Founding Father of Sociology? Contributions of Ibn Khaldun to Sociological Thought and Theory

This paper aspires to demonstrate that mature scientific thought on the dynamics of human societies existed well before Comte’, Durkheim, Weber, and Marx. In the 14^th century, a North African scholar known as Ibn Khaldun, conceived an authentic, intellectual, articulate and systemic approach to the study of human history and civilization. He sought to fuse the extant knowledge of his time: Islamic theology, both Classical Greek and Islamic philosophy, biology, historiography, and psychology to develop a holistic account of the social process of human civilization. He developed numerous sociological theories which foreshadow those of the European thinkers which would come after him: Karl Marx’s stages of human history which provide dynamics and dialectics of group conflict, Max Weber’s typology of leadership and Emile Durkheim’s concept of mechanical and organic solidarity, are just a few examples. His work has no parallel in the history of social thought of other civilizations or societies previous to his own time. Overall, Afro-Arab scholarships have been neglected and systematically marginalized over the years in Western academia. Eurocentrism dominates modern sociology and impedes exploration and the application of Khaldunian theoretical exploration to contemporary events. Without diminishing the contributions of Western sociology to understanding non-Western societies, I suggest that in the context of our contemporary world, Ibn Khaldun’s social thought is crucially relevant in discussing ideas of nationalism, tribalism, group loyalty, revenge and honor< This paper has three major objectives: 1.) offer a brief biographical overview of Ibn Khaldun’s life; 2) examine just some of the rich sociological ideas that Ibn Khaldun propounded; and 3.) reflect on the relevancy of these sociological insights on our current global socio-political world.