That’s the title of an article by Helene Guldberg.

Here’s the section that interests me most:

The 14th-century Andalusian Arab, Ibn Khaldun, was described by the Florentine philosopher and diplomat, Niccolò Machiavelli, and the German Enlightenment philosopher, Georg Friedrich Hegel, as one of the greatest philosophers of the Medieval world. As Islamic scholar Adam Silverstein explains in Islamic History (2010), rather than see history as ‘teleological’ or ‘God-driven’, Ibn Khaldun described it as ‘cyclical and subject to rules and patterns.’ And in doing so, he helped put man more at the centre of history.

The author seems to think it’s a good thing that Machiavelli and Hegel thought highly of Khaldun. I don’t. It’s more like a health and safety warning. That Khaldun believed in a cyclical pattern of history, rather than the linear, biblical model, is highly interesting. How is this compatible with Islam? Is it compatible? And if yes, does Islam not believe in creation and judgment? Which is the logical outcome of a linear view of history. But ultimately contradicts a circular view.