Ibn Khaldun's Evaluation of Historical Narratives in his Muqaddimah and Comparison with the Method of the Muhaddiths

Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah has received extensive attention from scholars for its foundational contributions to sociology. However, its original purpose—evaluating the authenticity of historical reports—has not been equally emphasized. The research problem lies in Ibn Khaldun’s claim in the Muqaddimah that the most reliable way to scrutinize the accuracy of historical reports is to evaluate them against the principles of social structures, which he considers prior to examining narrators through jarh and ta’dil. This stance diverges from the methodology of hadith scholars in addressing historical reports. This study seeks to contextualize Ibn Khaldun’s approach fairly, avoiding excessive praise or criticism, while strengthening trust in the methodology of hadith scholars for historical narration. The findings reveal that many historical reports criticized by Ibn Khaldun for contradicting the principles of social structures were similarly invalidated by hadith scholars using isnad and matn criticism. Moreover, Ibn Khaldun’s broad insights into societal dynamics and his application of these insights to historical reports can enrich the matn criticism methods of hadith scholars, provided that the foundational isnad criticism methodology is upheld.