Climatic Determinism and Race: A Comparative Analysis of Ibn H̱aldūn’s and I. Kant’s Racialist Anthoropologies

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine and compare Ibn H̱aldūn’s and I. Kant’s racialist theories. The paper shows how the theories of Avicenna, Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī and Ibn H̱aldūn contended that the interplay of climatic determinism and humoral constitution of humans produced human phenotypic and behavioural differences. The study shows a conceptual overlap between the European racial theories as found in Comte de Buffon and I. Kant and the ideas found in Arabic texts. Their fundamental differences lie in the treatment of ethnic groups. While Ibn H̱aldūn positioned the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions as the civilisational centre, European racial geography is Eurocentric. Kant placed Europeans at the pinnacle of human excellence. This conceptual shift largely reflects a changed historic and political context. Thus, the article illustrates how power generates a racial discourse that legitimises the existing relations between the masters and slaves, between the colonisers and the colonised.