Contributions of the scholar Abdul Rahman bin Khaldoun in establishing the historical research method

Abstract

What Ibn Khaldun accomplished in the method of research and historical research is an innovation that no one has preceded him before, which was prepared by the famous historian Arnold Toynbee, “the greatest work that the mind has produced, and it was not, perhaps, ever like it, at any time and place,” because Ibn Khaldun has established Indeed, a method that goes beyond the norm, paving a path that contemporary thought is still fertilizing after more than three centuries, before scholars of the European Enlightenment began to doubt the existence of a method for research in history

. Therefore, Ibn Khaldun has the right to write in his introduction: 'I have managed to awaken my thought and extract it from hibernation and oversight... I have invented an unparalleled method.'

Perhaps we would not be right if we claim that what Ibn Khaldun reached as a creative thinker does not include him among the founders of the research methodology in history, but in theorizing of historical thought for the social, political, economic, scientific, educational and religious aspects, and these are undoubtedly the main driving aspects of human phenomena.

The aim of this study is to highlight the role of Islamic civilization in general; And Ibn Khaldun’s touch, especially in establishing the historical research method and establishing its scientific bases.