Islamic Sociology and Modern Social Theory:A Comparative Study of Ibn Khaldun, Durkheim, and Weber

Abstract

This article develops a comparative sociology of religion through a sustained engagement with Ibn Khaldun, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber. It argues that Ibn Khaldun should not be treated merely as a precursor to European sociology, but as the architect of a distinctive civilizational sociology in which social solidarity, political authority, moral discipline, economic production, and historical change are analytically connected. Durkheim clarifies how ritual, collective representations, and the sacred generate social cohesion, while Weber explains how religious meanings, forms of legitimate authority, and processes of rationalization shape institutions and economic conduct. The article compares their assumptions about human agency, religion, solidarity, power, social change, method, and modernity. It then proposes an integrated framework for Islamic sociology that combines normative revelation with historical explanation, interpretive understanding, institutional analysis, and ethical evaluation. The framework is extended to contemporary questions including artificial intelligence, digital religion, religious pluralism, minority rights, mosque-based social cohesion, surveillance, and misinformation. The study concludes that an intellectually mature Islamic sociology should neither imitate modern Western theory uncritically nor reject it wholesale. Its task is to assess social reality empirically, interpret human meanings carefully, and evaluate institutions through an Islamic moral horizon centered on justice, dignity, responsibility, and public welfare.