Ibn Khaldūn in his Subjective Lexicon. The Emotional Constellation of an Intellectual in Transition

MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON. THE EMOTIONAL CONSTELLATION OF AN INTELLECTUAL IN TRANSITION* Ibn Jaldūn en su léxico subjetivo. La constelación emocional de un intelectual en transición Laila M. JREIS NAVARRO Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4455-4745 Recibido: 23/06/2021 Aceptado: 21/01/2022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.30827/meaharabe.v72.21618 Abstract: This study is a linguistic analysis of the subjective lexicon used by the North African thinker ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) in the epilogue of his historical work Kitāb al-‘Ibar, known as Ta‘rīf, in which he writes a biography of himself. The paper outlines the usefulness of building an analytical schema of the linguistic phenomena in which the first person emerges, especially in self-referencing, actions, emotions, and evaluations, in order to fully grasp the complexity of Ibn Khaldūn’s self-expression. A hybrid quantitative and qualitative methodology helps to extract, organize, analyze, and interpret his use of language to express himself in relation to the narration of his life’s journey and his psychological evolution. The data show an intimate expression of a premodern Arabic subject, leading Ta‘rīf to be considered an evolutionary link to the modern autobiography, which takes on great significance in the process of cultural transition of the Islamic West towards European modernity. Resumen: El presente estudio se centra en el análisis lingüístico del léxico subjetivo utilizado por el pensador norteafricano ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn Jaldūn (m. 1406) en el epílogo de su obra histórica Kitāb al-‘Ibar, conocida como Ta‘rīf, donde se biografía a sí mismo. El objetivo es esbozar la utilidad de construir un esquema analítico de los fenómenos lingüísticos en los que emerge la primera persona, especialmente en la autorreferencia, las acciones, las emociones y las evaluaciones, para captar la complejidad de la autoexpresión de Ibn Jaldūn. Una metodología híbrida cuantitativa y cualitativa ayuda a extraer, organizar, analizar e interpretar su uso del lenguaje para expresarse en relación con la narración de su trayectoria vital y su evolución psicológica. Los datos muestran una expresión íntima de un sujeto árabe premoderno, lo que lleva a considerar el Ta‘rīf como un eslabón evolutivo de la autobiografía moderna, que adquiere una gran importancia dentro del proceso de transición cultural del Occidente islámico hacia la modernidad europea. Key words: Ibn Khaldūn. Islamic West. Transition. Modernity. Subjectivity. Palabras clave: Ibn Jaldūn. Occidente islámico. Transición. Modernidad. Subjetividad. * Funded by CONICYT FONDECYT/POSTDOCTORADO/Project No 3190193. LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 88 Word meanings register with great sensitivity what is going on in the world (as interpreted by different human groups at different times), but they register these things, so to speak, in a code, and this code needs to be cracked before the records of these highly sensitive instruments can be read 1 . 1. INTRODUCTION The Strait of Gibraltar is a complex trading area highly favorable for exchange and innovation, due to it being one of those intercultural hybrid frontiers 2 disputed by empires. With the long-lasting stability of the political borders of the different nations that have developed since the beginning of the modern European era, the aforementioned feature of the Strait has been blurred, making it necessary to examine the centuries that have shaped this Euro-African region as we know it today. Of particular interest is the cultural transition initiated after the Almohad Empire’s fall in the thirteenth century, which continued after the unification of the Castile and Aragon’s Hispanic crowns, until the expulsion of the Moriscos at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Especially relevant is the period of splendor that encompassed the second half of the fourteenth century, motivated by a network of intellectuals —which extended throughout the different regions of the Islamic West—, who participated in the modern epistemological turn with a hybrid proposal, where individualism, empiricism, and spirituality met for a short period of time 3 . These individuals’ textual legacy reflects life experiences that convey, in the first person, their struggles for survival between two worlds. On the one hand, a world in retreat, created by the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba, and later expanded by the Iberian Muslim kingdoms that followed in its footsteps, and by the North African empires of the Almoravids and Almohads. On the other hand, an advancing world, that of the European Christian kingdoms, which had been nurtured by the ones that came before, effectively building the modern empires. The efforts of this intellectual elite also depended, to a greater extent, on another transition, which ran parallel to the Western one in the Near East, where the Islamized Turks advanced on the last bastion of the ancient world until the Ottomans replaced Byzantium and took over the remains of the Arab-Islamic Empire. In this global context, the life of the North African thinker ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn Khaldūn (Tunis, 1332 – Cairo, 1406) comes to light, one of the Western figures who was actively moving within this political arena and writing about it with a 1 . Goddard and Wierzbicka. Words and meaning, p. 2. 2 . Barkey. Empire of difference, pp. 42, 61-62. 