Introduction to Sociology: An Islamic Perspective

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Preface

Sociology is an expanding and increasingly popular discipline across many parts of the world, particularly in the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, India and Australia. It is taught in graduate and postgraduate courses in all major universities around the world.

There are dozens of introductory textbooks in sociology in English and other languages. As most of them are written by American and European authors and as they primarily cater to the academic interests and needs of students in Western universities, their contents as well as illustrations are largely drawn from contemporary Western societies. Most if not all textbooks in the subject suffer from an unmistakable and pervasive Eurocentric bias.

Some universities in Muslim countries have introduced sociology as a major component of graduate and postgraduate courses. This book has been written primarily for Muslim university students. However, it has a wider scope and it is hoped that sociology students in general, researchers and academics from other disciplines and the general reader will find it useful.

This book has been commissioned by the Institute of Objective Studies, New Delhi, India. I am extremely thankful to the Institute's Founder-Chairman, Dr. Mohammad Manzoor Alam, for reposing his trust in me for this rather formidable assignment and for his appreciation and patience. I am also thankful to Dr. Abdul Hamid AbuSulayman, former president, International Institute of Islamic Thought, Herndon, USA, for gently nudging me to complete the work. Some of the ideas in the volume were presented at conferences and lectures at the University of Bonn and the University of Cologne in Germany, the Kulliyyah of Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences at the International Islamic University, Malaysia and the Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Kashmir, and at seminars and conferences in Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Calicut, Calcutta, Lucknow, Aligarh and Patna. Some of the views related to the restructuring of sociology in an Islamic framework, which have been outlined in this volume, were presented at an international conference held under the auspices of International Islamic University, Malaysia in August 2013. I am thankful to my wife and my son and daughter for their help in the preparation of the final draft of this work.

Introduction

Eurocentrism, which connotes a deeply entrenched belief in the supremacy of Western civilization, is a pervasive feature of much of Western intellectual tradition and cultural consciousness. It is conspicuously reflected in the Western view of civilization and modernity, in the historiography of science and technology, medicine and art and in the history of ideas.

A corollary of Eurocentrism is the Western view of non-Western cultures and civilizations, which betrays either an ignorance or absence of recognition of their contributions. By and large, Western attitudes towards other cultures and civilizations are at best condescending and at worst scornful. Francis Bacon (d. 1621), a well-known English scientist, philosopher and statesman, claimed that paper, the magnetic compass, gunpowder and printing were the key inventions that separated the modern (Western) world from the traditional world. He did not know, or did not care to know, that each of these institutions had originated in China. The Austrian sociologist Norbert Elias maintained that the 'civilizing process' began in Europe. He failed to recognize that this process occurred in other parts of the world and in much earlier times. The German historian and archaeologist Johann Winckelmann (d. 1768) held that the 'true ideal of beauty' could be seen only in the Greek aesthetic and artistic tradition. He considered Chinese art as inferior and decadent. Ironically, Chinese art exerted considerable influence on European art and decoration in the 18th century. The Prussian philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt (d. 1835) considered the Chinese language inferior to European languages. The German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (d. 1803) was contemptuous of Chinese national character. Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay (d. 1859), a British politician and statesman, divided the world into civilized nations, with Britain representing the zenith of civilization, and barbarians, who comprised the non-Western peoples. He haughtily declared that "a single shelf of a good European library is worth the whole literature of India and Arabia." Some of the towering figures in 19th century Europe, such as Alexis de Tocqueville (d. 1859), August Comte (d. 1859), who is considered the father of sociology, and John Stuart Mill (d. 1873), viewed the Chinese as inferior (Goody 2006: 127-28).

In his stimulating and deftly argued book The Theft of History (2006), Jack Goody uses an evocative metaphor the 'theft of history' to describe a particularly iniquitous aspect of Eurocentrism. The theft of history, according to Goody, refers to the takeover or expropriation of history by the West. He says, "The past is conceptualized and presented according to what happened on the provincial scale of Europe, often Western Europe, and then imposed upon the rest of the world". The theft of history, according to Goody, is reflected in the widely-held view among Western intellectuals and historians that some of the key institutions of modern times, such as science, democracy, mercantile capitalism and modernity, were invented in Europe. Goody argues that Europe has deliberately neglected or underplayed the history of the rest of the world, as a consequence of which it has misinterpreted much of its own history. He states that the claim that these institutions originated in Europe is historically untenable, and the fact of the matter is that they can be found over a much more widespread range of human societies (Goody 2006: 125, 215).

There is a pervasive undercurrent of Eurocentrism and parochialism in much of social science theorizing and historiography in the West. Hegel, Kant and other European philosophers contended that Africa had no tradition of writing and therefore had no history or civilization. Both Marx and Weber believed that what differentiated the East from the West was that the former was stagnant and the latter vibrant and dynamic. T. Brook and G. Blue have succinctly brought out the Eurocentric underpinnings of social science theorizing in the West.

Too often the generalizations of social science and this is true in Asia as it is in the West rest on the belief that the West occupies the normative starting position for constructing general knowledge. Almost all our categories politics and economy, state and society, feudalism and capitalism have been conceptualized primarily on the basis of Western historical experience (Brook and Blue 1999: 14-15)

Kenneth Clarke's celebrated 13-part TV documentary "Civilization" is blatantly Eurocentric in that it identifies civilization exclusively with the West and focuses only on the visual arts, architecture and philosophy in Europe over the past 100 years. It is astonishingly indifferent to the impressive civilizational legacy of the non-Western world, notably China and the Islamic civilization.

In her ground-breaking work The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage (1987), Maria Rosa Menocal drew attention to the undercurrents of racism and chauvinism in European literary and cultural history. She pointed out that ethnocentric bias for centuries has prevented mainstream European scholars from recognizing the large influence of Arabic, Islamic and Andalusian cultures on the development of European medieval literature. She persuasively argued that scientific, cultural and literary advances in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire were in large measure due to the contribution of Muslim scientists, translators and intellectuals to the preservation and dissemination of the Greco-Roman heritage. She emphasized that Arabic influences in medieval Europe were not confined to literature but encompassed music, science, philosophy, architecture and the arts (Menocal, 1987).

Historical Origins of Sociology

Western accounts of the historical origins of sociology are generally coloured by Eurocentrism. It is generally believed that sociology originated in Europe in the 19th century and the paternity of the discipline is commonly attributed to the French sociologist and social philosopher August Comte (1798-1857). This is an erroneous view. The fact of the matter is that reflections of a sociological nature are found in earlier times and in different parts of the world. George Ritzer has rightly observed that "scholars were doing sociology long ago and in other parts of the world (Ritzer 1992:8).

Ibn Khaldun

The first systematic formulation of sociology as a distinct field of inquiry is found in the work of the 14th century North African historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun. Wali al-Din Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis in 1332 CE in an Arab family. His fame rests on a monumental history of mankind, known as Kitab al-Ibar.

Ibn Khaldun's observations and reflections on themes that are distinctly sociological are found in the Muqaddimab, or Prolegomena, which forms the first part of Kitab al-Ibar. In the Prolegomena, Ibn Khaldun discusses a wide range of subjects, including the influence of environmental conditions on society and human character, different forms of political organization and government, differences between rural and urban populations, kinship, social solidarity, and the interplay between economic conditions and social organization. His analyses and conclusions were informed by textual sources as well as his personal observations and experiences.