain of civilization in two ways: analytical, that
is to look for causes and effects behind events and appearances, and interpretive,
that is to see in the urban and architectural history of the city the illustration of
the underlying civilizational cycle. In the Khitat, al-Maqr\z\ seems to have applied
his master’s theory to a concrete example – the city of Cairo – and drew from it
pronounced moral lessons on the decline he was observing in the Mamluk sultanate.
This is probably why the Khitat’s influence has endured for more than five
centuries: a tribute to its author’s ardent passion and filial affinity with his city
and country, as well as his interpretive framework, which he probably absorbed
from Ibn Khaldun.
Nasser Rabbat: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, nasser@mit.edu
Historians and biographers have long noted the relationship between Ibn Khaldun
(1332–1406), the great Arab philosopher of history, and Taqiyy al-D\n al-
Maqr\z\ (1364–1442), the most accomplished historian in Cairo in the fifteenth
century. 1 Many contemporary commentators, including al-Maqr\z\ himself, situ-
1 Many of al-Maqr\z\’s contemporary biographers noted this relationship and commented on it,
mostly negatively. See Shams al-Din al-Sakhaw\, al-Daw# al-lami^ li-ahl al-qarn al-tasi^, 12 vols.
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Quds\, 1935), 2: 24; Ibn 0ajar al-^Asqalan\, Raf^ al-isr ^an qudat Misr, 0am\d
^Abd al-Maj\d and Mu1ammad Abu Sinna, eds., 2 vols. (Cairo: Ministry of Education, 1957), 2:
347.