|Published by Abdul Razak Ricardo| |Saturday, 07 April 2012
15:19| By: Abdesselam Cheddadi At first sight, the place held by
education in Ibn Khaldun’s sociology appears uncertain to say
the least. What today we understand by the term ‘education’—the
replication of individuals and groups, firstly at the level of
values and secondly at that of knowledge and know-how—is found
in the Muqaddima only in a scattered and incomplete fashion, in
an order and pattern whose meaning escapes us at first sight.
More important, Ibn Khaldun makes no use of a general concept in
speaking of education. This is all the more surprising as he
accustoms us elsewhere to a systematic approach to the main
phenomena of life in society. However, upon closer view we
discover that this ambiguity and these lacunae in fact reflect
the state of the Muslim system of education, and we are forced
to admit that, in this field as in many others connected with
the knowledge of Muslim society, Khaldun’s contribution is the
most complete at our disp