Civilisational Epistemology in Weber & Ibn Khaldun

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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 DOI: 10.1163/156853108X327038

Asian Journal of Social Science 36 (2008) 1–31 www.brill.nl/ajss

Beyond ‘Science as a Vocation’:Civilisational Epistemology in Weber and Ibn Khaldun

Nurullah ArdıçUniversity of California, Los Angeles

AbstractBoth Ibn Khaldun and Weber discuss science as a vocation, but their epistemologies go beyondit by incorporating the civilisational dimension. Commonly used as a unit of analysis by classicaltheorists, the term ‘civilisation’ has recently been rediscovered in social sciences. It has beenargued that the ‘epistemological paradigms of civilisations’ produced by the mainstream intel-lectual traditions are fundamental factors shaping the minds of key intellectuals. is article teststhis argument by analysing to what extent Ibn Khaldun and Weber’s views of knowledge andscience are influenced by Islamic and Western epistemological paradigms, respectively. Based ona close and critical reading of their relevant work, it argues that there are some resemblances, butalso significant differences, between Ibn Khaldun and Weber, which can indeed be explainedwith reference to civilisational epistemological paradigms.

Keywordscivilisation, epistemology, Ibn Khaldun, knowledge, paradigm, Weber

Introduction

is article aims to comparatively analyse Max Weber and Abdurrahman IbnKhaldun’s views on knowledge and science within the context of their respec-tive civilisational frameworks. e two intellectuals’ epistemologies are worthcomparing in ‘civilisational context’ for a number of reasons: (i) Weber andIbn Khaldun are two of the founders and leading theorists of social sciences,and sociology in particular; (ii) both see ‘science as a vocation’; (iii) both areconscious about, and discuss, their methodologies that are based on distinctive

epistemologies; and (iv) finally, they both take ‘civilisation’ as their unit ofanalysis in their epistemological writings, seeing science as a product of civili-sation. Despite these similarities, however, they also have significant differencesin terms of the geographical and social environments in which they lived,the sources and paradigms to which they make reference, the concepts and

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terminologies they employ, the ultimate purpose of their intellectual projects,and finally, their cosmological and epistemological assumptions.

Ibn Khaldun’s (AH 732–808 / 1332–1406 CE) epistemological perspec-tive, which he formulates as “the source of all knowledge is Allah” (1415:38),is based on the Islamic principle of tawhid (unity) that involves an epistemo-logical hierarchy, whereas Weber’s (1864–1920 CE) view of knowledgeexpressly excludes the metaphysical in accordance with the intellectual contextcharacterised by the Enlightenment thought in which he lived — a view thathe sums up when he writes: “at science today is irreligious no one willdoubt in his innermost being” (1958a:142). is fundamental difference in

their assumptions stems from different ‘epistemological paradigms’ of the twocivilisations to which they belonged.1 As discussed below, these paradigmsemerged and got systematised by many intellectuals; they were also shaped byhistorical processes and took their mature form in (mainstream) MedievalIslamic thought and Enlightenment philosophy, respectively. In this article,therefore, Ibn Khaldun and Weber’s approaches to knowledge and science willbe compared within the framework of their respective civilisational epistemo-logical paradigms, focusing more on the intellectual, than historical, contextdue to confines of the article.

Taking ‘civilisation’ as a meaningful unit of analysis can be justified on thegrounds that both Ibn Khaldun and Weber use it in their own investigations,not just as an insignificant unit of analysis, but as one of the main ones. In

particular, Weber and Ibn Khaldun employ ‘civilisation’ as the unit of analysisin their epistemological writings; the latter further argues that he has actuallyfounded a “science of civilisation” (ilm al-umran). In addition, ‘civilisation’has recently been re-discovered as a unit of analysis by social scientists andincreasingly been employed in their studies.2 e present analysis can, there-fore, be read to test the plausibility of this endeavour as well.

Islamic and Western Epistemological Paradigms

e differences between Ibn Khaldun and Weber, in terms of how they viewknowledge and science, can, as mentioned above, be better understood if

1 I borrow the term “epistemological paradigms of civilizations” from Davutoğlu (1994a). Seebelow (Section One) for a brief discussion.

2 See, for example, Samuel Huntington’s (1993) infamous “clash of civilizations” thesis, astatement of wishful thinking, if not a self-fulfilling prophecy, and Ahmet Davutoğlu’s (1994b)response to it, which also takes ‘civilization’ as a unit of analysis but emphasizes their interactionand dialogue, rather than clash and conflict. See also Ardıç et al. (2007) for a discussion on therelationship between ‘civilization’ and ‘classics’ by a group of authors from different social sciencedisciplines.



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compared against Islamic and Western historical and epistemological ‘back-grounds’, which together form the civilisational one. Accordingly, Ibn Khal-dun’s theory of knowledge can be understood with reference to what Davutoğlu(1994a) calls the “Islamic epistemological paradigm”, which was developed byMuslim intellectuals by the 11th century. Briefly stated, this paradigm is basedon the principle of tawhid (unity of God), and consists of three dimensions:(i) the relationship of dependency between the theory of existence and that ofknowledge (i.e., epistemology being derived from ontology); (ii) differentiationof epistemological spheres (i.e., a hierarchy of the sources of knowledge); and(iii) harmonisation of epistemological sources (i.e., the principle of the ‘unity

of truth’) (Davutoğlu, 1994a:78–82; see also Schuon, 1972; Izutsu, 1987;Nasr, 1981, 2002; Özel, 1992). Developed by such leading Islamic theolo-gians as al-Maturidi, al-Ash’ari and al-Taftazani, and philosophers, such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ghazali and al-Tusi, this view takes ‘epistemologicaldifferentiation’, which refers to different forms and sources of knowledgelocated at different levels within a hierarchical order, as a reflection of the‘ontological differentiation’ that implies a categorical distinction and a hierar-chy between God and ma-siva (rest of the existence). In other words, the ideaof an ontologically-dependent epistemology involves the notion of tashkik (hierarchy) as its essential feature (Sadra, 2000) which is a reflection of theIslamic ontological paradigm onto the field of epistemology.3 We find the con-cept of the hierarchy of knowledge (tashkik al-ma rifa ) in Ibn Khaldun’s view

of knowledge as well.4 is tashkik -based understanding of knowledge is, asdiscussed below, the major factor that helps his epistemology stay away fromreductionism and inter-source conflict.

3 e notion of the ‘Islamic epistemological paradigm’ does not necessarily mean, of course,that there is only one single theory of knowledge in the Islamic intellectual tradition. Rather, itrefers to the dominant view originating from mainstream schools of thought, namely, the Sunnitradition. More specifically, within the spectrum of theological schools in Islam, ranging fromthe Murjia and the Khawarij to the Mutazila and the Shia , the two major Sunni schools, the Maturidiyya and the Ashariyya , have come to represent the mainstream Islamic theology bybeing accepted by the majority of Muslims throughout history. Moreover, among these theo-logical schools, the two Sunni schools’ representatives were closest to the philosophers (men-tioned in the text) who helped develop this epistemological paradigm — despite some

disagreements between them. Note also that there is not a very big gap between these Islamicphilosophers who represent the orthodoxy on the one hand, and Sadra, who is a Shia philoso-pher, on the other. In addition to its constituting the mainstream epistemology in Islam, thisview was the one that influenced Ibn Khaldun most, as his thought was essentially part ofthe Sunni tradition (see Azmeh, 1981; Ahmad, 2003; cf. Mahdi (1964) for an interpretationthat — incorrectly — situates Ibn Khaldun within the Aristotelian philosophical tradition asopposed to the mainstream Islam).

