The Muqadimmah

The Muqadimmah is an early Muslim view of 'universal history', or what is now called sociology. It was written by Ibn Khaldun. A quote:

"All records, by their very nature, are liable to error...

1. ...partisanship towards a creed or opinion...
2. ...over-confidence in one's sources...
3. ...the failure to understand what is intended...
4. ...a mistaken belief in the truth...
5. ...the inability to place an event in its real context
6. ...the common desire to gain favor of those of high ranks, by praising them, by spreading their fame...
7. ...the most important is the ignorance of the laws governing the transformation of human society."

These "laws" were presumably those of Islam, including the process of ijtihad, which Muslims applied universally to science, law, history and politics.

See also: Ibn Khaldun, early Muslim sociology