Sufism, prophecy, dreams, divination, the occult sciences: are the religious and supernatural dimensions central to my work, or peripheral?

Ibn Khaldun, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

I am a Sufi. I wrote on Sufi method in my early Shifa' al-Sa'il; I practiced the Sufi disciplines my whole life; I was buried in a Sufi cemetery in Cairo. Prophecy is a real natural human capacity conditioned in those whom God prepares for it. Dreams are a genuine source of knowledge in certain forms — the true dream is a small portion of prophecy, and the science of dream interpretation is a real science.12

The chapters of the Muqaddima on magic, the science of letters, astrology, alchemy, and divination are not appendices added for completeness; they are the serious study of disciplines I understood to operate within God's order. I am skeptical of alchemy in particular — the alchemists' claims to transmute base metals into gold are not borne out and run against the natural orders God has established — but the skepticism is internal to the religious framework, not a secular dismissal.

The whole structure of my science of 'umran rests on the Ash'ari order: secondary causes operate within nature; God's will is the ultimate ground; the world is created and contingent; prophecy is the bridge between created intellect and divine knowledge. To remove the religious frame and read the Muqaddima as a secular sociology is to read a different book than the one I wrote.

Sources

  1. But God achieved unity among them." ** This should be known. It should be pondered. It will then be found to be correct, exactly as I have stated. One should Qur'än 75.16 f. (16 f.). 38 Qur'än 15.9 (9). 6 Qur'än 8.63 (64). We shall now give an explanation of the real meaning of prophecy as interpreted by many thorough scholars.
    The Muqaddimah, Vol 1, pp. 318–319
  2. They continued following their models and leading exemplary lives as they had done in the world of sensual perception before the removal (of the veil), and they commanded their companions to do the same.** Such ought to be the state of the Sufi novice. God gives success. The science of dream interpretation. This science belongs to the sciences of the religious law.
    The Muqaddimah, Vol 3, pp. 115–116

Where the argument is made

  • The Muqaddima Ch. VI on the sciences, particularly §§ 16-31 on the religious sciences, Sufism (tasawwuf), dream interpretation, the science of letters ('ilm al-huruf), the science of zairaja, alchemy, astrology, magic, and the relation between prophecy and the natural human disposition for receiving divine instruction
  • the Foreword and Ch. I framing of historical causation within an Ash'ari providential order
  • Ch. III on the caliphate as the institution charged with religious as well as political authority. The Shifa' al-Sa'il (1374), my book on Sufi method, written before the Muqaddima and partly preserved

How the argument was received

The Sufi identity, the religious framing, and the occult-sciences chapters have been an embarrassment to a long line of modernizing readers who wanted Ibn Khaldun to be the secular founder of a science of society. This wanting is theirs; the text is what it is. The "secretly a rationalist atheist" reading has no support in the materials; the work is saturated with Qur'anic citation, hadith reference, providential framing, and serious religious engagement throughout, not only in the religious chapters.