Allama-lbn-e-Khaldoon (1332-1406 A.C) a Muslim scholar discussed this discipline in his famous "Mugadama" to Tarikh-i-Ibn-e-Khaldoon and named it as Ilmul-lmran. "Knowledge of life‖. About five centuries after his death August Comte (1798-1857) named this discipline as "Physics of Society" and then called it as "Sociology".
Now, a lot of work has been done in this discipline. A number of sociologists have defined it in different ways.
i. Social The Systematic study of relationships among people (John E. Conklin).
ii. The scientific study of human social life (Horton & Hunt).
iii. Sociology is the systematic study of development, structure, interaction and collective behavior of organized group of human beings (B.J Cohon & Terri H. Orbuch).
(The systematic study of group life of human beings and the resulting behavior)

Subject Matter of Social Sciences
Alex Inkeles, suggests the following outlines of the subject matter of Sociology:
A. Sociological Analysis.
(i) Human culture and society.
(ii) Sociology perspective.
(iii) Scientific method in social sciences.
B. Primary units of social life.
(i) Social acts and social relationships.
(ii) Personality.
(iii) Groups (including ethnic and class)
(iv) Communities: urban and rural.
(v) Associations and organization;
(vi) Populations.

C. Basic Social Institutions:
(i) The family and kinship.
(ii) Economic.
(iii) Government and Politics.
(iv) Religious.
(v) Educational, health and scientific.
(vi) Recreational and welfare.
(vii) Aesthetic and expressive.
D. Fundamental Social Processes.
(i) Differentiation and stratification.
(ii) Cooperation, accommodation, assimilation.
(iii) Social conflict (including revolution and war).
(iv) Communication (including opinion formation, expression and change).
(v) Socialization and identification.
(vi) Social evaluation (the study of values).
(vii) Social control.
(viii) Social deviance (crime, suicide etc).
(ix) Social integration.
(x) Social change.

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