Fundamentals of Ibn Khaldun’s Historical Science
(From "The Muqaddimah")
Djayadi Hanan
For Ibn Khaldun, history is a science and a branch of philosophy. It is based on scientific objectives, reasoning, and methods. As a science, history must be committed to the effort of getting at the truth and separating it from the falsehood. These scientific characteristics, therefore, must be reflected in the objectives, methods, and subjects of history. The practice of history based on these criteria will enable us to categorize good historian and bad historian and correct the false information revealed by bad history.
The objective of history is about getting at the truth. Hence, it must be about explanation, about how and why, and about the causal factors related to both actors and events. History is about generalization, not merely dealing with particular. History is also about sorting out the information we have to make sure that they are information that conform the facts and logic. History cannot be dealing only with the tradition that is transmitted from time to time from one generation to another. Thus, history is not only about description of information about actors and events from the past. This does not mean however, that descriptive history is unimportant because it can serve larger public in understanding human affairs in general.
To serve this kind of objective, historian must be rigorous in dealing with information. First, there must be strong effort to get at the truth. “Critical eye” only, according to Ibn Khaldun is not enough because errors and false assumptions almost always accompany historical information. Speculative method of thinking, called as enlightening speculation by Ibn Khaldun, is crucial in unmasking the falsehood in historical information. Using good speculative mind and thoroughness will keep historian from slips and errors. Second, the writing of history requires numerous sources and knowledge. Various sources will enable the historian to cross-check the information while varied knowledge makes him be able to evaluate the information values not only by confronting it to, for instance, fundamental facts of politics, the nature of civilization or conditions governing social organizations, but also by comparing the remote/ancient materials with the near/contemporary ones. Ibn Khaldun argues that the accuracy of information is absolutely important, especially when dealing with figures such as sum of money and number of soldiers. For example, it is logically impossible to believe the historical account from al-Mas’udi about the number of Israelites’ army during Moses time which was reported to be 600,000 or more because of various reasons such as the size of territory which will be too small for their battle formation against Egypt and Syiria. In short, to get to the truth of the information, historian must carefully consider the factual proof and circumstantial evidence surrounding it.
Third, in order to be able to implement these two requirements, historian must conduct many steps in his historical examination and account. One is “to know the principles of politics, the nature of things, and the differences among nations, places, and periods” (p. 24). Two is to compare past and present and know the causes of similarities and differences. Three is to be aware of the different factors that bring historical events and actors such as dynasties and religious groups into being. Four is to check the transmitted information with the basic principles of knowledge. And five is to have a goal of having complete knowledge of causality of events and their origins.
The fourth factor to be rigorous in history is to be aware that history is about change. Awareness about this is often difficult because the process of change is sometimes deeply hidden and only becomes apparent after a long period of time. This is also the reason why not many individuals can easily be aware of it. This awareness is crucial in order for historian to identify and explain the causality of historical actors, events, and processes. Finally, history is about generalization. History, argues Ibn Khaldun “refers to events that are peculiar to a particular age or race” (p. 29). The task of the historian is to uncover the underlying general conditions of events and actors across time and space/regions. This task constitutes the foundation of historian. Thus, for instance, the work of al-Mas’udi, Muruj adh-dhahab, which mentions the conditions of regions and nations in the East and the West of his time, because of its capability of generalization, became the basic reference of historians and principal source of historical information.
What does historical science account for? According to Ibn Khaldun, history is an independent science with its own particular subject which is human civilization and social organization. It has its own particular research problem which is to explain “the conditions that attach themselves to the essence of civilization” (p. 39). Ibn Khaldun sometimes refers to the subjects of history more concretely as examination and account of dynasties, leaders, nations, and great events. From this, one could argue that his historical science is elitist because it deals with great actors/men and great events. In explaining about change for example, Ibn Khaldun reveals this elitist view by saying that “the customs of each race depend on the customs of its ruler” (p. 25). This subject of history, Ibn Khaldun further argues, makes it different from other science such as rhetoric which is concerned with convincing the mass through the use of words, or with politics which is concerned with the home or city administration in order to preserve the life of the community. Because of having its own subject and being distinct from other science, Ibn Khaldun claims that history “is an entirely original science” (p. 39).
Having laid out his fundamentals of historical science, Ibn Khaldun is now able to judge good and bad history as well as good and bad historian. A bad historian deals with bad history. Bad history, contrary to the fundamentals described above, is basically non-scientific history or history with bad method. It is featured by mere description of information or just following the transmitted information from the previous accounts, particularistic account, negligence of the change, or too brief in its presentation, making it not more that the list of names, facts, or events. The basis of this kind of history is unreliable, often fictitious, information and bad method. There are a lot of accounts fall into this category. One example is the story of “Copper City” from al-Mas’udi which says that the city was built of copper in desert of Sijilmasah during Musa b. Nusayr time which contradicts the principles of building and planning the cities. Ibn Khaldun cites numerous stories of this fictitious kind to argue that there are a lot of bad histories and historians out there.
A bad historian is a historian who cannot reveal or uncover the untruth that afflicts his historical information. There are many reasons why this problem is often unavoidable. First is because of partisanship. When a historian is too committed to a certain opinion or school of thought, he runs the risk of being not impartial in receiving and processing information. Second is the reliance upon the transmitter. Many transmitters are not authoritative and do not know the significance of their observation. Third is unawareness of the purpose of event. When an unknowledgeable transmitter passes down the historical information he will attach his own understanding of event’s significance which leads to the falsehood. Fourth is unfounded assumption about the truth. This is still related to the reliance upon the transmitter. Fifth is the ignorance of conformity between conditions and reality. This is related to inability of confronting the information with the facts or unavailability of checking and cross-checking methods. Sixth is too much focus of high ranking persons with a lot of fame and praise as information sources. Information from such a person is not reliable because of the tendency of human soul for fame and praise. And finally, the bad historian is characterized by the ignorance of the contexts of civilization. If historian has no knowledge of the nature of the world of existence, he can be misled by the peculiarity and particularity of the context of civilization. This will make him unable to separate the truth from the untruth, the particular from the general, and the reliable history from the absurd story.
In conclusion, Ibn Khaldun’s historical science is based on the scientific approach to history. History for him deals with uncovering the truth and explanation of causality in events, actors, human social organization and civilization in general. Such a history must have a rigorous method which will enable the historian to carefully and systematically crafting the historical information to be a good history.
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