Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Ibn Khaldun who lived various places in Tunis, Granada, and Egypt (1332-1406) is often called one of persons who built the basics of Sociology. Although the fourteenth century is named the century of Neo-Hambalisme in which Ibn Taimiyyah and his disciples made sure the victory of Neo Hambalism against scholastic theology and philosophy and Muslim intellectuals began to become dim, Ibn Khaldun-and Mullah Shadra-was the exception. Mulla Shadra was very influential in the East, while Ibny Khaldun possessed major influence in the West. The scientist who was once offered by Timur Lengk to live in his palace was not only rich in his scientific ideas, but also was also rich in public (and legal) experiences. That kind of richness caused Ibn Khaldun's theories of historical philosophy and political sociology were practical or earthly. Strong basics of his knowledge in geography, politics, and culture caused him to understand the sunatullah of changes in society, so that he accepted monarchic political system as a natural thing.

One of Ibn Khaldun's theories is very interested if it is used in analysing Indonesian history. In his Muqadimmah (Introduction), Ibn Khaldun proposed following five stages of a country's life: (1) stage of consolidation in which the country's authority based on democracy is supported by the society (`ashabiyyah), (2) stage of tyranny, (3) stage of misusing the country's authority for the sake of the ruler's interests, (4) stage of safeguarding in which various threats emerges and the ruler regards critical groups as enemies, and (5) stage of collapse in which the ruling system no longer functions.

In Ibn Khaldun's opinion, those stages cause three generations to emerge: (1) Developing Generation that with all of their simplicity and sincere solidarity obey authority of the power they support (2) Enjoying Generation, those who are economically and politically benefited in the power system. They aren't sensitive to the interests of the nation and the country any longer. (3) Generation who doesn't care about their own country. They can do anything they like without considering their country's fate. If a nation/country has reached this stage, then collapse of the country as a sunnatullah will possibly happen immediately, and according to Ibn Khaldun this process will happen for about one century.

An interesting thing happening in Indonesia as a nation in the perspective of the theory of Ibn Khaldun mentioned above is that the three generations are now existing in the same time after only about a half decade of independence. At present we still can see a lot of people representing the 45 generation which can be categorised as the first category. The megacase of corruption, collusion, and nepotism in Pertamina, Bank Bali case, and architects of various social riots in various areas, and so on are indicators of existences of the second and third generations.

Ibn Khaldun, like Rousseau, believes that a society that was originally good or at least neutral can be damaged by civilisation. In nomadic condition, a society tends to be male, wealthy, and aggressive. It is the established urban civilisation that causes it to be sluggish, passive, and languid, provoking invasion(s) causing the society to fall into a prey. It is very interested to find out that at this time the Indonesian societies can be categorised into five groups in terms of advancement (1) societies living in ultra modern condition in big cities (2) modern societies, (3) traditional societies in rural areas, (4) backward societies such as alienated tribes, (5) societies "living in stone age" like those living in certain rural areas in West Irian. We can imagine how social orders of those Indonesian societies will be damaged if they have to receive uniform global culture packages through electronic media.

Indonesians appreciate Ibn Khaldun among other by name two universities after him: Jakarta University of Ibnu Khaldun and Bogor University of Ibnu Khaldun. Although Indonesians often find difficulties in national leadership successions, there is an excellent example of leadership succession in Bogor University of Ibn Khaldun. Since the head of the university position was held by AM Saifuddin, the leader positions are not longer "sacral" but totally functional. Position exchanges from rector of university to dean or assistant rector and vice versa happen systematically and without any psychological burden. Rais Ahmad who was previously the rector of the university without any psychological burden became the assistant rector of the university in the next period. However, the example provided by Ibn Khaldun university is indeed less spectacular that case of Khalid bin Walid, who knightly accepted the decision of Khalifah Umar bin Khattab degrading him from the commander position he held before to become an usual soldier.