3 . Jreis. “Inhabiting the Strait”. IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON… MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 89 modern lucidity 4 . As Al-Musawi notes, “in him as a scholar and signifier we also have the Muslim west both in conversation and at war with the Muslim east” 5 . Ibn Khaldūn wrote his biography as an epilogue to his monumental work on universal history known as Kitāb al-‘Ibar. As had been the case with his introduction to said work —the famous Muqaddima into which he pours his thoughts—, his biography also receives an independent character often referred to as Ta‘rīf or Riḥla, as it responds to a hybrid genre between biography (tarjama) and travel account (riḥla). In the Ta‘rīf, Ibn Khaldūn tells the story of his life from his Andalusi ancestors in Seville, until shortly before his death in Cairo, and includes historical paragraphs, poetry, correspondence, and sermons. His biography then becomes the story of his travels through the Maghreb from his homeland, Ifrīqiya, his two incursions into the Iberian Peninsula, and his exile to Mamluk Egypt. After moving through the entire territory of the Islamic West without finding any stability, he left from an area governed by Amazighs and Arabs, vassals of Castile, to another where some Turks —Mamluks— ruled while threatened by other Turks —Timurids 6 . For Ibn Khaldūn, the Maghreb was his homeland, where he had grown up, and Egypt —with Cairo rising as both a center of knowledge and a prominent exile destination in the Arab-Islamic world— 7 was the place where his generation was (ahl jīlī) 8 . He experienced the urge for a renewed epistemological paradigm in the advent of modernity, making his Ta‘rīf the best way to rethink his life’s complexity 9 . For this reason, the present study aims to analyze the use that Ibn Khaldūn makes of subjective language in this work, to identify the codification of his experience within that context. The Ta‘rīf's accessible language and its first-person narration makes it a good starting point for establishing an organizational schema of the subjective lexicon according to its linguistic patterns. This initial outline will enable further progress in subjectivity research within a larger corpus of texts and comparative approaches. The methodology seeks to pave an analytical and structured path situated in connection with a specific cultural context, which will give access to the world conveyed in its discursive legacy. 4 . The importance of this thinker has been noted in comparison with the Neapolitan Giambattista Vico (d. 1744) in the study of the cultural exchange around the early modern Mediterranean, between the Mamluks, the Ottoman Empire, and the Italian Renaissance principalities: Dayeh and Messling. “Early modern ‘new sciences’”. 5 . Al-Musawi. The medieval Islamic Republic of letters, p. 25. On Ibn Khaldūn see: Viguera. Ibn Jaldun. El Mediterraneo en el siglo XIV; Fromherz. Ibn Khaldun, life and times; Alatas. Ibn Khaldun. 6 . On this matter, see: Fischel. Ibn Khaldūn and Tamerlane. 7 . Al-Musawi. The medieval Islamic Republic of letters, pp. 5-7. 8 . Ibn Khaldūn. Riḥla, p. 295. 9 . Tritar. “Ibn aldūn dans le Taʿrīf”, p. 106; Jreis. “Inhabiting the Strait”, pp. 224-225. LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 90 This work is developed along three main sections before reaching its conclusions. It begins with a definition of subjectivity, with attention to the terminology of different contemporary disciplines and the premodern subject’s own perspective. The central part elaborates a quantitative methodology, which serves to extract instances and patterns of language present in the discourse, to finally analyze the characteristics of the subjective expression and its contextual meaning. The analysis ends with a remark on the genre issue. 2. THE EXPLICIT SUBJECT In this study, subjectivity is the self-expression of a premodern subject, like Ibn Khaldūn, and is centered on the individual’s point of view 10 , maintaining the awareness that it is part of various collective spaces that require other perspectives of analysis. His subjective language develops within ‘emotional communities’ 11 , where the vocabulary 12 being used, as well as its variations, indicate sociopolitical changes and the influence of dominant ideologies; it is, therefore, in agreement with communal psychological states, such as those reflected in the sermons (khuṭab) aimed at promoting a collective consciousness 13 . The study of this individual subjectivity is limited to its explicit linguistic manifestation. The identification of implicit subjectivity requires a degree of interpretation on the part of the researcher that hinders scientific replicability and standardization, which are fundamental for establishing the macro-connections necessary to achieve intercultural visions. 2.1. Terms and disciplines The linguistic analysis explores the self-expressive characteristics of the work empirically and systematically, and unravels the particular aspects that define Ibn Khaldūn’s subjectivity in his discourse. In linguistic studies, there are alternative ways of referring to individual subjectivity or self-expression, such as ‘evaluation’ and ‘stance’, or ‘epistemic stance’. ‘Evaluation’ is subjectivity focused on a specific topic; ‘stance’ includes both ‘evaluation’ and ‘subjectivity’, and encompasses the lexical and grammatical expressions of personal feelings, attitudes, value judgments, and commitments 14 . 10 . Reynolds (ed.). Interpreting the self; Jreis. “Contextos de autoexpresión”, pp. 130-147. On selfexpression in the Arabic language, see also: Roman. “L’expression du «je»”. 