4 For an analysis of the influence of Islamic worldview on Ibn Khaldun’s political theory, seeGibb (1962).



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On the other hand, Weber’s view of knowledge, too, can be understoodfrom a historical perspective and within the context of the “Western epistemo-logical paradigm”, for the way he approaches knowledge and science is shapedby the modern Western epistemology. During the early centuries of Westernintellectual history, as in that of Islam, there were, in general, three legitimatesources of knowledge: reason, sense perceptions, and revelation. However, anew, anthropocentric (as opposed to theo-centric ), epistemology emerged as aresult of the process of secularisation that occurred, with the help of Christian-ity, as well as the well known scientific, economic and political developments,during the late-Medieval and modern times (see Martin, 1978); this new epis-

temology displaced revelation from its status as a legitimate source of knowl-edge. In its essence, this modern epistemology is rooted in the Aristotelianempirical philosophy, and developed by many intellectual interventions,including René Descartes’ rationalist argument that reason (or mind) is theonly source of knowledge; John Locke’s — seemingly opposite — empiricistargument that sense perceptions are the only legitimate source of knowledge;Immanuel Kant’s double impact with the argument that knowledge could bederived both by reason and from sense perceptions, which tried to synthesiserationalism and empiricism, on the one hand, and his categorical exclusion ofmetaphysical knowledge on the other; and finally, August Comte’s positivismthat emphasised the ‘scientific’ phase of human history as opposed to its ‘theo-logical’ and ‘metaphysical’ phases, the former representing the highest level:

the modern (Western) society. Moreover, David Hume’s critique of Christian-ity within the context of miracles, when he argued that religious dogmas areno more reliable than sense perceptions as a source of knowledge, was the lastblow to revelation, which announced the uncontested superiority of thehuman-centric epistemology (Davutoğlu, 1994a:38). At the end of this proc-ess, the new positivistic understanding of science, which first emerged in natu-ral sciences, dominated social sciences as well. During their first several decades,social sciences were largely inspired by the ‘conceptual revolution’ and empiri-cal achievements of natural sciences, and then aimed to apply to human phe-nomena the methods that natural sciences employed in investigating the objectsof nature (Gordon, 1993:16). In its essence, this positivistic and humanisticscientific mentality was a refutation of the authority of the Church over human

knowledge, which by extension implied the exclusion of metaphysical knowl-edge (Whitehead, 1957:3). One of the main features of the Enlightenmentphilosophy, this paradigm also shaped social sciences — and, in this connec-tion, formed the main framework of Weber’s epistemology.5

5 As in the case of Islamic epistemology, the ‘Western epistemological paradigm’ may not bethe only theory of knowledge in Western history, but here I take modern epistemology based on



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Weber’s Epistemological Approach

Weber’s epistemology requires a reconstruction through an exposition of hisvarious writings because, unlike Ibn Khaldun, Weber did not explain his viewof knowledge and science systematically, but sporadically expressed it in hisdifferent writings and speeches. First and foremost among them is his well-known conference, Science as a Vocation, which he delivered in 1919. In thisspeech, he discusses several topics including the nature of scientific knowledgeand sociology, the relationship between knowledge and society, and the func-tions and applications of knowledge. Secondly, in his famous work, e Prot-estant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1992), particularly in its Introductionwhich he wrote in 1920 for his entire series of books in the sociology of reli-gion, Weber compares forms of knowledge and science in Western civilisationwith those in Eastern (Oriental) civilisations.

e roots of Weber’s epistemology go back to the intellectual and philo-sophical environment in Europe that was re-shaped by the Renaissance andthe Enlightenment. In the intellectual context of the 19th century, Germanphilosophy, which was dominated first by idealism and then by Marxism, wasvery different from its counterparts in Britain, where utilitarianism and classi-cal political economy prevailed (Giddens, 1992:viii). Raised in this environ-ment, the foundations of Weber’s epistemological approach were shaped byKant and Neo-Kantianism; therefore, in this (epistemological) sense he can beseen as an idealist. is is true despite Weber’s claim at the end of the Protes-tant Ethic , with reference to what he sees as Marx’s reductionist materialism,that: “[I]t is, of course, not my aim to substitute for a one-sided materialisticand equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and of his-tory . . .” (Weber, 1992:183). When one takes his work in its entirety, one canrecognise the dominance of idealist epistemology, however. Later, in the lec-tures he delivered towards the end of his life, he tried to insert material factors,as well as ‘ideal’ (cultural) ones, into his analysis in explaining the fundamen-tal question of his entire sociological theory, which was: “Why is it that mod-ern capitalism first emerged in the West[ern Europe], but not in any other partof the world?” (Weber, 1950). As Randall Collins (1980) stresses, however,

Weber’s ‘rational spirit’ characterises all aspects of life, particularly the eco-

nomic realm, and functions as the foundation of such essential elements ofearly capitalism as rational and continuous entrepreneurship, rational book-keeping, rational technology, and rational law. It is clear, therefore, that by its

Enlightenment thought as its representative, both because it was — and mostly still is —dominant in modern West, and because Weber was greatly influenced by this epistemology.



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emphasis on the notion of the (rational) Geist , Weber’s epistemology was verymuch influenced by Hegelian idealism, too.

On the other hand, since Weber opposes, unlike Hegel and Marx, to aholistic view of society, he must be considered an ‘anti-idealist’ in the sense ofbeing anti-systemic in his overall sociological approach (Mardin, 1994:123).In this connection, unlike Spencer, Marx, Durkheim (and Ibn Khaldun),

Weber did not propose a general theory of society, but rather studied other,more ‘specific’ and relatively narrower topics, including the history of moderneconomic development, world religions, types of authority and domination,bureaucracy, law, music, and different forms of organisation. “While Comte’s

positivism never found a ready soil in Germany,” as noted by Giddens (1992:viii), Weber joined the interpretive Geistwissenschaften tradition, and arguedthat, unlike natural events that could be explained by causal laws, understand-ing (verstehen) should occupy a central position in making sense of humanactions. Yet, recognition of the ‘meaningful’ nature of human action does notnecessarily mean that there is no room at all for causal explanations in Weber’sapproach (Runciman, 1972:19).

At a closer look, one can see that Weber’s methodology consists of two maindimensions. First, the subjective, ideographic dimension, which involves threeessential elements (value-relevance, meaning imposition, and ‘ideal types’),implies that social science methods are value-laden and far from being purelyobjective, that social world makes sense only by imposing meaning on it — by

both actors/members and researchers — and that social reality can best bestudied by abstracting its essential parts into a set of coherent and ‘pure’ (ideal)concepts, with which different civilisations and their main institutions (econ-omy, religion, law, etc.) could also be compared to each other.6 Secondly, the(relatively) objective, nomothetic (law-like) dimension involves verstehen, anemphasis on social action, and value-neutrality as its three main elements.ese imply the rational understanding of individual’s actions in a social con-text by social scientists staying away from both positivism and a biased andprescriptive approach in order to reach, as much as possible, a relatively objec-tive understanding of the phenomenon at hand (Weber, 1949). By emphasis-ing the notion of intention (of actors) and rational understanding, Weber’smethodology bases sociological analysis on both subjective meaning and causal

explanation. us, according to Weber (1947:85), sociology is the study of‘social action’ that should be explained by understanding and interpreting themeanings attached to it by ‘social’ individuals.

6 Weber’s ideal types are identical neither to Plato’s idea s, nor to Aristotle’s essence s, which alsohave universal character. For this reason, philosophically, Weber can be considered a nominalistand instrumentalist (Gordon 1993:474).



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e Nature of Scientific Knowledge

Weber’s epistemological approach is shaped by this non-holistic, piecemealmethodological perspective. In his view, perception of the external worldoccurs through a Kantian selection from among various phenomena, whichthen forms a pattern for our understanding. Weber argues that knowledgeabout social relationships is produced as a result of a similar process of theselection of a slice of social reality, and with an interpretive and systematicunderstanding of it. Unlike Marx who argues that knowledge is produced aspart of the dominant ideology created by the dominant group within the con-text of certain relations of production, and that, ultimately, knowledge is aproduct of material conditions that underlies a particular mode of production(Marx and Engels, 1968), Weber (1947) makes a distinction between thematerial world and the world of human beings where ‘values’ prevail, empha-sising the significance of ideal factors in the construction of reality, including,among others, knowledge production in a particular society (or civilisation).

