VOLUME 69 – NO. 3 – JULY 2019 PHILOSOPHY EAST & WEST A QUARTERLY OF COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY Ѡѝђѐіюљ іѠѠѢђ Guest Editor: Tamara Albertini Politics, Nature, and Society — The Actuality of North African Philosopher Ibn Khaldūn Introduction: Ibn Khaldūn, A Philosopher for Times of Crisis Tamara Albertini 651 Political Power, the Maghreb Space, and the “Arab Spring”: A Reading through Ibn Khaldūn’s Looking Glass Ridha Chennoufi 657 This essay challenges the prevalent theory of political power as applied to Islamic lands—centered on the notions of clan-based “solidarity” (‘as ̣ abiyya) and “community” (umma)—by showing that Ibn Khaldūn developed a conception of space, territory, and political power that is diametrically opposed to the Westphalian one, and, more importantly, of great actuality. Beyond the Fourth Generation: Constituting a Muslim State in the Thought of Ibn Khaldūn and Khayr al-Dīn al-Tūnisī Jeremy Kleidosty 666 This essay examines Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddima in tandem with an examination of Khayr al-Dīn al-Tūnisī’s The Surest Path and the Tunisian constitutions of 1861 and 2014. It demonstrates that Tunisian political thought has been, and continues to be, profoundly influenced by Ibn Khaldūn’s cyclical account of dynastic rule and his concept of ‘as ̣ abiyya. The (Re-)Introduction of Ibn Khaldūn to Spain: A Journey Passing through Ortega y Gasset’s Work Cynthia Scheopner 684 This article explores a 1928 essay in which José Ortega y Gasset introduced Ibn Khaldūn to readers in Spain and offered a philosophical explanation for how the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa remain intrinsically connected well beyond the Middle Ages by conceptionalizing History in a typical Khaldūnian vein—not only temporally but also spatially. Ibn Khaldūn’s Notion of ‘Umrān: An Alternative Unit of Analysis for Contemporary Politics? M. Akif Kayapınar 698 Ibn Khaldun’s conception of ‘umrān can be imagined as an organic whole, the continuous metamorphosis of which provides a general framework for the nature and quality of collective action. By limiting social and political existence to a specific time and space, the ‘umrānic conception offers a way of analysis that can serve as an alternative to the individual-based universalism of the mainstream imagination of contemporary politics.