Muqaddimah - Historiography - Historical Method

Historical Method

In the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun warned of seven mistakes that he thought that historians regularly committed. In this criticism, he approached the past as strange and in need of interpretation. The originality of Ibn Khaldun was to claim that the cultural difference of another age must govern the evaluation of relevant historical material, to distinguish the principles according to which it might be possible to attempt the evaluation, and lastly, to feel the need for experience, in addition to rational principles, in order to assess a culture of the past. Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data." As a result, he introduced a scientific method to the study of history, which was considered something "new to his age", and he often referred to it as his "new science", now associated with historiography. His historical method also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history, and he is thus considered to be the "father of historiography" or the "father of the philosophy of history".

Ibn Khaldun' makes the following comments on his scientific historical method in his Muqaddimah:

1. "History is a science"
2. "History has a content and the historian should account for it"
3. "The historian should account for the elements that gather to make the human history"
4. "He should also work according to the laws of history"
5. "History is a philosophical science"
6. "History is composed of news about the days, states and the previous centuries. It is a theory, an analysis and justification about the creatures and their principles, and a science of how the incidents happen and their reasons"
7. "Myths have nothing to do with history and should be refuted"
8. "To build strong historical records, the historian should rely on necessary rules for the truth comparison"