11 . Rosenwein. Emotional communities. 12 . Rosenwein. Generations of feeling, pp. 5-6. 13 . Jones. The power of oratory, pp. 45-46. 14 . Englebretson. “Stancetaking in discourse”, pp. 5, 16-18. IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON… MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 91 In corpus linguistics, determining the ‘stance’ is problematic because it is not a question of considering a single form, but consider one among several forms of meaning. Although it is possible to identify several forms associated with the stance, it is not enough to regard them as individual items within their immediate co-text; there must be a deep understanding of the totality of their discourse of choice in order to interpret the role of the stance in it. Therefore, analyzing the discourse with this methodology has to be both a quantitative and qualitative task 15 . This study uses broad terminology to maintain an interdisciplinary approach, since it varies according to the discipline. In Natural Language Processing (NLP) —an area of Data Engineering—, the terminology is less relevant than in linguistics or in literary theory to refer to the analysis of subjectivity in language, which falls within what is known as ‘sentiment analysis’ or ‘opinion mining’. The term ‘opinion’ can designate without restriction: opinion, sentiment, evaluation, appraisal, attitude, and emotion, simply because most studies focus on opinions that express positive or negative feelings 16 . Nevertheless, the terminology is explored, creating new terms such as ‘private state’ to refer to opinions, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, evaluations, and judgments 17 . For all these reasons, the term ‘subjectivity’ will henceforth be used, in its broad sense of self-expression, to explore an approximation between quantitative methodology and humanistic research, fundamentally hermeneutic 18 . The qualitative aspect corresponds to the analysis of discourse as the use of language within its social context 19 . It consists of an approach to discourse as a reflection of needs, ideologies, beliefs, and intentions, without distinguishing between text and discourse, or losing sight of the hermeneutic problems posed by the interpretative process 20 . The quantitative aspect is related to the current that leans towards the scientific method, which has led disciplines, such as neuroscience or computational linguistics, to displace others closer to interpretation, such as psychology or philology, respectively. This inclination is impacting the humanities that seek to adhere to scientific epistemology. The process of knowledge construction is much more agile, and the truths defended today will be quickly gotten over tomorrow; it weights replicability as a quality framework and requires, on the part of the hu15 . Hunston. “Using a corpus to investigate stance”, pp. 27-28. 16 . Liu. Sentiment analysis, p. 1. 17 . Wiebe; Wilson and Cardie. “Annotating expressions of opinions and emotions”, p. 4. 18 . Kuhn. “Computational text analysis within the humanities”, pp. 565-602. 19 . Spiegel. The past as text, p. XVIII. 20 . Partington; Duguid and Taylor. Patterns and meanings in discourse, pp. 3-4. LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 92 manist, a deep immersion in other disciplines without losing sight of their methodological foundations 21 . Engaging in computational linguistics and Natural Language Processing enables a simplified structuring of the problem by elaborating an information annotation schema, and forces a different view on the data by transforming the text into a script. This confluence makes new conceptualizations possible, leading the humanities to become aware of the paradigms under construction, not only in related disciplines, such as psychology or linguistics, but also in those that seem to be at an insurmountable distance, such as neuroscience or data science. 2.2. Action, emotion and evaluation Following this hybrid methodology, the linguistic analysis of a premodern subject is, in this case, not only justified by the fact of its exclusive presence in the textual legacy, but also by the theory of language 22 that Ibn Khaldūn himself succinctly indicates in the Muqaddima: It should be known that language [lugha], as the term is customarily used, is the expression [‘ibāra] by a speaker [mutakallim] of his intention [maqṣūd]. Such expression is an act [fi‘l] of the tongue [lisān] which originates in an intention [qaṣd] to convey the meaning [ifāda] of speech [kalām] 23 . Ibn Khaldūn explains his understanding of the importance of the psychological aspect of semantics (‘ilm al-dalāla) 24 . For him, words are above ideas, in the sense that their correct use and understanding allows the effective communication of ideas 25 . That is why he states in the Ta‘rīf, referring to his completion of the Muqaddima, that “the speech [kalām] and the concepts [ma‘ānī] flowed like a torrent over the ideas [fikr]” 26 . Language, therefore, is loaded with the speaker’s intention to express meaning through their discourse, and its effectiveness in providing that meaning depends directly on their ability to use words, as can be seen in the prominent place conferred to rhetoric (al-balāgha) in the Arabic language. This supports the great relevance given in this study to Ibn Khaldūn’s use of the lexicon in his Ta‘rīf, which takes on particular significance when one bears 21 . Plamper. The history of emotions, pp. 240-250. 22 . Ahmad. The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldūn, p. 130. 23 . Ibn Khaldūn. The Muqaddimah, vol. 3, p. 320, and Kitāb al-‘Ibar, vol. 2, p. 474. 