Human Nature and the Possibility of Scientific History in Muqaddimah

Abstract

Philosophers' understanding of human nature constitutes a field of study that is particularly popular for Western thinkers. However, it appears that the Muqaddimah has not been conducted a punctual research in terms of the understanding of human nature it contains. However, in order to understand the facts and phenomena of the historical-social life presented by Muqaddimah, there is a special place in the conception of the nafs that plays a central role in the tradition of Islamic sciences and philosophy that the philosopher has imposed on. The argument that this article defends is that the break in the ilmu'n-nafs paradigm created by Ibn Khaldun is a basis for the scientific history and theory of society proposed in Muqaddimah. In this context, the article first mentions the references received in Muqaddimah by the concepts of nafs, fitrats, etc., which point to human nature, and then the evaluation of these citations in terms of ibn Khaldun's basic thesis. Thus the contentless quality of human nature will be revealed in the philosophical system of Ibn Khaldun.