Ibn Khaldun's Study of History (1377 CE)
Annotation
Statesman, jurist, historian, scholar, and philosopher Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis on May 27, 1332. Ibn Khaldun is an exemplary example of product of the Islamic education that children and youth received. He received a traditional early education of Qur'an, jurisprudence, and Arabic grammar. In his early 20s, he traveled to Fes to complete his education with the eminent scholars of his day. Ibn Khaldun wrote The Muqaddimah in 1377 as the preface and first book of his world history volume. It is regarded as the earliest attempt made by any historian to discover patterns in changes in political and social organization and it represents a departure from traditional historiography that merely chronicled events. It also is often viewed as an early work of sociology and economics. Ibn Khaldun saw all societies as going through a cycle of growth and decline, followed by conquest, and then the conquering society would go through the same cycle. The majority of the volume was prepared in the form of academic lectures to be read aloud.
Ibn Khaldun was remarkably modern and scientific in his thinking. Existing religious, physical, and geographical assumptions should be open to scrutiny, he taught, as thinking is what determines human behavior. In this selection, Ibn Khaldun criticizes the traditional pedagogy of rote memorization that was practiced in Islamic societies for teaching children and youth. This document brings up the question of how effective memorization is as a pedagogical technique for teaching children and youth.
This source is a part of the Education in the Middle East, 1200-2010 teaching module.
Text
The easiest method of acquiring the scientific habit is through acquiring the ability to express oneself clearly in discussing and disputing scientific problems. This is what clarifies their import and makes them understandable. Some students spend most of their lives attending scholarly sessions. Still, one finds them silent. They do not talk and do not discuss matters. More than is necessary, they are concerned with memorizing. Thus, they do not obtain much of a habit in the practice of science and scientific instruction. Some of them think that they have obtained (the habit). But when they enter into a discussion or disputation, or do some teaching, their scientific habit is found to be defective. Their memorized knowledge may be more extensive than that of other scholars, because they are so much concerned with memorizing. They think that scientific habit is identical with memorized knowledge. But that is not so.
Credits
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, translated by Franz Rosenthal, edited and abridged by N.J. Dawood (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 340–1. Annotated by Heidi Morrison.