24 . ‘Abd al-Khalīl. ‘Ilm al-dalāla, pp. 26, 40. 25 . Cooke. “Ibn Khaldun and language”, pp. 180-182. 26 . Ibn Khaldūn. Riḥla, p. 188. IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON… MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 93 in mind, as Manzano points out 27 , the high conceptual value that he imbues his Muqaddima with, through a careful lexical selection that is obsessively precise. Reading the Ta‘rīf is enough to develop an awareness of the simplification of language that its author undertakes to make his discourse accessible to the general public 28 , in contrast with the elitist tendency toward ornament in the prose of his contemporaries. By avoiding ornate prose, he makes it possible to clearly define two areas where the use of subjective language occurs explicitly: — Actions exercised by the subject. — Emotions 29 and evaluations expressed by the subject. As it will be seen later in detail, the actions’ analysis revolves mainly around the verbs used by the subject, related to their morphology, semantics, and context. The emotions sometimes overlap with the aforementioned area and are also present in the nouns and specific expressions. The evaluations focus, fundamentally, on expressions and adjectives. Emotions and evaluations acquire, according to their context, positive, negative, and sometimes neutral valences. 3. METHODOLOGY The annotation makes use of a digital version of al-Ṭanjī’s edition of the Ta‘rīf. 30 The normalized 31 text is from OpenITI (Open Islamicate Texts Initiative) 32 , a collection of premodern Arabic texts 33 set for computational analysis. OpenITI draws its corpus 34 from al-Maktaba al-Shamela 35 , a website that stores digitized Arabic texts from the beginning of the Islamic era to modern times. As al-Shamela lacks a corpus design, OpenITI converts the EPUB versions of these 27 . Manzano. “Ibn Jaldūn”, p. 590. 28 . Ibn Khaldūn. Riḥla, p. 75. 29 . Rosenwein does not differentiate between ‘emotion’, ‘affection’, ‘feeling’ or even ‘passion’, Generations of feeling, pp. 7-8. Within the historical studies on emotions, the terminology is diversified with terms such as ‘affect’, ‘appraisal’, ‘basic emotions’, ‘emotional practices’, among others, to meet a different complexity of analysis, Plamper. The history of emotions, pp. 301-307. 30 . Ibn Khaldūn. Riḥla. The work is translated into French and Spanish: Ibn Khaldūn. Autobiographie; Jarmouni. Ibn Jaldún. 31 . Normalization in NLP is, mainly, the disambiguation of spelling. In Arabic: cleaning tashkīl, differentiating between yā’ and alif maqṣūra if needed, and replacing all medial and final hamza with the standalone one, Habash. Introduction to Arabic natural language processing, pp. 21-23. 32 . https://github.com/OpenITI/0825AH/tree/master/data/0808IbnKhaldun 33 . Nigst et al. “OpenITI: a machine-readable corpus of Islamicate Texts (version 2021.1.4)”. This version includes 6,236 unique works written by 2,582 authors http://kitabproject.org/2021/02/12/openiti-release-2021-1-4/. 34 . Belinkov et al. “Shamela”. 35 . http://shamela.ws/ LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 94 documents into a specially designed markup format, with a light-weight 36 tagging schema, called OpenITI mARkdown 37 . 3.1. Annotation schema The analysis of the text takes into consideration three different dimensions: — The structure of the work’s contents. — The different genres present in it. — The relevant linguistic phenomena to define the subjective lexicon of its discourse. To organize the Ta‘rīf and achieve a more detailed analysis, the division in Table 1 takes into account Ibn Khaldūn’s geographical movements 38 , providing more information than the usual three-stage division, which considers his training and political and academic activities 39 . Structure Period Description Pages Family - Arabic and Andalusi origins; establishment in the Ḥafṣid Sultanate. 26-36 Ifriqiya_1 1332-1354 Birth in Tunis; training; first job; departure. 36-67 Maghreb_Aq_1 1354-1362 Beginning of his career in the Marinid capital of al-Maghrib al-Aqṣà with the sultan Abū ‘Inān; imprisonment; support for Abū Sālim’s enthronement; intrigues of Ibn Marzūq; departure. 67-83 al_Andalus_1 1362-1365 Refuge in Granada with the help of the Naṣrid sultan Muḥammad V; ambassador at the court of the Castilian King Pedro I (Seville); indifference from the part of Ibn alKhaṭīb; departure. 83-95 Magreb_Aw_1 1365-1372 Stay in al-Maghrib al-Awsaṭ without political support; involvement in the clashes between the Marinid sultan ‘Abd al-‘Azīz and the Zayyānid sultán Abū Ḥammū in Tlemecen; departure. 95-181 Maghreb_Aq_2 1372-1374 Attempt to settle in Fez; departure. 181-186 36 . Less complex than TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) XML: http://www.tei-c.org/ 37 . https://alraqmiyyat.github.io/mARkdown/ 38 . The pages correspond to al-Ṭanjī’s edition, Ibn Khaldūn Riḥla. 39 . Alatas. Applying Ibn Khaldūn, p. 4. IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON… MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 95 al_Andalus_2 1374-1375 Attempt to settle in Granada; departure. 186-187 Maghreb_Aw_2 1375-1378 Shelter at Qal‘at Ibn Salāma; Beginning of the Tārīkh and conclusion of the Muqaddima40; recovery from a serious illness; departure. 187-188 Ifriqiya_2 1378-1382 Return to Tunis; conclusion of Tārīkh on the request of the Ḥafṣid sultan; departure by boat to Alexandria. 188-199 Egypt_1 1382-1387 Making a name for himself in the high society of Mamluk Egypt; his family’s shipwreck; teaching and work revision; intrigues against him; loss of his teaching post; departure to the pilgrimage. 