IBN KHALDUN’S VIEW OF TASAWWUF: HISTORY AND THOUGHT

In this article we will analyze Ibn Khaldun’s approach to Sufism, a subject which he
included among the sciences and identified as being a science that appeared after the
advent of Islam. This analysis will be separated into two sections: history and thought. In
the first section the derivation of the Sufi thought of Ibn Khaldun as a historical
phenomenon, the period of recording (the issue of classification) and other matters of his
thought will be held to a problematical analysis. In the second section the topics and
problems of Ibn Khaldun’s Sufi thought will be examined. Subsequently, these two parts
will be analyzed in connection with one another. The analysis will develop around those
who came after the first period of Sufism, in particular Ibn Arabi and those seekers of the
truth who developed the topic further after him. In this way there Ibn Khaldun’s approach
to Sufism will be examined and critiqued.

About these ads