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Ibn Khaldun And Contemporary Sociology, Syed Farid Alatas

farid alatas

This review is focused on a central question: why should a social thinker like Ibn Khaldu¯ n be excluded from the serious study of the history of sociology, sociological theory or historical sociology? A quick review of contemporary histories of social thought and social theory will reveal that very little attention is given to non-western precursors of sociology or non-western social thinkers who were contemporaneous with the European founders of the discipline. Nineteenth- and early 20th-century western sociologists, on the other hand, were more aware of the role of non-western thought in the development of western sociology as a discipline. …