199-209 Pilgrimage 1387-1388 Pilgrimage to the holy places of al-Ḥijāz and return to Cairo. 209 Egypt_2 1388-1400 Involvement in a rebellion against the Mamluk sultan. 209-274 aside_1 Details of his professional activities in Egypt. 221-246 aside_2 History of the Mamluk sultanate and the rebellion. 246-259 Palestine 1400 Visit to Jerusalem during the first Mamluk campaign in Syria, due to the advance of the Timurids41. 274 Egypt_3 1400 Return to Cairo; disagreements with the new Mamluk sultan and intrigues; loss of his cadi post; forced to leave to defend Damascus besieged by Timur Lang. 274-287 aside_3 History of mankind up to Timur Lang. 275-286 Syria 1400-1401 Surrender of Damascus together with other notable characters; meeting with Timur Lang and delivery of a geographical description of the Maghreb. 287-297 Egypt_4 1401-1405 Return to Cairo; final years. 297-300 Table 1: content structure in the Ta‘rīf 40 . Manzano. “Ibn Jaldūn”, p. 584. 41 . Manz et al. “Tīmūrids”. LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 102 I smelt from him the scent of withdrawal بيطخلا نبا نأش هيلع تيّمع ‘Ammaytu ‘alayhi sha’n Ibn al-Khaṭīb I rendered Ibn al-Khaṭīb’s affair blind to him The second is the use of verbs typically utilized in diplomatic contexts in ‘Syria’, when narrating his meeting with Timur Lang, the most powerful leader in the Arab-Islamic world at the time. Therefore, although the use of first-person singular hapax verbs in the narration is meaningful as an abstract trajectory, it is nonetheless fundamental that the words are not all isolated, but grouped based in certain patterns; that means, to pay attention to the context of the words, and to assign groups of meaning to these patterns 55 . The repetition of verb use and their position within the structured discourse help us observe the following: — The only two instances of the verb asmū ilà (I aspire to) in the text are located in ‘Magreb_Aq_1’, a stage of youth. — The only three instances of the first-person verbs sha‘artu / ash‘uru / astash‘iru with the root sha‘ara (to perceive), appear in ‘Magreb_Aw_1’ and correspond to moments of high uncertainty of the subject. — The uses of the verb i‘tazamtu (I resolved), in ‘Ifriqiya_1’, ‘al-Andalus_1’, ‘Maghreb_Aw_1’ and ‘Egypt_1’, indicate inflection points in Ibn Khaldūn’s life trajectory 56 . Aside from the particular case of the Ta‘rīf, it is necessary to semantically organize the lexicon to address subjective expression in a group of texts. There is a strong relationship between a society’s life and the lexicon of its language; words can reveal to us information about their way of seeing the world. The study of their meaning requires a metalanguage of description that avoids circularity; that is, an inventory of primitive terms or elementary blocks to construct complex concepts. These terms, called ‘semantic primes’, constitute a solid foundation to decode the meaning of words reflecting the diversity of languages and cultures; thus, the name of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) for this methodology 57 . 55 . Hunston. “Using a corpus to investigate stance”, pp. 31-33. 56 . Interestingly, the last turning point coincides with his desire for pilgrimage, which often implied for his contemporaries a departure from the political scene and, ultimately, exile, García Gómez. Foco de antigua luz sobre la Alhambra, pp. 219-220. 57 . Goddard and Wierzbicka. Words and meanings, pp. 8-12. See the Arabic version of the ‘semantic primes’ at: Habib. “Heaven and hell are here!”, pp. 162-163. IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON… MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 103 There are two types of semantic primes that are useful in this analysis: ‘evaluators’ (GOOD, BAD) 58 and ‘mental predicates’ (KNOW, THINK, WANT, DON’T WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR). Under the last category, it is possible to group instances as: — Sha‘artu / ash‘uru / astash‘iru: when perceiving by means of the senses or conceiving in the mind. — Sami‘tu: when hearing certain information and, with the preposition ‘alà, learning a book from a teacher (to hear it on somebody’s authority). — Ra’aytu: when seeing (with the eye) or considering/deciding on an issue (to [mentally] see it). — ‘Āyantu: when seeing with the subject’s own eyes. The last two instances, ra’aytu and ‘āyantu, suggest that the lexical-semantic approach is insufficient in morphologically rich languages 59 such as Arabic 60 . This approach does not consider the connection of the grammatical description with the lexical-semantic relations it addresses. In the case of Arabic verbs, the morpho-semantic fields 61 (al-ḥuqūl al-dalāliyya al-ṣarfiyya) 62 are of great relevance, since they can revolve around the root or the ‘pattern I’ verb (fa‘ala), which constitutes a basic lexeme for the rest of the derived patterns that add a specific semantic charge to it 63 . In the study of subjectivity, the relevance of the use of a ‘pattern III’ verb (fā‘ala) is related to its conativity, adding the subject effort to reach the ‘pattern I’ verb meaning 64 , which, in the following instances, implies his thorough examination of something rather than merely seeing it: ةيليبشإب[ اهب يفلس راثآ تنياع] ‘Āyantu āthār salafī bi-hā [bi-Ishbīliya] I saw my ancestors’ vestiges in it [in Seville] with my own eyes 58 . See next section. 59 . Raffaelli and Kerovac. “Morphosemantic fields”, p. 131. 60 . Habash. Introduction to Arabic natural language processing, p. 39. 61 . Guiraud. Structures étymologiques du lexique français, apud Raffaelli and Kerovac. “Morphosemantic fields”, p. 131-133. 