An example of Weber’s approach is his Protestant Ethic thesis. For him, religionis one of the most important institutions involving those ‘values’ that framenot only the production of knowledge, but also almost every other aspect ofsocial life. us, he argues, Protestantism (or more specifically, Calvinism)played a crucial role in the emergence of capitalism through the moral valuesthat it prescribed. erefore, ideas and values, like switchmen, play a significantrole in the direction of history shaping the ‘material’ aspects of it as well asbeing shaped by them (Weber, 1992).

e ‘Western’ Background of Weber’s Epistemology

As Weber was very much influenced by Enlightenment thought, his epistemo-logical views can be understood, as mentioned before, within the context ofthe wider Western epistemological paradigm. A child of the 19th century,

Weber had a deep belief in the Enlightenment project and its fundamentalprinciples, including rationalism, progress and universalism. For this reason,he celebrates the displacement of religious knowledge by the modern, secularscience — and actually predicts that being replaced by science, religion would

disappear in the modern world as a result of rationalisation and the “disen-chantment of the world” (1958a:139; 1958b:351). Moreover, he argues, par-allel to the universalistic claims of Enlightenment thinkers, that only ‘Westernscience’ has a universal character as part of the wider Western culture: “. . . in

Western civilisation, and in Western civilisation only, cultural phenomenahave appeared which . . . lie in a line of development having universal significanceand value” (1992:13; emphasis in original).



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He also stresses other unique characteristics of Western science which makeit a true science. He posits three conditions — rationality, progress and spe-cialisation — as fundamental criteria for scientific knowledge, which are atthe same time among the main parameters of the modern epistemologicalparadigm of Western civilisation. e concept of rationality refers to the spa-tial differences between civilisations regarding the nature of knowledge pro-duced by them; progress to the temporal dimension, that is, the historicalprocess of knowledge production; and specialisation is used by Weber todifferentiate different forms of knowledge within the Western civilisation.

According to him, all three preconditions have existed only in the West

throughout history.

Rationality: Differentia Specifica of Western Science

Weber sees rationality as a unique element of Western civilisation and thusemploys it to differentiate ‘Western science’ from forms of knowledge pro-duced in other civilisations (he also uses it to emphasise the primarily rationalcharacter of the modern science in comparison with the scientific activities ofthe Antiquity and the Middle Ages). Science, or the systematic production ofknowledge, according to Weber, is one of the unique features of the West. Hedoes not deny, of course, the existence of knowledge and observation in non-

Western civilisations, including China, Babylonia, India and Egypt; however,he argues that these civilisations lacked some fundamental scientific elementsthat can be commonly called ‘rationality’, which has been the differentiaspecifica of Western science throughout history, as will be elaborated in thefollowing paragraphs.

Weber argues that conceptualisation for scientific purposes first emerged inthe West; for the concept , which is “one of the most important tools of scientificknowledge”, was discovered by Socrates. Similarly, according to him, thoughfirst seeds of the study of logic similar to the Aristotelian one had been foundin India, the significance of logical research was first discovered by Plato inGreece, and “. . . nowhere else do we find this realisation of the significance ofthe concept . . .” (Weber, 1958a:141). Likewise, although astronomy firstemerged in Babylonia, it did not have a mathematical foundation. Natural

sciences, including also geometry and medicine, existed in India, but they didnot have such notions as ‘rational proof ’, ‘experimental method’ and ‘biologi-cal infrastructure’. Accordingly, a “. . . rational chemistry has been absent fromall areas of culture except the West . . .” (1992:14).

Weber makes the same argument for ‘social’ sciences, too. For him, thehistorical studies started in China did not involve ‘ucydides’ method’, andpolitical thought in the Indian civilisation lacked the ‘rational method’;



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rational concepts in this area were first used by Aristotle. Likewise, the rationallaw, which had not existed in the Indian and Near Eastern traditions, firstemerged in the Roman law. Islamic and Ottoman law (what he terms ‘kadi

justice’) was irrational, unpredictable and arbitrary. At the same time, theol-ogy in Islam and Hinduism was far from being ‘systematic’; a systematic theol-ogy existed only in the Christian tradition. In addition, according to Weber,‘Western theology’ which was primarily created by the ‘Hellenic mind’ hasalways had the “greatest significance” from a scientific perspective throughouthistory (1992:28; cf. Weber, 1993:166–183). Also, scientific institutions inIslam and China lacked the essential features of Western science, that is,

rationality, progress and specialisation: “. . . a rational, systematic, and special-ised pursuit of science, with trained and specialised personnel, has only existedin the West . . .” (1992:15–16).

In addition, argues Weber, the state, based on a rational and codified con-stitution, rational rules and laws, as well as a bureaucratic mechanism man-aged by educated officials, was known only in the West (1992:16). He alsoargues that even the art that developed in the West had a very different naturethan the one in other cultures. For example, the “rational, harmonious music”,with its unique chromatics and enharmonics, its orchestrate, a system of nota-tion, modern work, sonatas, and symphonies, as well as its instruments, suchas the piano, organ and violin, is unique to the Western civilisation: “. . . allthese things are known only in the Occident . . .” (1992:15; see also Weber,

1958c). Similarly, the printing press that was invented in China was, unlike inthe ‘Occident’, not for press and periodicals; just like there was never a writtenculture in the ‘Orient’. Likewise, the West is distinguished from other civilisa-tions in architecture by its use of the “rational Gothic style”, through whichthe West “found the solution to the problem of dome” that led to the “classicalrationalisation of the entire art” (1992:15). Needless to say, this feature didnot exist in any other civilisation.7

ough he emphasises the significance of rationality in terms of every subject he analyses, Weber is pessimistic about the impact of rationalisation,which leads to the “disenchantment of the world”, particularly on bureaucracyand politics. It is therefore possible to see Nietzsche’s influence on Weber’s idea

7 e idea of the uniqueness of Western civilization was not, of course, confined to Weber.Rather, this trend was very common among social scientists especially in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Based on the assumption of a ‘primitive other’, which led intellectuals to searchfor the ‘roots’ of existing societies (or rather, to often make unfounded speculations regardingthem), this tendency was particularly strong among some anthropologists and sociologists,including Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim. For a discussion of politico-ideological aspectsof classical sociological theory, see Connell (1997).



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that in the modern world organisational life would increasingly be mecha-nised as a result of bureaucratisation, and that the individual’s freedom wouldbe limited within the “iron cage of rationality” (1992:182). On the otherhand, Weber’s emphasis on rationalisation has been influential on later theo-rists, including also some Marxian approaches, such as the critical theory ofthe Frankfurt School (cf. Adorno and Horkheimer, 1972).

Progress: The Nature of Scientific Knowledge

By ‘progress’ Weber refers to the specificity of (scientific) knowledge amongother elements of Western civilisation. For him, characterising the temporaldimension of this civilisation, progress underlines the superiority of sciencewithin the Western tradition. Here Weber compares knowledge with art inorder to emphasise its significance. He argues that though in scientific andartistic works there are certain common preconditions, such as passion, inspi-ration and rationality, these common elements do not go beyond psychologi-cal processes on the part of the artist and the scientist. What clearly distinguishesscience from art is the notion of progress, for it cannot be claimed that a workof art that is created with a new technique is ‘greater’ than other works of artthat belong to earlier periods. In other words, while a product of artistic effortscannot make another work of art obsolete, for a scientific work, it is its destinyto be ‘out of fashion’ sooner or later: “In science, each of us knows that whathe has accomplished will be antiquated in ten, twenty, fifty years. at is thefate to which science is subjected; it is the very meaning of scientific work”(Weber, 1958a:138). By the same token, he argues that becoming obsolete isnot only the destiny of science, but it also is the common purpose of scientiststhemselves: “We cannot work without hoping that others will advance furtherthan we have” (Weber, 1958a:138).

e notion of progress constitutes, according to Weber, a dimension of theprocess of intellectual rationalisation “which has been going on for millennia”in the West. What makes this process, which consists of rational thinking, sci-ence and technology, unique to the Western hemisphere is its progressivenature. What, then, does rationalisation mean exactly? According to Weber, itdoes not mean that today we understand the (social and physical) world better

than the ‘savages’ of the past. Rather it refers to the notion of the ‘disenchant-ment of the world’ (Entzauberung ) which “means that principally there are nomysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can, inprinciple, master all things by calculation. is means that the world is disen-chanted” (1958a:139). For this reason, thanks to the scientific age we live in,we do not need to resort to magic or find ways to connect to spirits, as ‘savages’of the past did. What give us this freedom, according to Weber, are (rational)



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technology and calculation. Furthermore, science is not only a dimension ofthis intellectual rationalisation, but it also functions as its driving force(1958a:140).

