Ibn Khaldun was one of the most remarkable Muslim scholars of the pre-modern period. He founded an entirely new science that he called the science of human society (ciim ai-ijtimac ai-insan~ or human social organization (ciim al- cumran ai-bashan). It had little impact on the development of Muslim thought for several centuries but greatly impressed European thinkers from the nineteenth century on, some of whom regarded Ibn I<:haldun as a progenitor of sociology and other modern social sciences.

Department of Sociology, Faculty of Art & Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore