3. MUSLIM CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

~ 139 ~ considered the discoverer—as he himself claimed—of the true scope and nature of history, or at least the real founder of the science of sociology. No Arab writer, indeed no European, had ever taken a view of history at once so comprehensive and philosophic. By the consensus of critical opinion Ibn-Khaldun was the greatest historical philosopher Islam produced, and one of the greatest of all time. In Book I of the Muqaddamah, Ibn Khaldun sketches a general sociology; in Books II and III, a sociology of politics; in Book IV a sociology of urban life; in Book V, a sociology of economics; and in Book VI, a sociology of knowledge. The work is studded with brilliant observations on historiography, economics, politics, and education. It is held together by his central concept of asabiyah, or social cohesion. Thus he laid the foundation of a science of history which is not based just on the description of kings, but which is, in a vaster sense, based on the economics, politics, education, religion, ethics, and culture of the whole nation. 70