Moreover, after locating science, “this specifically irreligious power,” at thecenter of the process of breaking free from magic and superstition, Weber alsoasks whether this progress, which “has been going on for millennia in Westernculture,” has any meaning beyond purely technical or practical purposes. Toanswer this question, he cites Tolstoy who questions the meaning of death,and concludes that death has no meaning for the modern, ‘civilised’ man who,unlike the people of the past, is “placed into an infinite ‘progress’ ”. Here

emerges, therefore, a huge gap between the past and the present:

“Abraham, or some peasant of the past, died ‘old and satiated with life’ because hestood in the organic cycle of life; because his life, in terms of its meaning and on theeve of his days, had given to him what life had to offer; because for him there remainedno puzzles he might wish to solve; and therefore he could have had ‘enough’ of life. Whereas civili[s]ed man, placed in the midst of the continuous enrichment of cultureby ideas, knowledge, and problems, may become ‘tired of life’ but not ‘satiated withlife’.” (Weber, 1958a:140)

e second most important tool — after the concept — for scientific endeav-our for Weber is the ‘rational experiment’ that first emerged with the “discov-ery of the Hellenic spirit during Renaissance”. It is a crucial instrument tocontrol experience, and one “without which today’s empirical science wouldbe impossible”. In earlier periods, since ‘scientific’ experiments were notrational, they were not reliable. For example, experiments done in India wereconnected to Yogi’s spiritual techniques; similarly, in the Hellenic Antiquity,they were done for military technology, and in the medieval period for pur-poses of mining. “But to raise the experiment to a principle of [scientific]research was the achievement of the Renaissance” (1958a:141). According to

Weber, the pioneers of rational experimentation were such “experimenters inmusic” as Leonardo da Vinci and other innovators in art. “From these circles,”says Weber, “the experiment entered science, especially through Galileo, and itentered theory through Bacon” (1958a:141–2).

According to these artistic experimenters and novelists in music who stoodat the threshold of modernity, science was “a way to true art”; for scientists itwas “a way to true nature”. erefore, art should be elevated to the level ofscience, and the artist to that of philosopher/doctor. Later, when natural sci-ences further developed, expectations from science also rose, and with theindirect impact of Protestantism and Puritanism in particular, science becamea “way to God”. Weber then asks the question: “What about today?” In response,



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he refers to the difference between the past and present: “Today’s youth,” heobserves, “does not share Plato’s feelings, who, after seeing the Sun (or truescience), returned to the cave sacrificing himself in order to lead people whocould see only their own shadows in the cave to the way to ‘true Being’ ”(1958a:142). erefore, science is no longer “a way to true nature”, nor “a wayto God,” for it is undoubtedly a secular force: “at science today is irreligiousno one will doubt in his innermost being, even if he will not admit it to him-self. Redemption from the rationalism and intellectualism of science is thefundamental presupposition of living in union with the divine” (1958a:142).

Weber also adds that, after Nietzsche, nobody believes that science is a “way to

happiness” anymore.Despite Weber’s secular(-ist) discourse, however, we know that commonfeature of the concept of progress with that of rationalisation is that bothare metaphysical and value-laden concepts. ough Weber argues for the‘detachment’ of the scientist from his/her political inclinations, and strictlyexcludes metaphysical knowledge from the realm of ‘true’ knowledge by label-ling it ‘irrational’, he himself employs these two metaphysical and — broadlydefined — ‘political’ terms as his central concepts. Moreover, the centrality ofthese (implicitly metaphysical) concepts is not confined to his view of science,but rationalisation and progress are two of the most important elements of

Weber’s entire conceptual arsenal; as such they are essential to his understand-ing of the various topics he studied, ranging from music to methodology, from

medieval agrarian structures to the rise of capitalism, and from religion todifferent forms of authority. For Weber, the progressive unfolding of rationalGeist in history is the single most important unifying pattern among thesedifferent themes he studied.

Specialisation: Differentia Specifica of Scientific Knowledge

Another unique feature of Western science for Weber is specialisation, which isclosely related to, though less metaphysical and value-laden than, progress and rationalisation. He argues that the concept of specialisation distinguishes

Western science not only from its counterparts in other civilisations but alsofrom forms of knowledge produced in the past within the Western civilisation.

He claims that in Islamic and Chinese civilisations the processes of knowledgeproduction and its transmission to subsequent generations lacked specialisa-tion. Western science, however, has reached the highest level of specialisationin the history of mankind due to progress: “Science has entered a phase ofspecialisation previously unknown and this will forever remain the case”(1958a:134).



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being known’ ” (1958a:143). erefore, just as law does not discuss the neces-sity of the existence of rules and regulations, “historical and cultural sciences”do not seek to answer the question of whether social phenomena are worthexisting. For this reason, (social) sciences should accept as legitimate existingsocial reality and all of its constituent elements. Moreover, these presupposi-tions are self-evident, according to Weber, especially in natural sciences.

The Exclusionary Character of “Western Science”

e civilisational background of Weber’s epistemology can also be observed inits exclusionary character. He claims that only the forms of knowledge pro-duced in the West deserve the name of ‘science’: “Only in the West doesscience exist at a stage of development which we recognise today as valid”(1992:13). Weber was very much influenced by Enlightenment scepticism,which was best articulated by Kant’s categorical distinction between meta-physical knowledge and knowledge based on the (human) ratio, which impliedthat those forms of knowledge that did not conform to the criteria put for-ward by (positivist) science were to be excluded from the realm of (true)knowledge.8 Accordingly, even though he is not a positivist, Weber neverthe-less rejects the validity of all knowledge that is not based on rational empiricalmethods. is is apparent in his (explicit) denial of metaphysical knowledgethe status of ‘true knowledge’, as it is not characterised by rationality and can-not be verified by scientific methods. In contrast to his ‘secular’ discourse,however, his whole epistemology is based on the above-mentioned metaphys-ical, albeit secular, concepts of rationalisation and progress. is exclusionaryattitude can be said to be related, at least partly, to his concern for the politicaland economic, as well as epistemological, superiority of the modern, secularcivilisation over others; he seems to be interested in establishing the superiorposition of ‘Western science’ in connection with the already-proven politico-military and economic superiority of Western civilisation.

8 e concept of ‘rationality’ in the discourse of Enlightenment thinkers, including Weber’s,in reality meant that which is rational according to white/European, middle-class, male subjects’reasoning. Similarly, both rationality and positivism, as two pillars of the secular world view,

were employed during the 17th to 19th centuries as effective tools against the epistemologicaland political domination of the (oppressive) Church, and gradually evolved to be the elementsof the superiority of Western civilization over others in the 18th and 19th centuries. erefore,together with other key elements of the Enlightenment, they functioned as exclusionary devicesagainst both the Church (though Christianity has been one of the defining features of Westerncivilisation) and other civilizations attributing to all of them such negative qualities as darkness,obscurantism, irrationality and despotism. is is particularly evident in Weber’s treatment ofother (especially Islamic) civilisations.



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By the same token, secondly, Weber discusses the connection between the‘ideological’ (scientific and intellectual) superiority of the West and its non-ideational, organisational dimensions. In particular, he argues that the rationalorganisation of law and administration, two crucial and unique features of

Western societies, have made it possible for scientific — and artistic —domains, as well as political and economic, developments to take the “path ofrationalisation which is peculiar to the West” (1992:25). erefore, he evalu-ates all these institutions, including science, from the subjective stand point ofinter-civilisational comparison based on certain selected characteristics ofthem within the frameworks of ‘the West versus the rest’ dichotomy.

ird, Weber’s overall approach is problematic in terms of its politicalimplications as well. e dominant feature of his discourse is Euro-centrismwith strong connections to both Orientalism and Occidentalism (see Said,1995; Carrier, 1995). e way he approaches to non-Western civilisations isbased, particularly in connection with the concept of rationality, on a crudeorientalist perspective. He attributes several negative qualities to Eastern civi-lisations, including homogeneity (e.g., all Oriental civilisations and theirscientific institutions are far from being rational), lack of change (e.g., theability to change and improve is absent in scientific institutions outside the

West), and arbitrariness (e.g., Islamic and Hindu theologies, and Ottomanlaw are neither systematic nor standardised or predictable) etc.

