PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, • Details of Ibn Khaldun theory of society and history.
Ibn
Khaldun, his name was Abd Al-Rahman Bin Muhamad bin Ibrahim bin Abdlahaman bin
Ibn Khaldun. Famously known as Ibn
Khaldun. He was born in Tunis on May 27th ,1332 A.D,and belonged to
Andalusia family which had migrated from Andalusia to Tunis in the middle of
the 7th Century.It was the period when there migration of muslims
from Spain caused by disturbances from European monarchies. Ibn Khaldun was
Cosmolitan came from the old Prominents and well educated family. In education
background Ibn Khaldun studied Quran (Koran) and “Hadith” which is historiography of prophet Muhammad.
And apart of being educated he travelled in different part of the world, meet
with defferent people so being born in town, having education and travelling in
different parst of the world made him to become a person with higher capacity
of understand. Ibn Khaldun becomes a philosopher and statesmen since he worked
as an advisory of the king and jurist in Tunis and Egypt. Ibn Khaldun as a
historian, he is remembered with his systematic theory of the society and
history. According to him the previous historians wrote historical information
without agreed framework or model. This distinguished him from other Muslim
scholars or historians in fact that he considered history as a scientific study
rather than narrative of merely recorded facts. The methodological tendence of
history of Ibn Khaldun is that, he combined both idealism and material
ideologies in production of historical knowledge. since he believed that
history is not only divine theory, rather its change are internally driven
which starts from within and not outside. Simply Ibn Khaldun says historical
knowledge is dynamic and analytical and not static or linear as its understood
by some historians. Historically he becomes a founding father of African
history. In his life as historian, Ibn Khaldun wrote a book titled ‘Universal
history’ which talk of Mediterranea, Europe and Africa. It consist of three
volumes includes ‘The influences of Civilization’, The history of Arabs and
other people from Ancient to the emergence of writing and the history of
Berbers which in most of standing part of this work is “Prolegomena” in Greek
or “Mugadimmah” in Arabic which means an
‘Introduction’ where he tells philosophy of history and method, outlining his
autobiography , theory of philosophies and weakness of the preceding historian.
The following are details of Ibn
Khaldun’s theory of society and history. To start with Ibn Khaldun’s view about
society.
Ibn Khaldun categorized society into
two categories that are:-
Rural society; he says that society
which live far away from the centre of population and according to him is the
society that is disorganized and convective, since do not like changes. However
they are hardy, frugal; uncorrupt in moral, freedom-loving and self reliant and
so make excellent fighters. In addition they have a strong sense social
solidarity.
Urban society; he says is the kind
of the society living in town or cities, it is populated compared to rural
communities, The houses are closely to each other, urban people are courageous
and like changes, more civilized, sophisticated, artistic presentation,
consumer and polite. They tend to have the sense of togetherness.
Generally, he has discussed how men
lead their lives, what their hopes and desire are and societies rise, develop
and decay. Besides he examined social solidarity and its basis, climatic and
occupational influences on group character, laws and social changes and
political stability, economic and religious influences on behavior all in
extremely original and critical manner.
Apart from Khaldun’s view about
society, there is views about history, talking about history Ibn Khaldun argued
that, The writing of history required numerous sources and great knowledge,
hence he used various sources in writing history they includes, the Christian
sources particularly in Latin written sources, as a Christian point of view,
Jewish sources including the books of Judges, Kings and Psalms and Muslim
sources particularly in writing of
Al-Mosud. All these enables him to write history in the light of new method of
explanation and critical reasoning. And according to Ibn Khaldun in his “Muqaddimah”,
he sought about criticism of the mistake regularly committed by his fellow
historian in their works that include the following:-
The spirit of partisanship. This is
the kind of writing where the author indicate close ties with the history
makers, the partisanship can be in the form of blood relationship, collegial,
political affiliation and citizenship.
Blind confidence in sources.
According to him, sources are important in the writing of historical work, they
should not be taken for granted. A good historian is the one who question and
interrogate such sources.
Failure to understand the intention
of the reports or records of the author. Historian here should understand the
underlying philosophy, history, social background of a person who produces such
historical work under the investigation and hero historian should avoid surface
meaning of the documents.
Unfounded credulity. This refers to
the examination of the dominant and prevailing meaning and understand of such
documents.
Ignorant about how to apply
conditions and make them confirm to reality. This implies the ability to match
narratives, stories with available documents. For this case not all the
materials that can be collected have similar impacts on the work that the
historian wants to produce.
Interest in gaining favor with
powerful and influencial people. Sometimes to historians are influenced by the
dominant political and social forces, and sometimes they can be used to cater
for such influences.
Ignorance of the two natures of
conditions in civilization. Here he means that each civilization produces its
own materials conditions. The understanding of such materials condition is the
prerequisite in the writing of proper history.
The failure to understand events in
their proper context. The main concern here is a law of change. According to
Ibn Khaldun any historical act can be influenced by different contexts. These
can be phonological, religions political cultural or social.
Further more Ibn Khaldun’s marks the
following comment on scientific historical methods in this Muqaddimah, as the
best way of historical writing.
History is a science and philosophy
likewise. Ibn Khaldun suggested that in writing of history one should think of
history as science and philosophy. Since the writing of history involves
rational approaches, analytical in its methods, and therefore myths have
nothing to do with history and should be refuted. Hence a clear philosophy of
history.
Generally, Ibn Khaldun’s writing of
history basing on rational approaches and analytical in its methods using
various sources is very important frame work for any historian in the whole
process of historical knowledge production.
REFFERENCES
Ali, B. S (1978). Its theory and method, New Delhi: McMillan Indian Limited.
Fischel, W, J. (1961), Studia islamica, Califonia: Califonia
University press.
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Pricenton University press, 1967/1989. Pp. 5-10.
Mohammad
Ablullah Ennan (1941), Ibn Khaldun: His
life and works. Lahore. Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf publishers, Pp. 121-134.
