With respect to this latter aspect...

With respect to this latter aspect, history “is contemplation (theory: nazar ) and verification (tahqiq) , a precise causal explanation of things generated (ka’inat) and their origins (or principles: mabadi ), and a profound science (‘ilm) of the qualities and causes of events; therefore, it is a firm principle part (asl) of wisdom (hikmah) , and deserves, and is well fitted, to be counted among its sciences.”[^4] Whatever ibn Khaldun’s position concerning the relation between wisdom and philosophy may have been (ibn Rushd, who was the last of the major Muslim Philosophers whom ibn Khaldun studied, considered that the two had become identical in his own time),[^5] he frequently uses the expressions “wise men” (hukama’) and “philosophers” (Falasifah) inter-changeably, and it is certain that he identifies the sciences of wisdom with the philosophic sciences.[^6] Furthermore, in his classification and exposition of the various sciences, he defines the basic characteristics of these sciences, enumerates them, and makes ample reference to the Greek and Muslim authors, who represent the specific philosophic tradition which he accepts as the tradition.

Ibn Khaldun’s definition of the philosophic sciences is based on an emphatic and clear-cut distinction, if not total opposition, between the sciences which are natural to man as a rational being (therefore, he names them also “natural” [tabi‘iyya]) and “rational” or “intellectual” [‘aqliyyah] sciences)[^7]and the legal, transmitted, or positive sciences based on the divine law, which are the special property of a particular religious community.