Furthermore, Weber adapts the same essentialist and reductionist perspective

that he has for the ‘Orient’ for the Western world as well — hence his Occidental-ism. His overall discourse strongly implies that rationalisation and disenchant-ment of the world are unitary processes common to all societies within the Westand to all of their institutions unifying them as a homogenous whole. Moreover,rational forms of knowledge and experimental methods, as well as various sciences,such as astronomy and chemistry; rational institutions such as law, education,theology and administrative mechanisms; even the rational kinds of music, litera-ture and architecture — all these belong to Western civilisation only and are ofuniquely scientific and systematic character. In contrast, no corresponding institu-tion in the non-Western world can attain this status. Weber’s approach thus impliesthe existence of insurmountable walls that prevent any possibility of interactionand dialogue between the Orient and the Occident . is is very different from the

implications of the Khaldunian view of knowledge and science.

Ibn Khaldun’s Epistemological Approach

Ibn Khaldun systematically explains his view of knowledge and science inChapter Six of his al-Muqaddimah, where he also explores the emergence and



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historical development of Islamic civilisation’s knowledge-based institutions,such as education, sciences, art, and political structures, as well as sciences thatare not unique to Islam.9 Here we will analyse Ibn Khaldun’s approach to sci-ence and knowledge in three sections: (i) the nature and forms of knowledge;(ii) Ibn Khaldun’s methodology; and (iii) Ibn Khaldun’s classification of sci-ences. en we will explore the Islamic background of his epistemology.roughout, we will observe that he employs a different (more religious andphilosophical) terminology than Weber does.

e Nature and Forms of Knowledge According to Ibn Khaldun, knowledge is one of the most important charac-teristics of human beings that distinguish them from animals (1415:108).is is for him a privilege that stems from man’s ontological position. We can,therefore, argue that Ibn Khaldun’s epistemology is closely related to his ontol-ogy. According to him, the human mind has the ability to comprehend threedifferent ‘worlds’: (i) the ‘world of creation’ (takween) (i.e., the realm of sensualperception consisting respectively of minerals, plants, animals and humanbeings, which we become aware of “by means of the perception of the senses,which the animals share with us” [1415:125]); (ii) the ‘world of human beings’(a uniquely human world of concepts and ideas, or of “scientific perceptionswhich are above the perceptions of the senses” [1415:125]); and (iii) the ‘worldof angels’ (malakut ) (the spiritual realm that consists of pure comprehensionand reasoning or intellection [ta aqqul ] that we become aware of through the“influences they exercise upon us, despite the gap between us and them”[1415:125], a world about which we can have only general knowledge, but noparticulars). Since the human being is located in the middle world, his/herspirit has the ability to ‘travel’ to the higher spiritual world — and then returnto the world of creation (1415:125–127).

Ibn Khaldun, therefore, argues, in line with the Islamic cosmological para-digm (see Nasr, 1968; Davutoğlu, 1994a), that the universe is based on a cos-mological hierarchy in which the human being is located right in the middle.is way he/she can have access to the knowledge of the material world using

his/her mind; he/she also can have contact with the spiritual world throughhis/her spirit and “can receive knowledge and light from this higher world”(Badawi, n.d.:31). Accordingly, there are two kinds of comprehension ( idrak ):

9 Unlike Weber, however, he does not discuss Islamic civilisation’s unique elements inorder to ‘prove’ its superiority over others, evidenced by the fact that there is very little inter-civilisational comparison in Chapter 6 of the Muqaddimah.



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(1) the mind’s knowledge of the external qualities of the phenomenal world;and (2) the spirit’s ‘inward’ knowledge that it acquires by being exposed to thehigher world of angels. However, the innate ability of the spirit to have accessto lower and higher worlds is not equally distributed among human beings. IbnKhaldun therefore distinguishes between three groups of ‘human spirits’:

(1) ose who are naturally incapable of acquiring the inward, spiritualknowledge : e people in this group can produce knowledge onlythrough sense perceptions and experimentation.

(2) Spirits that have access to the non-material world : e Sufis and fortunetellers who are able to know inward phenomena are included in thisgroup.

(3) ose who have access to the world of angels without any extra effort orspecial training : Only prophets sent by God are included in this group.

is classification implies three forms of knowledge:

(1) Rational knowledge : e knowledge produced by human beings byrelating to the sensual world and through thinking and learning bymental faculty; its source is the mind/intellect and the external world.e mind comprehends this knowledge in three stages, and is accord-ingly called the ‘distinguishing intellect’ (aql tamyizi ), the ‘empiricalintellect’ (aql tajrubi ) and the ‘theoretical intellect’ (aql nazari ).10

(2) Spiritual knowledge : e knowledge that the human spirit acquiresthrough special spiritual training and hard work, by worshipping Allah,and via the true dreams that are divinely inspired (ru ya salih). How-ever, the precondition for the authenticity of this knowledge is its cor-respondence to the physical and social reality. Otherwise thisinformation is said to be a product of hallucination or ‘confused dreams’(adgas ahlam) not inspired by God, and thus cannot be treated as com-ing from the higher world.

(3) Prophetic knowledge : e knowledge that is revealed by God to a certaingroup of select individuals in order for them to guide the rest of thehumanity to the righteous path. is is also a kind of ‘spiritual knowl-edge’, but its source is God’s revelation. It is also unique to prophets,

10 As this paragraph — and the rest of our examination in this article — indicate, Ibn Khal-dun does not define the concept of rationality (aql, ta aqqul ) in the same — metaphysical —way as Weber. Unlike the latter’s more specific and modern understanding of the term, IbnKhaldun’s definition of it is broader and more neutral, referring simply to that which is relatedto human mind or reason. Moreover, given his overall epistemological approach, rationality alsoimplies a limited capacity for acquiring knowledge due to the limited nature of human beings’intellectual capacities — a view that is diametrically opposed to Weber’s.



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and therefore cannot be ‘acquired’ through mental effort by ordinaryhuman beings (1415:126–127). Moreover, unlike the defective knowl-edge of ordinary human beings, prophetic knowledge is always perfect.

is schema implies that there are two main sources of knowledge in IbnKhaldun’s view. First is the world of phenomena from which the mind/intel-lect derives knowledge through its various capacities. e second source ofknowledge is the spiritual world that is not sensual, and it is the human spiritthat can access to the knowledge of this world. Also, human beings “mayinfluence the lower world of creation via their senses [and mind], and getinfluenced by the higher world through their spirits” (Badawi, n.d.:33). efact that Ibn Khaldun places human beings in the middle of the hierarchy ofbeings implies that among created beings only humans have the capacity toaccess both sources of knowledge. is Khaldunian epistemology that isshaped by his ontological assumptions also frames his methodological approachin his investigations.

Ibn Khaldun’s Methodology

Ibn Khaldun presents his methodology of studying history and social realityby presenting a critique of the study of Islamic history by his contemporaries.

As a historian, Ibn Khaldun often refers to, and quotes, some great historiansof Islam before him, as well as presenting and analysing historical data. Forhim the necessary condition for the authenticity of information given by his-torians is that this information must correspond to the reality of the time anda particular event mentioned by a historian must be within the limits of thepossible. As a 14th-century scholar, Ibn Khaldun’s distinguishing character inhis own study of history is his efforts and ability to verify the reliability of thedata at hand by taking a very critical position towards the reports by otherhistorians, as well as the historical data themselves. In this context, he oftenresorts to what might be called today a ‘critical textual analysis’ of his sources.

As an indication of his emphasis on sound methods, he explains it in a sepa-rate section (titled Muqaddamah) within his Muqaddimah, in which he praises

the first generation of Muslim historians while criticising later generations fornot being careful enough about the reliability of their methods of data collec-tion (1415:10–11,16–20).

