Islam Creator of the Modern Age
3. Muslim Contribution to Science
~ 140 ~
Historians have generally acknowledged that the
science of history remained undeveloped before the
emergence of Ibn Khaldun, and that he was the first
person to develop a philosophy of history. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica
even goes so far as to say
that “he developed one of the world’s most
significant philosophies of history.”
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The question arises as to how it became possible for
Ibn Khaldun to discover something, which had
remained undiscovered for centuries. The answer is
that other historians were born before the Islamic
revolution, while Ibn Khaldun was born after it. On
the basis of monotheism, Islam had brought about a
revolution, which eliminated the difference between
King and commoner. All human beings, the
offspring of Adam and Eve, were held to be equal.
It was, uniquely, this great revolution of equality
that paved the way for an Ibn Khaldun—himself a
product: of this revolution—to lay the foundation of
modern history in which the central position was
held not by ‘royal figures’ but by humanity itself
One belief which had hampered the development of
the science or art of history was polytheism. The