62 . Fayyāḍ. Al-Ḥuqūl al-dalāliyya al-ṣarfiyya. 63 . ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd. Durūs al-taṣrīf, pp. 71-83. 64 . Most pattern III verbs correspond to two meanings: the abovementioned conativity and mutuality, which is a mutual action with symmetry (equality between the subject and the direct object), or asymmetry (the superiority of the subject regarding the direct object), Danks. The Arabic verb, pp. 88, 101. LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 104 ةيدهلا كلت فانصأ ذئموي تنياع ‘Āyantu yawma’idhin aṣnāf tilk al-hadiyya That day, I saw the constituents of that present with my own eyes In other cases, it is necessary to pay attention to the relation between meaning and syntax to refine the analysis, as in the use of ‘the past progressive’, which tends to appear with experiential verbs that denote the states of mind of a subject, such as knowing, feeling, and liking 65 . ك تنهيف تنك امم عفرأ ىلإ ،بابشلا نايغطب ،ومسأ Kuntu asmū, bi-ṭughyān al-shabāb, ilà arfa‘ mimmā kuntu fīhi In the exorbitance of youth, I was aspiring to a higher condition The first-person action at the Ta‘rīf is more abundant and meaningful in the singular, but it also occurs in the plural. First-person plural verbs are mostly divided between the nosistic voice and the collective plural; in the former, it is usually the authorial voice that refers to the content of the work, while, in the latter, there is an abundance of movement verbs. The importance of distinguishing between singular and collective plural firstperson verbs, can be seen within the context of Ibn Khaldūn’s pilgrimages to the different holy places of al-Ḥijāz and Palestine. It becomes evident that pilgrimage to Jerusalem was an individual experience, as opposed to the Muslim tradition of fulfilling the precept of Ḥajj. In both cases, the author uses similar first-person singular verbs characteristic of the pilgrimage: — Al-Ḥijāz: ‘I accompanied’ (rāfaqtu), ‘I entered’ (dakhaltu), ‘I fulfilled’ (qaḍaytu), ‘I returned’ (‘udtu). — Palestine: ‘I arrived’ (waṣaltu), ‘I entered’ (dakhaltu), ‘I fulfilled’ (qaḍaytu), ‘I left’ (inṣaraftu). However, it is only in the Palestine stage that there is a first-person singular hapax verb (see the beginning of this section) and no first-person plural verbs. The action of the subject takes place with the use of verbs and the use of the nouns from which they emanate. According to Sībawayhi (d. 796), the maṣdar (origin; source) in Arabic is the origin of the verb; it has a noun-like behavior with verb-like characteristics, and performs various functions 66 , two of which are of interest in the study of the subject’s expression: 65 . Ryding. A reference grammar, p. 447. 66 . Ditters. “Maṣdar”, pp. 165-166. IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON… MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 105 1. A maṣdar with a genitive subject, which is relevant in this study when the subject is a first-person possessive pronominal suffix, as in mulābasatī: ناطلسلل يتسبلام نم بيطخلا نبا ريزولا اوليخ Khayyalū l-wazīr Ibn al-Khaṭīb min mulābasatī li-l-sulṭān They imaged my mixing with the sultan to the vizier Ibn al-Khaṭīb 67 2. A maṣdar with a genitive object, which is relevant in this study when the maṣdar is the first noun of an iḍāfa (construct state) and where the second is a noun with a first-person possessive pronominal suffix, as in taḥṣīl gharaḍī: يضرغ ليصحتل ةباجلإا ىلإ تعراس Sāra‘tu ilà l-ijāba li-taḥṣīl gharaḍī I hastened to respond, for the attainment of my purpose 68 4.2. Emotion and evaluation The annotation of emotions and evaluations expressed by the subject in his discourse and the identification of their positive, negative, or neutral valence, depend on the reader’s interpretation of the instances’ context. In this category of subjective expressions, the instances are less abundant than those of the previous section regarding morphology, but they perform a rich casuistry; the extracted information shows a specific lexicon, certain grammatical categories, phrases, and even metaphors. To classify this vocabulary in accordance with semantic fields such as ‘nostalgia’ avoids the establishment of replicable 69 and intercultural 70 categories. For this reason, the ‘semantic primes’ become useful again, taking advantage of their universal combinatorial properties 71 . The most suitable combination is that of the ‘mental predicates’ FEEL and THINK, which would correspond, respectively, to emotions and evaluations in an indefinite or neutral state; and that of the ‘evaluators’ BAD and GOOD, which would add a negative or positive valence, and where the degree could also be determined with the ‘intensifier’ VERY. As we 67 . ‘They imaged an intimate connection between me and the sultan to the vizier Ibn al-Khaṭīb’. 68 . ‘I hastened to respond, to attain my object of aim’. 69 . Discussion over this matter is already taking place in the interaction between psychology and neuroscience, Azari et al. “Comparing supervised and unsupervised approaches to emotion categorization”. 70 . Wierzbicka. “Language and metalanguage”. 71 . Goddard and Wierzbicka. Words and meanings, pp. 13-14, 17-18. LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 106 will see in the following instances, in Ibn Khaldūn’s speech, negative emotion (FEEL BAD) and positive evaluation (THINK GOOD) are predominant: — FEEL: ‘I desired’ (tashawwaftu), ‘determined’ (mu‘taziman), ‘determination’ (‘azm), ‘inclination’ (mayl), ‘expectation’ (taraqqub).  FEEL GOOD: ‘I rejoiced’ (ightabaṭtu), ‘affection’ (maḥabba), ‘congruity’ (i’tilāf), ‘I enjoyed [abundance] at pleasure’ (rata‘tu), ‘enjoying [abundance] at pleasure’ (rāti‘an), ‘contented’ (qāni‘an), ‘hoping’ (mu’milan), ‘glory’ (fakhr), ‘I found [something] pleasant’ (istaṭabtu).  