Article-2 Herodotus- a Greek Historian & 'Father of History' and Ibn Khaldun an Arabic scholar

 

1. Herodotus was a Greek scholar who was born in Halicarnassus. He is known as ‘Father of history’ and ‘Father of lies’ by Cicero and Plutarch respectively (some famous Greek philosophers). Herodotus’s way of writing history is through stories and narratives. Herodotus is known for his work ‘Histories’ which brings a new method of looking at events, breaking the early methods prior to him of recording pasts as list of events only, with no efforts to explain their causes, but he brought a new method of recording the past. Herodotus started looking at the past with an observation of causes for events from both the sides to understand the reason for any incident. So, he looked for reasons to reach a conclusion about something, he thinks rationally in a sense to produce an outcome. Herodotus brings the aspect of critical inquiry from his work ‘Histories’. His work Histories is of course cannot be considered as a true history in today’s context but all his narratives are not completely false, we get to know about some real events from his work, like the Greek Persian Wars which took place between 500-499BCE. Apart from this his work deals with geographical, climatic and wildlife aspects of his time. The description of empires of Greece’s, there fall and rise make this text important from political aspect also.

2. Ibn Khaldun is a medieval Islamic philosopher who brought the concept for scientific approach towards history. His work Al-Muqaddimah or ‘The Introduction’ focuses on this concept for history and mentioning about the duties of a historian and how a historian should be in approaching history and factors which make or affects history. He pioneered the scientific understanding of history. He developed a perspective in order to get rid of falsification and exaggerations i.e. criticism, observation, comparison and examination. He further states about the role of history and historians, regarding the role of history, he states that history should not limit itself only to recording events but it should also examine environments, social mores and political bases. For him “True history exists to tell us about human social life, which is the world’s environment, the nature if that environment as it appears from various events. It deals with civilization, savagery and tribalism, with the various ways in which people obtain power over each other, and their results, with states and their hierarchies and with the people’s occupation, lifestyles, sciences, handicrafts and everything else that takes place under various circumstances”(website - Al-Muquadimmah). Ibn Khaldun urges a historian to be more scientific, comparative, unbiased and critical in approaching in history or any historical event. He asks a historian to be aware about the social, political setup of a time before examining any history, must be free from nay orientation in order to get closer to reality. These are the ways which Ibn-Khaldun states in to deal with the past.                             

Location: Delhi, India

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