For years, we have ignored our true needs, chasing after some fantasies as if they were necessities of life. Sometimes unable to discern what our real needs were, and other times mistaking some of our luxuries for needs, we tied our lives entirely to such luxuries and lived in contradictions. What we pursued at times not only failed to meet our true needs but increased them; so much so that, just like a person whose lungs are parched from thirst drinks seawater in an attempt to quench their thirst, only to become more dehydrated, we too become dependent on fantasies that do not address our needs. We have become slaves who will never be able to escape the shadows of gloom.

The only thing we really need as a society is to escape this foolish game of blind-man’s bluff, and bring to life our deep-rooted religious, national, ethical, and educational disciplines. If, during this period of great need, we ignore our own concept of a sound culture, does this not neglect and destroy the soul of our society?

In our conception of civilization and culture, the human being and humane values have always been priorities. Despite this, how have we come to adopt a worldview that contradicts our long and rich history, spiritual roots, and heritage? By adorning ourselves with many unfitting fantasies, we have destroyed both our social harmony and our national stature. Indeed, whether due to ignorance or lack of judgment, we have blindly welcomed many imported elements that have replaced our rich values and history, all the while we merely watched. Unfortunately, during this miserable period, our minds became slaves to our whims and desires; our reason was bound by tradition; our willpower was weakened; and our judgment was impaired by the narrowness of imitating others – thus, we have lived in misery as victims of the age, chasing one luxury after another.

In this period of gloom, trapped within the triangle of our logical deficiencies, moral weaknesses, and intellectual insufficiency, we have submitted ourselves to death as if caught in the Bermuda Triangle. We resembled lifeless corpses, and our intellectuals were truly pitiable. These intellectuals failed to see the bigger picture of natural phenomena and events as a whole. They were deficient in analysis, they meekly advocated imitating others, and they pathetically engaged in self-denial. They thought they were making progress, but they stumbled and crashed, failing to overcome obstacles.

But we have no right to blame others; ultimately, we were the ones who blatantly strayed from the path of truth, and thus, it was our responsibility. In fact, nobody should ever attempt to blame science, technology or other reasons like “we are surrounded with adversaries.” Science was innocent, technology sinless; we, especially the semi-educated intellectuals, were the ones who developed and shaped science and technology as we wished. We made all of life blindly dependent on them. Therefore, if we must find the culprit, we should first look among ourselves.

Indeed, we have been the ones who have failed to interpret the human being, the universe, and all the events within it in reference to their true Owner; instead, we derived incorrect meanings and attributed everything to nature and worldly causes. We made even the clearest, most evident things incomprehensible. We perceived – and led others to perceive – that there was no purpose in the existence of this book of the universe – despite its crystal-clear statements – and its custodian – the human being. For some reason, we were incapable of seeing the transcendent aspect of existence and made many unfounded speculations regarding creation and nature. We were neither capable of approaching existence with an analytic perspective, nor were we able to say anything consistent regarding the truths that lie beyond existence. We misperceived, misevaluated and were constantly baffled by these misleading results. With these successive errors, we continuously committed successive sins – sins for which we have been suffering destitution and various afflictions.

When we first began dreaming of revival, things could have been much different. If we had taken a more controlled approach to both matter and spirit, carrying both side by side, our mental, spiritual, and physical actions could have been more balanced. At the very least, those who were able to study could have turned their attention towards metaphysics, faith, and aesthetics that was in line with our considerations, our basic sources of values, just as much as they did to mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and biology. We could have achieved much different, and more beneficial, results for all humanity than what we have today. Alas! Not only did we disregard metaphysics, but we also opposed it, thinking it was necessary for enlightenment. We treated insignificant, material matters with extreme sensitivity while totally ignoring our intellectual, psychological, and spiritual needs. Einstein said, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” In line with this aphorism, we have produced many who are both lame and blind. Science and research needed to be taken seriously, and we should not have made any mistakes in this regard. Given this, it seems strange that while we devote such attention to the physical dimensions of humanity and existence, we completely ignore the metaphysical. We ascribe everything to matter, physical power, and economics, and we have classified these as the basic factors that will transform the world into Paradise.