Within this framework, we can specify five major elements of Ibn Khal-dun’s methodology, which also indicate the criteria he employs for a soundanalysis in his own theoretical and empirical investigations:



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(1) e role of social conditions : Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah is, in a sense, anexposition of the ‘new science’ that he argues he founded: the (socio-logical) study of civilisations (ilm al-umran). As a sociologist he states(like Weber) that sciences are ultimately crafts (sina at ) and, as such, theyvary depending upon the fundamental conditions of the society in whichthey thrive. Accordingly, his examination of the emergence and develop-ment of sciences draws heavily on social structures, including especiallyeconomy, politics and urbanisation. He discusses the role of social struc-tures in a separate section in his Muqaddimah, whose title reads: “esciences are numerous only where civilisation is large and sedentary cul-

ture highly developed” (Chapter 6, Section 8). He makes a similar argu-ment for educational institutions (Chapter 6, Sections 36–40) and theevolution of language (Chapter 6, Sections 43–49). Likewise, one ofthe most important points he emphasises in his both theoretical andempirical analyses is that the reliability of a piece of information and/orknowledge about a phenomenon depends on whether its occurrence isreasonably possible given the social and material conditions surround-ing it. When a particular phenomenon is reported to have happened,he tests the authenticity of this report by first looking at the social andmaterial conditions that shape it; and sometimes rejects its reliabilityon the grounds that it does not fit to the circumstances conditioned bysocial structure (e.g., economic relations) and/or material conditions of

that geographical region. He, therefore, does not see, as some scholars do,the purely logical possibility as a sufficient condition in assessing a pieceof knowledge. In this respect, the modern sociological method (especiallythe Marxian one) has a similarity to that of Ibn Khaldun. However, hisemphasis on ‘material conditions’ does not mean that he has no room forhuman agency (see below).

(2) e role of ‘cultural structures’ : A second, and closely related, element ofIbn Khaldun’s methodology in his study of civilisations is taking as afactor the influence of culture (in a more anthropological sense) onindividual events. He cites the “development of urban/sedentary cul-ture”, together with political stability, as a precondition for the devel-opment of sciences in any civilisation. Moreover, he requires that a

phenomenon reported to have occurred in a particular social setting bein conformity (mutabaqah) with the influence that traditional struc-tures and the dominant normative system may have in that context.For, according to Ibn Khaldun, “. . . if one relies only on how an event isreported ignoring the impact of traditions, social structures and politi-cal principles . . .”, one cannot possibly be assured of the authenticity



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and/or reliability of this report (1415:16). In many occasions in the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun stresses the significance of ‘structures andtraditions’ taking them as elements, and criteria for the validity, of anexplanation. One of the most revealing examples of this method is hisdifferentiation of civilisation (‘umran) into nomadic (badawi ) and urban(khadari ) types where he requires that reports about a particular eventmust fit to either of these societal types and their cultural structures.11

(3) Comparative method : Ibn Khaldun’s understanding of comparativemethod involves not only comparison of social phenomena across timeand space (comparison between the past and present, and between

different socio-geographical areas), but also what might be referred toas ‘counter-factual analysis’; for he argues that “what is seen and visible”(shahid ) must be compared with what is not ( gaib). Like the scholars ofIslamic theology and jurisprudence ( fiqh), Ibn Khaldun employs com-parative method as an ‘inferential proof’ in rational arguments andreligious matters. Unlike many scholars, however, he also applies thismethod to social phenomena in his theory of umran, arguing that cer-tain ‘social laws’ (general principles of social relations) can be derivedon the basis of comparative analysis. is method is, therefore, one ofthe best tools to reach a sound understanding of the way social relationswork; for “. . . if ‘the visible’ is not compared with ‘the invisible’ and thepresent with the past, one cannot be sure not to deviate from the path

of true knowledge . . .” (1415:16). Ibn Khaldun also states that he reliedon comparative method for analysis in his seven-volume world history,Kitab al-Ibar (1867), of which the Muqaddimah constitutes Volume 1:

“Here I provide a detailed account and causal analysis of, and the evidence for, manysubjects associated with civilisation (umran), including the state, religion, nomadicand sedentary life styles, [political] domination and subordination, the growth anddecline [of population], sciences and arts, [economic] gain and loss, changing andstable structures, rural and urban life, and what occurs and what might occur etc.”(1415:13–14).

(4) Scepticism: Ibn Khaldun cites evidence only after criticising it fromdifferent angels. He starts off by doubting the reliability of every pieceof information (except for the Qur’anic revelation); then he evaluates itin light of the criteria based on reason, empirical evidence and revela-tion. ough his overall method is quite original, this ‘methodical scep-

11 For an excellent analysis of Ibn Khaldun’s theories of nomadic and urban cultures, see Yıldırım (1999).



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minor or subordinate questions to principal sources” via the qiyas (ana-logical deduction), sciences that are made known to human beings byprophets (1415:110). Ibn Khaldun states that in Islam the two mainsources of these sciences are the Qur’an and the Sunna of the Prophet,and can be classified as follows:

(a) Qur’anic sciences (tafsir [interpretation] qiraat [recitation] andnash [abrogation]) (Chapter 6, Section 10); and

(b) Hadith sciences (sanad [chain of transmission], rijal [narrators ofhadith], akhz al-ruwat and jarh wa tadil [evaluation and criticismof transmitters]), Fiqh [Jurisprudence] and the “Science of Inheri-tance Laws,” Usul al-fiqh [Principles of Jurisprudence], Kalam [eology], Tasawwuf [Sufism] and Interpretation of dreams(Chapter 6, Sections 11–17).

Ibn Khaldun states that these sciences emerged one after another andhave been systematised becoming disciplines in their own right by hisown time. He also discusses the level and quality of scholarship in theMuslim world from a sociological point of view arguing that in theEastern Muslim geography (mashriq ) scholarship has reached to a veryhigh level due to the development of culture and ‘civilisation’, includ-ing an advanced economy, and a high degree of urbanisation and edu-cation supported by various public and private institutions, such as

foundations, enhancing educational opportunities for many people.He makes the opposite observation for the Western world of Islam(maghrib), where he himself lived, complaining about its backwardnessin terms of the development of sciences (1415:111). ese argumentsexemplify Ibn Khaldun’s general method of emphasising the effects ofsocial structures on, among other things, the development of scientificknowledge and scholarship, implying the fact, similar to his classificationof sciences described above, that his ‘sociology of civilisations’ is anapplication of his overall epistemology.

(2) Rational/intellectual sciences : ese are the “philosophical sciences thathuman beings can understand via rational thought; sciences whosesubject-matters, questions, and research methods can be acquainted

with through rational thinking (nazar ), research and training”(1415:110). ey are not unique to a particular civilisation, and haveexisted throughout history. ey can be divided into four groups:(i) logic; (ii) the ‘natural science’ (including medicine and the ‘scienceof agriculture’); (iii) mathematical sciences (including engineering,arithmetic, music and astronomy); and (iv) metaphysics (Chapter 6,Sections 18–26).



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Ibn Khaldun further classifies each of these sciences into several sub-groupsdiscussing each of them separately. He also says that this classification impliesa hierarchy (logic being the first and easiest) and must be taught within thisorder (1415:135). In addition, he includes within this categorisation some‘sciences’ that he considers illegitimate, such as astrology, alchemy, and magic.He harshly criticises them for being harmful and dangerous (Chapter 6, Sec-tions 27–32).

It is striking that his classification of (classical) sciences does not include‘social’ sciences — which he himself would add calling it the ilm al-umran.e reason for this is that many of what would correspond to modern social

sciences did not exist in the Muslim society of his time — nor did they existanywhere else. Among the Islamic sciences, the Fiqh (Jurisprudence) includessome subject-matters that are studied by social sciences and humanities today,such as economy and law. However, the Islamic Fiqh does not involve thestudy of social life per se , instead it tries to explain particular aspects of socialrelationships focusing on some of them in order to help regulate people’s livesnot only in this world, but also in the other.12 For much of the Islamic history,therefore, there did not emerge a science studying ‘the social’, most likely dueto fact that the category of ‘the social’ was not considered a bounded ‘entity’in itself to be studied because, until the 12th century, Muslim societies livedmostly under stable political systems and with relative prosperity. erefore,with the help of a very strong belief system, too, problems encountered by

individuals and groups were not thought to be social problems that need spe-cial attention and understanding in their own right. For, only after problemsfaced in everyday life, politics and economy start being perceived as socialproblems does ‘the social’ emerges as an essential dimension of human life andbecomes a legitimate topic to be systematically studied and understood ‘as itis’. is is what happened in 19th-century Europe: modern social scienceswere born with the emergence of ‘the social’ as a legitimate and independentcategory as social problems associated with industrialisation, urbanisation andpoverty were regarded as significant to be systematically analysed and solved.

