Ibn Khaldun’s methodology
Third topic: Ibn Khaldun’s methodology:
Ibn Khaldun’s methodology is a remarkable phenomenon among the scientific methodologies of the great thinkers known to humankind, from Aristotle to Descartes. Studying Ibn Khaldun’s methodology is not without its challenges. On the one hand, many modern scholars since the beginning of the nineteenth century have examined and analyzed his thought and methodology, arriving at conflicting opinions and conclusions. On the other hand, Ibn Khaldun himself was influenced by diverse factors due to his early studies, which combined religious sciences, mathematics, philosophy, and logic, in addition to the extensive experience he gained in the various professions he practiced and the many countries he lived in. A brief review of scholars’ opinions on Ibn Khaldun reveals the fundamental differences in their conclusions. The American sociologist Professor Pitirim Sorokin considers him an idealist thinker, while his colleague, Dr. Harry Barnes, places him among those thinkers who acknowledge the role of contradictions in social relations. The French sociologist Professor Gaston Bouthoul draws attention to Ibn Khaldun’s materialist approach, which he considers a unique phenomenon among Arab scholars. The Italian orientalist Professor Francesco Gabrieli believes that Ibn Khaldun’s recognition of the spiritual and social values of religion corrects the materialistic aspect of his theory of social cohesion. The British historian Professor Arnold Toynbee and the German sociologist Professor Nathaniel Schmitt praise him for his innovative approach in his history and social studies. Some Arab scholars have also addressed this topic.
The topic is commented on, including, for example, Dr. Ali Abdel Wahed Wafi, who sees Ibn Khaldun as an experimental scientist, while Dr. Hassan Al-Saati emphasizes the role of doubt and objectivity in his methodology.
Before analyzing Ibn Khaldun’s methodology, we will briefly review previous attempts and studies that have addressed the Muqaddimah from various angles: political, historical, social, philosophical, and logical. Four main trends can be distinguished in this regard, the first of which appeared in the early writings of Dr. Kamil Ayad and Erwin Rosenthal. This approach is flawed because it overestimated the secular aspect of his methodology. For example, Kamil Ayad believed that Ibn Khaldun’s position of denying the necessity of prophecy as a condition for the establishment of human civilization was “directed against Muslim jurists who maintain that human life is impossible without prophetic guidance.” He describes Ibn Khaldun’s stance on religion in general as seeing it as “merely a civilizational phenomenon of its own weight, and an important socio-psychological factor throughout history . ” He even goes further, stating that Ibn Khaldun was attempting to “subject religion to his scientific theories.” Similarly, we find Erwin Rosenthal’s position, who considered Ibn Khaldun’s view that it is possible to establish and maintain a kingdom without divine law as “evidence of his independent thought, free from any religious constraints .
The second trend, represented by the American orientalist Professor Hamilton Gibb, attempted to downplay the novelty and originality of Ibn Khaldun’s methodology. Although he was correct in his assessment.
While demonstrating that his political theory finds its deep roots in the teachings of Islam, Gibb erred in assuming that “the principles upon which Ibn Khaldun based his study are the same as those of his predecessors among the Sunni jurists and social philosophers .” To support his assumption, Gibb quoted passages from Ibn Taymiyyah’s writings on the necessity of human society, commenting that Ibn Khaldun did nothing more than reiterate those views at greater length and with greater precision by employing his theory of social cohesion. Gibb then claimed that the pessimistic tone in Ibn Khaldun’s writings, which some authors often point to, “has a moral and religious basis, not a social one.” 1 We will see later, through our study of Ibn Khaldun’s methodology, how these flawed generalizations led to a failure to recognize the significant differences between him and other thinkers in general, and Muslim jurists in particular.
One of the most prominent representatives of the third trend is Dr. Mohsen Mahdi, who mistakenly believed that Ibn Khaldun followed the path of the ancients— that is, the Greeks—and their followers among the Islamic philosophers, especially Ibn Rushd. He also saw him as the only thinker who “attempted to establish a science of society within the framework of traditional philosophy and on the basis of its principles .” The error is evident in his statement that Ibn Khaldun, while establishing the new science, did not consider “introducing major changes to the established principles of scientific research, or objecting to the legitimacy of the criteria established by political philosophy. On the contrary, he found that by acknowledging the validity of these principles and criteria as established by the ancients, the new science could be built .
