Ibn Khaldun’s Views on Man, Society and State in the Light of al-Muqaddimah
Abstract
The discipline of sociology emerged in the Modern West not more than two centuries ago. The main sociological themes, especially about an individual and society, seems to be incoherent rather contradictory as there are a plethora of opinions of sociologists regarding positioning the place of an individual and society. One group of sociologists lay tremendous emphasis upon the open-ended and unlimited freedom of an individual and denies any social or state intervention in deciding the fate thereof (Ackerman, 2008). On the other hand, other group of sociologists put all their efforts to over-emphasise the significance of society or state whereby the role of an individual is narrowed or reduced to be merely a tool in the whole mechanism of state machinery (MacKinnon, 2000). The fact is that both are important for over-all development and reducing the role of either aspects will culminate at grave imbalance in the existing world. The emergence of Modern Western powers, after multitude of layers of dark ages, assumed the charge of all walks of life not only in so-called developed countries rather influenced the thought and style of Asian and African countries as well. The mega project was to ensure and export the sociological underpinnings based on Euro-centric model of globe to the third world. This paper is a humble effort to bring forth the much coherent and refined ideas about an individual and society. Ibn Khaldun, way before the emergence of Modern sociology, laid the foundation of the discipline and discussed valuable discourses about mainstream themes of sociology in general and about man and society in particular. He sees a natural coherence and a systematic progression between an individual and society. The aim of this paper is to investigate the views of Ibn Khaldun regarding an individual and society in the light of his magnum opus Al-Muqaddimah. The researcher has ensured to quote directly from the main source with reference to Arabic passages to retain the originality of work. The significance of the study is that it helps exploring the views of Muslim sociologist Ibn Khaldun other than the western prism. Ibn Khaldun explains the full account of an individual, society and state and deliberates upon the unique social orientation of human beings.
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