SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION IN MUSLIM WORLD
WEEK 12
COURSE MATERIALS
By Asst. Prof. Dr. Selman Yılmaz
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
Among the founders of sociology but he has been neglected because of
Eurocentrism in sociology.
Born in Tunisia.
Experienced much political upheaval and
witnessed what he considered to be the
cultural decline of his society.
Muqaddimah
Wrote his famous Muqaddimah in 1378.
Introduced a new science that today would be understood as sociology but which he named
‘ilm al-‘umran al-bashari (the science of human social organization) or ‘ilm al-ijtima‘ al-insani (the science of human society
Considered the study of society as it is rather than as it should be.
His substantive concerns were with the
macro issues of the rise and decline of
dynasties and states.
Asabiyyah Theory
The key to understanding the rise and decline of North African states lay in the essential
differences in social organization between pastoral nomadic and sedentary societies.
Asabiyyah refers a type of group feeling or social cohesion.
Asabiyyah tends to be stronger among the pastoral nomadic peoples.
Asabiyyah is not wholly dependent on kinship
ties. Religion can also function to bring about
or strengthen such solidarity.
Ali Shariati (1933-1977)
He was an Iranian revolutionary and
sociologist who focused on the sociology of religion.
He presents “a geometrical figure of a school of thought and an ideology which every Islamologist and aware Muslim
should have of Islam, not only as
explanation of their religious belief but as a logo of a school of thought and
ideology.”
Islamology
Islam, as an ideology, is not a scientific specialization but is the feeling one has in regard to a school of
thought as a belief system and not as a culture.
It is the perceiving of Islam as an idea and not as a collection of sciences.
It is the understanding of Islam as a human, historical and intellectual movement, not as a storehouse of
scientific and technical information.
It is the view of Islam as an ideology in the minds of an intellectual and not as ancient religious sciences in the mind of a religious scholar.
Islamology, then, should be taught in this way.
Review
Any further comments and questions?
References
Alatas, Syed Farid (2011). Ibn Khaldun. In George Ritzer & Jeffrey Stepnisky (eds.).
Major Social Theorists. Wiley-Blackwell.