A similar case can be made for Islamic history as well. Starting from the12th century when the Abbasid Caliphate was in decline, and particularly afterthe Mongolian invasions (mid-13th century), Muslim peoples encountered

many social (economic, political and military) problems that could not besolved by a single government or individual groups. ese led to the emer-gence of a social context where the need for understanding and explaining‘social life’ and problems associated with it, as well as its positive aspects by

12 For a comparison between Islamic jurisprudence and modern social sciences, see Şentürk(1996).



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empirically studying them, was born among intellectuals. is is particularlytrue for the western parts of the Muslim World (the maghrib, North andNorth-West Africa in particular), where Ibn Khaldun lived. It is understand-able, therefore, that as an intellectual, political advisor and jurist (he workedas a judge in Egypt and the maghrib) dealing with day-to-day problems ofpeople and travelling around the Muslim World, Ibn Khaldun was very muchinterested in different manifestations of ‘the social’, made observations aboutthem, and developed theories explaining them on the basis of his empiricalstudies. His Muqaddimah (Prolegomena), which he wrote as an introductionto his study on world history, the Kitab al-Ibar , is also an exposition of his

‘sociology of civilisations’. He argues that he has founded a new scientific dis-cipline with a main subject-matter (civilisation) and various major questionsand methods (1415:42). His proposal of the empirical study of social realityas it is can, therefore, be read as a manifestation of a profound transformationin socio-economic and political life of Muslim society in the 14th century.Despite this ‘sea change’, however, the main contours of Ibn Khaldun’s episte-mology may be said to have remained within the boundaries of classical Islamicintellectual tradition, as exemplified by his classification of sciences, which isvery similar to those done earlier by al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, whowere also prominent figures in the making of Islamic epistemological para-digm itself (see above). ough he harshly criticises some of these philoso-phers for what he thinks is their overemphasis on rationality (Chapter 6,

Section 30), Ibn Khaldun is loyal to this mainstream tradition in terms of hisclassification of Islamic sciences as well.

e Islamic Background of Ibn Khaldun’s Epistemology

If we place Ibn Khaldun in the wider civilisational context, we see, as dis-cussed above, that his view of knowledge can be understood within the frame-work of the Islamic epistemological paradigm that maintains a parallelismbetween ontology and the theory of knowledge, as a result of which it involvesa hierarchy and harmony among sources of knowledge. Having being raisedand produced his work within a social and scholarly environment which was

based on Islamic world view and dominated by the Islamic intellectual tradi-tion, Ibn Khaldun avoided making categorical distinctions between differentsources and forms of knowledge elevating the status of one of them at theexpense of others.

is inclusive attitude has a number of implications. First, he locates eachform and source of knowledge into their ‘proper place’ (as defined by Islamic



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epistemology), rather than assuming the existence of competition and conflictamong them. Naturally, on top of this hierarchical structure is located wahy (Qur’anic revelation). In his discussions on various topics, ranging fromnomadism and urbanism to solidarity and civilisation, from consumptionhabits to moral values, and from philosophy of history to the interactionbetween geography and social relations, etc., Ibn Khaldun takes into accountwhat the wahy (the Qur’an and Sunna ) has to say, often building his ‘rational’explanations on it as well as on historical data and his own observations (e.g.,1415:18,37,89,143,178,299). Furthermore, he often supports his own empir-ical arguments and even his criticisms of other scholars by reference to the

sacred texts of Islam (e.g., 1415:47,90,94,171,217).Secondly, Ibn Khaldun does not conceive of different methods of acquiringknowledge as alternative to each other, either. is helps his methodologyavoid reductionism in terms of the relative significance of scientific methods.For this reason, it would be wrong to place Ibn Khaldun into certain catego-ries such as rationalism and empiricism, which is common in Western intel-lectual history. Likewise, the fact that Ibn Khaldun emphasises the significanceof material conditions within the framework of his original methodology can-not be interpreted, as some do (e.g., Khalidi, 1985:125), as a ‘Marxist’ viewthat sees knowledge as a reflection of material infrastructure. It would then bewrong to say that Ibn Khaldun argues that sciences, “[t]hese generally non-material aspects of culture are . . . extensions of the material” (Khalidi, 1985:125).

For, successfully integrating into his analyses the role played by human agency,Ibn Khaldun avoids crude materialism in his examination of the emergence,institutionalisation and disappearance of sciences; in this connection, he evenclaims to have founded a new scientific discipline, as mentioned above.

irdly, and in a similar fashion, due to the fact that Ibn Khaldun oftendescribes human beings as relatively independent social actors rather than pas-sive beings based on his assumption of human free will, though also oftenemphasising the effects of material and social environments on human behav-iour, it would not be correct to include his sociological methodology withineither of the two broad categories of objectivism and subjectivism. For, unlikemany social scientists — including Weber himself — that fall in eithercategory, Ibn Khaldun does not see a fundamental conflict between struc-

ture and agency, or between — physical and social — environment and theindividual.13 e wider Islamic theory of knowledge does not involve such

13 As is well known, transcending these dichotomies has been an important endeavour and ahot topic in modern sociology, particularly in the second half of the 20th century, constituting asubstantial literature in itself; see e.g., Bourdieu (1977), Giddens (1986), Sewell (1992), etc.



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dichotomies as man versus nature and society versus individual, but ratherconceives them as two different manifestations of the ‘divine will’. Accord-ingly, Ibn Khaldun, too, sees them as complementary, rather than alternativeconcepts, treating them as inclusive, as opposed to exclusive and conflicting,social categories.

A fourth feature of Ibn Khaldun’s epistemology in relation to the relation-ship between reason and revelation, or more broadly, science and religion, ishis interpretive understanding of sacred texts. Perceiving no possibility ofconflict between the knowledge acquired through rational thinking andempirical methods on the one hand, and the ‘non-rational’ knowledge based

on revelation on the other, he interprets ‘revelation’ (the Qur’an and Sunna ) ina way that supports his own argument (cf. 1415:107–109). When there is“seemingly” a conflict between the two forms of knowledge in other scholars’arguments, moreover, he often claims that others misinterpret the revelation,thereby still denying any possibility of conflict as part of his overall discursivestrategy. On the other hand, however, we observe in many instances that IbnKhaldun does a literal reading of sacred texts even though, sometimes, theymight include statements that the modern mind would find difficult to accept.erefore, given this ‘traditionalist’ approach, it would not be correct to seeIbn Khaldun as a ‘rationalist’ who adopts revelation to reason interpreting itfreely, which is an essential feature of the modern Islamic intellectual ‘move-ment’ known as ‘Islamic modernism’, which emerged in the 19th century as a

reaction to the challenge of modernity (see Moaddel, 2005).Finally, the impact of Islamic epistemology on Ibn Khaldun may also be

observed in his terminology and key concepts. In the Islamic intellectual tradi-tion, the world view that is the source of Islamic epistemology is a theo-centricsystem. It conceives God (Allah) as the centre of the existential realm, in whichhuman beings and other creatures are located ‘below’ Him in the hierarchy ofbeings due to the unbridgeable gap and categorical distinction between onto-logical spheres (see above). e linguistic and semantic manifestations of thisGod-centred ontology can be found in the Qur’an, too.

