Ibn Khaldun has been cited as an alternative progenitor of realism and social constructivism in the academic world of international relations. Dr Susan Strange, for example, offers him as an alternative to Machiavelli as an inspirer/foundational text author for the discipline of international relations (1995, ‘Political economy and international relations’, in International relations theory today, K. Booth and S. Smith, eds, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, p. 172). This paper argues that there is great value in re-examining Ibn Khaldun's contribution in terms of his concepts of ‘asabiyah, the dynastic cycle and the relationship between religion and power. A basic re-examination of the concepts reveals that they are the ancestral forms of what is called today identity, the hegemonic cycle and the notion of ‘civilisations’.