THE AIMS AND ETHICS OF SCHOLARLY WRITING: REFLECTIONS FROM IBN KHALDŪN’S MUQADDIMAH (VI:33)

Abstract

This essay provides a critical analysis of Ibn Khaldūn’s perspectives on the aims and purposes of scholarly composition as articulated in the Muqaddimah. For Ibn Khaldūn, writing transcended mere technical execution; it represented the highest form of scholarly communication, preserving knowledge across generations and ensuring that science and learning benefit those “who are absent and live at a later time.” Accordingly, he delineated seven legitimate aims of composition, from the creation of new sciences to the judicious abridgement of extensive works. These aims, he contended, protect scholarship from distortion, plagiarism, and superficial repetition, while affirming its status as a trust (amānah) to be fulfilled with integrity in the service of truth and future generations. This essay contextualises these reflections within the intellectual milieu of the fourteenth century, characterised by the proliferation of commentaries and indiscriminate abridgements. It demonstrates how Ibn Khaldūn’s critique addressed the risks of stagnation in scholarship. It highlights the continued relevance of his insights to contemporary academic discourse, including the pressures of “publish or perish” and issues of academic integrity. In this way, the essay affirms Ibn Khaldūn’s enduring contribution to authentic scholarship and to an ethical conception of authorship, which remains essential to both the Islamic intellectual tradition and the broader endeavour of civilisation-building.