Original paper UDC 001:17.023.36(045)(083.77) doi: 10.21464/sp31206 Received February 13th, 2016 Osman Bakar Sultan Omar ʽAli Saifuddien Centre for Islamic Studies, University of Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, BE 1410, BN–Brunei Darussalam
[email protected] Towards a New Science of Civilization A Synthetic Study of the Philosophical Views of al-Farabi, Ibn Khaldun, Arnold Toynbee, and Samuel Huntington Abstract This article presents a synthetic study of the philosophical views of al-Farabi and Ibn Khal- dun from classical Islam and Arnold Toynbee and Samuel Huntington from the modern West on the subject of civilizational science. On the basis of the Aristotelian idea of a true science, this article argues that al-Farabi and Ibn Khaldun were the real founders of civili- zational science. Through his reformulation of the topics constituting the subject matter of this science as first defined by al-Farabi, Ibn Khaldun immediately made the science more comprehensive and created several new sciences as its branches. Within the epistemologi- cal framework of Ibn Khaldun’s new civilizational science, Toynbee developed the study of comparative civilization, which is yet to attain its true status as a science. It is further ar- gued that Huntington’s possible contribution to civilizational science would be through the concept of politics of civilization. A more refined civilizational science may only emerge in this century if the civilizational views of these thinkers and others are to be synthesized. Keywords civilization, science, Islam, the philosophical, epistemology, ‘umran, madani, social organi- zation, the political, the intellectual Introduction The main aim of this article is to discuss the key ideas and concepts that are deemed integral to any academic discipline that claims to be a true science of civilization.