Ibn Khaldun was a traveller, critical observer of human customs in every city hes been to, he paid attention to how people were living, communicating to each other as well as their cultural, economical, political and educational impacts on their lives. For Ibn Khaldun, an essential pedagogy for students is travelling and experiencing which would fall under todays western educationalist John Deweys pragmatic approach and experiential learning. Ibn Khaldun disliked staying in one madrassah and studying under one scholar as it can silence the students mind. Ibn Khalduns views on education were diverse as well as similar to many other medieval Muslim thinkers such as Imam al-Qabisi (d.967) of Qayrawan who was in fact the first educator who wrote the philosophy of education and guideline for the teachers to follow before embarking on teaching, Ibn Sahnun (87-870), Ibn Sina (980-037) and Al Farabi (872-950). This is solely because pedagogy of teaching and learning had become a well-developed science by the fourteenth century in the Islamic world. He believed in a child-centred education and he warned against unnecessary punishments of students and recommended several methods of dealing with their discipline and character formation. We can see that today in West, there are differences of opinions amongst the ph
ilosophers of education regards to what is the best way of producing the next generation intellectual thinkers. If we look at the terms learner-centred, student-centred and child-centred are often used interchangeably by Western educators to stand for everything thats good and wholesome in education. These three terms have a very similar philosophical basis, but child-centred has the oldest history, drawing on the work of 8th century philosophers such as Rousseau and Locke. If we were to critically look into Rousseau and Lockes philosophical understanding, how and by whom they were influenced, was it the Muslim Spain, works of people like Ibn Khaldun or the mighty Ottoman Empire shaking the lands of Europe.
One of the well-known aspects to the Muqaddimah is the concept of Asabiyah (tribalism). He argues that Asabiyah decreases as civilization advances. He identifies the rise and fall of human civilization and analyses factors contributing to it (Rosenthal 969). Another well-known concept discussed in the Muqaddimah is the concept of Umran (urbanism). He describes Umran to be a movement from Rural to Urban. He believed that living a nomadic life required a courageous behavior, whereas the city dwellers are under governmental laws and regulations and do not possess a power of resistance (Muqaddimah, p.67).