The Tribe and the 'Nomos' of the Earth: The Relevance of Ibn Khaldun by Prof. Heba Raouf Ezzat

This video is a recording of a lecture, "The Tribe and the 'Nomos' of the Earth: The Relevance of Ibn Khaldun" given by Prof. Heba Raouf Ezzat, Ibn Haldun University, via Zoom at McGill University on November 18, 2021. The chair of the panel is Prof. Armando Salvatore, McGill University.

Please visit our website for more information about the series, ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion: History, Theory, and Society, upcoming lectures, and our conveners: https://www.mcgill.ca/religiousstudie...

Abstract:
The work of Ibn Khaldun has been read in many ways, focusing often on his notion of ‘asabiyyah and the nature of the social bond in tribal societies that motivates power exercise, territorial expansion and the rise of dynasties. The spatial ordering of society plays a crucial role in this vision. This presentation attempts to explore the notion of order and its configurations in space in the Muqaddimah, and how Ibn Khaldun’s political imagination was based on an understanding of the nomos of the earth on three levels:  the cosmic nomos, the material/spatial nomos and the sociological nomos. While a dominant approach to the reading of Ibn Khaldun was understanding tribal societies as hierarchical, or history as cyclical, I will try to examine heterarchy in the three levels of the nomos. To relate the above to contemporary debates in political theory, Carl Schmitt is invited to this discussion where his understanding of the nomos as the order of appropriation, distribution and production in every society is highlighted. I will also refer to Michel Maffesoli and his work on neo-tribalism.