FEEL BAD: ‘loneliness’ (istīḥāsh), ‘dislike’ (kurh), ‘yearning’ (tashawwuq), ‘longing’ (ḥanīn), ‘fearing’ (khashya), ‘uneasy’ (mustawḥish), ‘I feared [somebody]’ (istawḥashtu), ‘I feared’ (khashītu), ‘affliction’ (maṣāb), ‘grief’ (jaza‘), ‘lament’ (asaf), ‘consolation’ (‘azā’), ‘fear’ (wajal), ‘abomination’ (shanā‘a), ‘hideousness’ (qubḥ). — THINK: ‘I reckon’ (aḥtasib) 72 , ‘unusual’ (gharīb), ‘distant’ (ba‘īd), ‘[something] was in the middle’ (tawassaṭat).  THINK GOOD: ‘[something] was extended’ (ṭālat), ‘[something] multiplied’ (kathurat), ‘[something] became abundant’ (tawaffarat), ‘[something] dilated’ (ittasa‘at), ‘great in estimation’ (fakhm), ‘he overtopped me [by something]’ (ghamaranī), ‘majesty’ (‘uẓm), ‘greatness’ (ḍakhāma), ‘skilful’ (māhir), ‘admirable’ (rā’i‘), ‘good’ (ḥasan), ‘beautiful’ (anīqa), ‘copious’ (ghazīr).  THINK BAD: ‘scarce’ (qalīl). There are several categories in this collection of instances. Within emotions, there are first-person verbs, analyzed in the previous section, and nouns. The nouns are not preceded by an explicit verb of feeling, as is the case in the next instance: ..[] فلاتئلااو ةبحملا نم نيرم ينب خايشأ نيبو ينيب ناك امب [..] bi-mā kāna baynī wa-bayna ashyākh Banī Marīn min al-maḥabba wa-l-i’tilāf [..] because of the affection and congruity between the Merinids and me It is worth noting the presence of the grammatical category Ḥāl —literally, ‘state’ or ‘situation’—, in the form of an indefinite accusative that replaces a circumstantial clause 73 that, in the annotated instances, refers to the speaker: mu‘taziman, rāti‘an, qāni‘an, mu’milan. 72 . The 3 instances of this verb have the sense of ‘underrate’. 73 . Bernards. “Ḥāl”. IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON… MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 107 Clustering the lexicon highlights frequent grammatical categories in emotional expression and specific instances to express a particular feeling. For instance, feeling fear is expressed with the word wajal, used by Ibn Khaldūn up to 3 times to designate an individual and collective negative emotion during his experience in Syria with the Timurids. This word does not appear anywhere else in the discourse, and entails a greater degree of severity than khashya, which was used in the previous stages of his biography. Another way of observing this vocabulary is to configure it around a highly emotional moment in the subject’s life, such as that of his family’s shipwreck. In his vocabulary, there is affliction, grief, lament, consolation, and even confusion (ikhtalaṭa al-fikr) and renunciation to the world (rajaḥa al-zuhd). All this present an emotional and psychological state expressed explicitly by Ibn Khaldūn. Emotions are also found in ready-made expressions, similar to the following, which convey a feeling of uncertainty: درولا نيب تفقوردصلاو Waqaftu bayn al-wird wa-l-ṣadar I stood between coming to water and returning سأيلاو ءاجرلا طارص ىلع ‘alà ṣirāṭ al-rajā’ wa-l-ya’s On the road of hope and despair The assessments include evaluation verbs (first-person and descriptive verbs), nouns that describe a value, and evaluative adjectives. However, the evaluation takes place, largely, through expressions of positive valence; this is due to the mention of teachers and prominent figures and the historical narration —typical of the biographical genre (tarjama) and the travel accounts (riḥla) within the Arab-Islamic tradition—, which are reduced to the adscription of a quality. The most interesting examples are those involving metaphors such as the following 74 : دواد لآ ريمازم نم توص هل Lahu ṣawtun min mazāmīr āl Dāwūd He had a voice like one of Dāwūd’s kinsfolk’s pipes (His recitation voice was as sweet as that of David himself) 75 . 74 . In these examples, the metaphor is translated into the literal sense, underlining the quality. 75 . For further information, see: Lane. An Arabic-English lexicon: part III, p. 1251; Ibn Khaldūn. Riḥla, p. 57, n. 7. LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 108 رثنلاو مظنلا يف الله تايآ نم ةيآ بيطخلا نبا ريزولا ناك Kān al-wazīr Ibn al-Khaṭīb āyatan min āyāt Allāh fī l-naẓm wa-l-nathr The poetry and prose of The Vizier Ibn al-Khaṭīb were one of God’s signs (The poetry and prose of The Vizier Ibn al-Khaṭīb were wonderful) نامزلا يف ةرغ ]كيلامملا ةلود[ مهتلود تحبصأ Aṣbaḥat dawlatuhum [dawlat al-Mamālīk] ghurratan fī l-zamān Their state [Mamluks’ state] became a spectacle of the century (Their state [Mamluks’ state] was extraordinary) 4.3. An evolutionary link After providing a preliminary schema for decoding the subjective presence of Ibn Khaldūn in the Ta‘rīf’s discourse, which has helped to unravel the characteristics of his self-expression, one last question remains to addressed, one that has hovered over the empirical analysis of his work: is Ibn Khaldūn’s Ta‘rīf an antecedent of the modern autobiographical genre? This question relates to whether or not the author’s intimacy is present in the text, a matter addressed by Tritar in her analysis of the work. According to the scholar, the Ta‘rīf belongs to the biographical genre, but it has certain peculiarities that set it apart. The narration is more vivid and developed (plus développé et plus vivant), including details that border on the intimate, even though it is not the author’s intimacy; furthermore, it does not present an entirely retrospective insight, but rather, on occasion, the narration is contemporary to the author’s life. The author’s travel accounts are a thematic extension of his curriculum vitae, since they lack geographical descriptions. Therefore, she does not consider this work a precursor to the modern autobiographical genre: En effet, la rtrospection dans le rcit aldūnien ne gouverne pas la totalit de l’œuvre; l’histoire de la personnalit, c’est-à-dire son volution psychique et mentale, n’est pas souligne puisque les vnements extrieurs priment sur le dveloppement interne du moi; enfin il n’y a aucune place pour le rcit d’enfance dans ce projet troitement biographique. C’est pourquoi, il nous semble peu convaincant, voire erron de conclure qu’Ibn aldūn fut un prcurseur de la modernit en dveloppant avant terme le genre autobiographique dans le contexte arabe mdival 76 . 