“Allah is the highest ‘focus-word’ in the Koranic system, which is surpassed by noother word in rank and importance. e Weltanschauung of the Koran is essentially

theo-centric, and quite naturally in this system the concept of Allah reigns over thewhole from above, and exerts a deep influence on the semantic structure of all the key-words.” (Izutsu, 1987:96)

e concept of Allah has a central semantic position in Ibn Khaldun’s work aswell. For in Islamic epistemology the Qur’an (revelation) is at the top of thehierarchy of sources of knowledge. is hierarchical structure is also true for



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Islamic sciences, which influenced Islamic scholars themselves in the way theyapproached knowledge. is is also exemplified by Ibn Khaldun’s view of thenature and forms of knowledge and his classification of sciences, as discussedabove. erefore, it is quite natural that he borrows many concepts from theQur’an and hadiths (prophetic traditions), as well as employing the terminol-ogy of classical Islamic sciences, including first and foremost the concept of

Allah and wahy . Although for his sociological analyses he also invents someoriginal terms (such as umran) and employs different concepts (such as ‘sed-entary civilisation’) that are not so common in Islamic sciences, his key con-cepts are never in conflict with the God-centred epistemology. In addition to

terms invented by him, of course, he also borrows many other concepts fromother Islamic philosophers.

Civilisational Epistemology in Ibn Khaldun and Weber

When one compares Ibn Khaldun and Weber in terms of their epistemologi-cal views, one sees some common features among them despite manydifferences. First and foremost, both see science or knowledge having twofunctions: it is both a product of civilisation (hence phrases “Western science”and “Islamic sciences”) and a tool to build civilisation (“science as a voca-tion”). Furthermore, in their empirical investigations, both intellectualsemphasise the indispensability of empirical evidence and causal explanationfor understanding social phenomena. ey also agree (contra Marx) that thereare mutual interactions and interdependence, rather than a relationship ofdetermination, between different spheres of social life, namely, political, eco-nomic and cultural institutions. Again, both thinkers employ a number ofideal-typical conceptual tools through which they analyse different sets ofsocial relations applying the comparative method. In addition, both theoristsmanage to stay away from crude materialism paying attention to the roleplayed by cultural values and human agency. However, it is also a fact thatcompared to Weber the idealist, Ibn Khaldun stresses ‘structure’ and ‘materialconditions’ more than ‘agency’.

Another common feature of the two intellectuals is their pessimism: while

Ibn Khaldun states that every state (or political system) will one day collapsedue to the cyclical logic of history, Weber — rightly — predicted, after helived through World War I as part of the bureaucracy of the German army,that bureaucratic rationalisation would ultimately create an ‘iron cage’ thatwould limit individuals’ freedom and lead to loss of meaning in life. On theother hand, there are both similarities and differences in terms of the termi-nology they employ: Weber strongly emphasises the ‘rationalisation’ process as



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e inclusion of metaphysical knowledge, which he does explicitly, is one ofthe strongest connecting points between Ibn Khaldun and the broader Islamicepistemology. A second strong connection between the two has to do with thefact that both locate different sources of knowledge in a harmonious, albeithierarchical, and internally-coherent system. In contrast, Weber explicitlydenies metaphysical knowledge the status of ‘true’ knowledge, but implicitlyincludes them in his epistemology. As mentioned above, some of his mostcentral terms (namely, rationalisation and progress) are of metaphysical nature,albeit in a secular form, which is also the case in the Enlightenment philoso-phy that framed Weber’s epistemology.

We can argue that the roots of difference between the two go back, at leastpartly, to what they see as the ultimate purpose of doing science. Weber arguesthat scientific activities are instrumental in nature, and are mostly aimed atpractical use to “control life via technique;” or at best one does science “for itsown sake” (1958a:144). For Ibn Khaldun, the ultimate purpose of knowledgeacquisition is the well-being and happiness of human beings both at the micro(individual) and macro (humanity) level, and both in this world and in theother (1415:16). In other words, while Ibn Khaldun sees knowledge as God’sgrace for human beings to maintain a ‘civilised’ life (umran) in this world andan accomplished and cultivated one (ma mour ) in the hereafter, Weber assumesthat science is a field that is independent of God’s influence, perceiving itwithin a secular framework as a valuable tool for this-worldly purposes, par-

ticularly that of the domination of nature. erefore, their differences in termsof the methods of acquiring knowledge, forms of knowledge and how to usethe knowledge produced by science, etc. are rooted in this fundamentaldifference in terms of how Weber and Ibn Khaldun conceive the ultimatepurpose of scientific knowledge.

From a broader angle, then, despite some similarities between the two, Weber and Ibn Khaldun mostly differ in terms of their epistemologies, mainlydue to perceiving knowledge with differing mindsets that are shaped by therespective (mainstream) world views of Western and Islamic civilisations.ese world views are, as discussed above, shaped not only by intellectual/ideological frameworks and self-perceptions of each civilisation penetratinginto the mindsets of intellectuals, but also by differing patterns of historical

(political, economic and cultural) processes, which together constitute thecivilisational context in which the two thinkers operate. It is fair, then, to arguethat as the two leading intellectual figures in the West and Islam with a highrepresentative capacity, Weber and Ibn Khaldun’s views of knowledge and sci-ence exemplify the Western and Islamic epistemological paradigms. Needlessto say, this comparison between the two intellectuals is not exhaustive, nor is



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it enough for a complete comparative analysis of the two wider paradigms. Fora full comparison of Weber and Ibn Khaldun, one needs to analyse the inter-action between the historical and intellectual contexts in both cases, which isbeyond the confines of this article. Moreover, for a better comparison betweenIslamic and Western epistemologies, one needs to examine the views of keyintellectual figures, including, among others, al-Kindi, Ibn Sina, al-Farabi,Ghazali, al-Taftazani, al-Tusi and Ibn Rushd, on the one hand, and Descartes,Hume, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Comte and Marx, on the other. en, these com-parisons need to be expanded to include other civilisations as well. Comple-mented with the comparative examinations of other (political, economic etc.)

dimensions of the Western, Islamic and other civilisations, these analyses maycontribute to the mutual understanding among them, and hopefully, keepopen the channels of communication and interaction instead of conflict, clashand domination.

References

Ahmad, Z. (2003) e Epistemology of Ibn Khaldun. London: Routledge. Adorno, T and Horkheimer, M. (1972) Dialectic of Enlightenment . New York: Continuum. Ardıç, N., Arlı, A. and Özkan, H. (eds.) (2007) Medeniyet ve Klasik . İstanbul: Klasik. Azmeh, A. (1981) Ibn Khaldun: An Essay in Reinterpretation. London: Frank Cass.Badawi, F. (n.d.) Ilmu ijtimâ al-ma rifa bayna al-fikr al-Khaldûnî wa al-fikr al-Garbî . Jarus-

Pars.Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a eory of Practice . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Carrier, J.C. (ed.) (1995) Occidentalism: Images of the West . Oxford: Clarendon Press.Collins, R. (1980) “Weber’s Last eory of Capitalism”. American Sociological Review 45:925–

942.Connell, R.W. (1997) “Why is Classical eory Classical?” American Journal of Sociology 102(6):

1511–1557.Davutoğlu, A. (1994a) Alternative Paradigms: e Impact of Islamic and Western Weltanschauungs

on Political eory . Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.—— (1994b) Civilizational Transformation and the Muslim World . Kuala Lumpur: Quill.Gibb, H.A.R. (1962) “e Islamic Background of Ibn Khaldun’s Political eory” in Shaw, S.J.

and Polk, W.R. (eds.) Studies on the Civilization of Islam. Boston and London: Beacon.Giddens, A. (1986) e Constitution of Society: Outline of the eory of Structuration. Los Angeles

and Berkeley: University of California Press.—— (1992) “Introduction”, in Weber, M. e Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,

London and New York: Routledge.Gordon, S. (1993) e History and Philosophy of Social Science . New York and London: Rout-

ledge.Huntington, S.P. (1993) “e Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72(3): 22–49.Ibn Khaldun, A. (1867) Kitab al-Ibar wa-Diwan al-Mubtada wa al-Khabar . Nasr al-Hurini

(ed.). 7 vols. Cairo: Bulaq Press.—— (1415) Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldun. al-Juwaydî, D. (ed.) (1995). Beirut: al-Maktaba

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Civilisational Epistemology in Weber & Ibn Khaldun