Medieval North Africa · 1332-1406

Ibn Khaldun and the rise and fall of dynasties

Born in Tunis and shaped by the Black Death, Ibn Khaldun asked why dynasties rise and fall. Students follow his life from Tunis to Cairo, meet his idea of group solidarity and test it on empires they know.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
13–16
On the map
3 steps, AD 1332 to AD 1401
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Born in Tunis and shaped by the Black Death, Ibn Khaldun asked why dynasties rise and fall. Students follow his life from Tunis to Cairo, meet his idea of group solidarity and test it on empires they know.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Follow Ibn Khaldun's life from Tunis to Cairo on the map.
  • Explain his idea of asabiyya, group solidarity, in their own words.
  • Apply his cycle of rise and fall to one dynasty and judge whether it fits.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

AD 1332

Born in Tunis

Open the map in 1332. Find the Hafsid state centered on Tunis, where Ibn Khaldun was born this year. Which other states share North Africa with it?

Open this view on the map
b

AD 1350

A life between courts

Open Stories, choose Ibn Battuta under Travel with and stop at Granada, 1350. Ibn Khaldun served at the same court about twelve years later. Why did scholars move between courts so often?

Open this view on the map
c

AD 1401

Meeting Timur

Move to 1401 and zoom in on Damascus. Ibn Khaldun met Timur, the warlord from Central Asia, outside its walls. Which empire's lands now reach towards Syria from the east?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Ibn Khaldun lost both parents to the Black Death when he was about 16. How might that have shaped the way he thought about history?
  2. He believed a dynasty lasts about three or four generations. Can you think of an example that fits, or one that does not?
  3. His key idea was asabiyya, the solidarity that holds a group together. What creates solidarity in a team or a class?
  4. He criticized historians who repeated impossible numbers and stories. Why should a historian ask "could this really have happened?"
  5. Ibn Khaldun is sometimes called a founder of sociology. Why do his ideas still interest people today?
4

Game round

10 min

Play one round of Rule History as Mansa Musa, whose Mali Empire Ibn Khaldun described in his history. Discuss: according to Ibn Khaldun's ideas, how long should a great empire like Mali stay strong, and what weakens it?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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