76 . Tritar. “Ibn aldūn dans le Taʿrīf”, p. 101. García Gómez has the same opinion about the Ta‘rīf, saying that it is close to autobiography but that there is a total lack of psychological motivations, LéviProvençal and García Gómez. El siglo XI en 1ª persona, pp. 23, 60. IBN KHALDŪN IN HIS SUBJECTIVE LEXICON… MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 109 However, this study has demonstrated empirically a complex premodern authorial expression at the very margins of the convention 77 , transforming the biographical traditional genres under a context of political uncertainty in a way that questions the previous system of values. Regardless of whether Table 2 is accepted or not as an explicit psychological evolution of Ibn Khaldūn in the use of unique first-person singular verbs throughout the Ta‘rīf, it becomes clear that his language uses and patterns offer a more intimate vision of his work. As for the absence of a narrative of childhood, it is not that significant as Tritar states since, as Ricœur points out, the memory of childhood and death belongs to others 78 . From this point of view, the Ta‘rīf emerges as an evolutionary link in selfexpression archaeology. The first-person narration is continuously evolving through the linguistic variations in which it is codified, especially considering, in this particular case, that talking about oneself in the Islamic tradition of the time was not positively regarded 79 . For this reason, this study emphasizes the discourse analysis of this hybrid work of miscellaneous nature, taking into account the political and intellectual contexts of the premodern subject. 5. CONCLUSIONS This work has pursued two consecutive goals. Firstly, with the Ta‘rīf of Ibn Khaldūn as a starting point, it has defined the general lines of an analytical methodology that allows us to perform discursive archaeology of the subjectivity — both individual and collective— that developed over the Strait of Gibraltar in its transition to the modern age. It paved the path to approach the period’s textual legacy in its formal diversity, and identify linguistic patterns in language use where subjective expression occurs. Secondly, treating the Ta‘rīf as a case study showed the complexity of a premodern subject’s expression whose voice constantly emerges in the discourse, transmitting a modern familiarity. The annotation schema and the extracted lexicon serve as a foundation for future work addressing a comparative and diachronic perspective to define the linguistic characteristics of what Foucault refers to as a ‘community of meaning’ (communauté de sens) 80 . Ibn Khaldūn’s importance as an exponent of this community resides in his value as a transition subject. His intellectual influence reached the Ottoman historians in the seventeenth century, who were looking for clues to understand the decline in which their empire was immersed since the end of the previous centu77 . Jreis. “Contextos de autoexpresión”. 78 . Ricœur. Soi-même comme un autre, pp. 189-190. 79 . Reynolds. Interpreting the self, pp. 65-68. 80 . Foucault. L’archéologie du savoir, p. 32. LAILA M. JREIS NAVARRO MEAH, SECCIÓN ÁRABE-ISLAM [ISSN 1696-5868, e-ISSN 2341-0906] 72 (2023), 87-115 110 ry 81 , leading to its submission to the rest of the European powers by the eighteenth century onwards. The theories that Ibn Khaldūn put forward in the Muqaddima present his personal experience during the political decline of the Islamic West in the midst of the fourteenth century, which he traveled through without rest, until he was forced to go into exile to Egypt, seeking others of his generation. Finally, the importance of focusing this study on the linguistic aspects, with a methodology designed for future computational analysis of larger amounts of data, is associated with recent findings on the historical development of written Arabic within Natural Language Processing, which require a qualitative analysis. The study of the variations in the use of the Arabic language throughout its history, in OpenITI’s corpus, has shed new light on the periodization of classical Arabic, demonstrating a clear turning point at the end of the fifteenth century 82 . This finding supports the exceptionality of the transition period experienced by Ibn Khaldūn and his contemporaries, and the importance of continuing to further explore the evolution of their subjective expression and the specific characteristics of its codification. The general hypothesis that drives this research is that hybrid frontiers, such as the Euro-African, are not spaces of rupture; rather, they are transitional cultural zones. To bridge their temporal gaps is, therefore, a peacemaking task. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to Dr. Nizar Habash and the CAMeL Lab team for their generosity in sharing their knowledge with me during my stay with them at New York University Abu Dhabi. 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