Decolonial Ventures in Early Modern History: Al-Ghassani's Khaldunian Reading of Spanish Modernity and The Burgeoning of Islamicate Diplomatic Ethics

This article explores the diplomatic mission of ambassador Ahmed ben Abdel Wahab al-Ghassani to the 17th century Spain entitled The Journey of the Minister to Ransom the Captive in light of two pertinent dimensions. First, it aspires to read his use of Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history to fathom Spanish modernity, as a decolonial attempt to utilize local Islamicate epistemology in the face of an engulfing modernity whose beginning was marked by the expulsion of his ancestors from Islamic Spain (1609). Second, it underscores the burgeoning of Islamicate diplomatic ethics which were dislodged from the secular formation of diplomacy in its early modern Western conception. In light of these two arguments, this study aspires to showcase the decolonial significance of the period 1492-1609 to the study of the Islamic Maghreb, particularly as it is premised upon confronting unprobed historical presuppositions about the paradigm of decline in the writing of Islamic cultural history.