Ibn Khaldun as quoted in Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in Islam, Harper and Row, 1970, quote on page 38. The brackets are displayed by Lewis.
“

The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and proximity to the animal stage. Other persons who accept the status of slave do so as a means of attaining high rank, or power, or wealth, as is the case with the Mameluke Turks in the East and with those Franks and Galicians who enter the service of the state [in Spain].

— Ibn Khaldun on Black people

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and proximity to the animal stage. Other persons who accept the status of slave do so as a means of attaining high rank, or power, or wealth, as is the case with the Mameluke Turks in the East and with those Franks and Galicians who enter the service of the state [in Spain]." in the context of "Ibn Khaldun as quoted in Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in Islam, Harper and Row, 1970, quote on page 38. The brackets are displayed by Lewis." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Black people" (Quotes, I - Z) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Ibn Khaldun

About Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldūn (Arabic: ابن خلدون) (May 27, 1332 – March 17, 1406) was an Ifriqiyan (North Africa) Arab Muslim historiographer and historian, regarded to be among the founding fathers of modern sociology, historiography, demography, and economics. He is best known for his book, the Muqaddimah ("Prolegomena").