No one should ever assume that we underestimate matter, power, or economics. Yet, if today humanity is in a serious state of despair, with generations sinking deeper into conflict, causing greater harm and dishonor, then we need more than what material prosperity promises. Indeed, it is quite clear that despite all efforts, a materialistic perspective cannot fulfill people’s need for meaning or achieve much in terms of societal peace. Unfortunately, we placed a great deal of importance on mundane considerations and material wealth – some of us even considered them indispensable. While trying to escape the superstitions that denigrated our spirituality – which is a praiseworthy effort – many of us became entangled in the superstitions of materialism, which rejected much of our heritage. As we strayed from our national roots, we found ourselves trapped in a cycle of instability. In searching for answers, we went from one extreme to another – from strange mysticism to the most extreme materialism, with its myths and the idol of naturalism. While trying to escape the jinn we fell into Satan’s devious trap.

And even worse still, amidst such turmoil of thought, some, having completely lost their faith, have reduced the truths of humanity, matter, and the universe to the domain of the senses, insisting on following “materialism,” “positivism,” and “naturalism,” while refusing to accept anything else. Some have preferred to follow various theories of knowledge which could be likened to some of the early philosophers’ ideas on mind and soul. Thus, they attributed every aspect of the universe and creation to reason, completely ignoring human emotions and how these feelings perceive the world. During this period, as we abandoned our most important sources of reference, we continuously faltered amidst the confusion of thought and constantly competed with one another. Because these long years were spent in unproductive conflict, we have made no progress.

Even today, our ancient heritage remains a source of dispute, and we are often unable to do more than gossip about it. Sometimes we seem so focused on destruction, as if programmed to do nothing but tear things down, we pretend to be on the right side and try to show our destruction as construction. Thus, we continue our age-old conflicts. We have destroyed countless monumental values in a single blow, and as we did so, we constantly envisioned that we would replace them with even better values. What a great pity! So many centuries have passed, yet we have been unable to put in place even fake copies of what we destroyed.

If we had submitted ourselves to the True Owner of existence, we could have ended this chaotic situation and achieved a new revival with the power, discipline, virtue, and wisdom generated by faith in God. However, this does not mean that such an endeavor is impossible in the future. Yet, to date, it is somewhat difficult to say that we have actually accomplished anything of true significance. To make real progress, it is essential to raise a generation of faith and revival. A generation that is not confined to the calculations of today, but considers tomorrow and the days beyond. A generation that is as much the children of today with their actions as they are bound to eternity and to the reckoning of a very long future. A generation with faith and discipline.

A healthy, promising society requires the raising of a generation with these qualities. A society that consists of selfish individuals who work only for the interests of their own families is merely a mass deprived of communal qualities. The strength of a society is directly related to the harmony between its members, and such harmony depends on a deeply rooted and transcendent fraternity and love that flow from people’s hearts. If we are not capable of saying or achieving anything more effective or influential than in the past, what is the point of raising our voices to sound as if we are?

Our society today is obliged to begin anew by turning toward the essential dynamics upon which our magnificent past was established. If society cannot actualize its values of faith and unity, and thus revive its cultural heritage, then it appears difficult, if not impossible, to escape the current chaos by certain mere technological power and scientific advances. I believe that to overcome the various crises we presently face, it is necessary to stimulate faith, love, enthusiasm and hope across all segments of our society. We must reinterpret faith based on its original sources and according to the perceptions of our age. If a religion is stifled in terms of its spirit and separated from its divine origins, only to be confined to the interpretations of a banal worldview, then that religion cannot provide what is needed of it, nor can it voice a new message to the world. A religion God sent to humans so they can attain happiness both in this world and the hereafter cannot depend on individuals’ pleasures or their arbitrary interpretations. Such a religion cannot be regarded as a mere set of principles designed for worldly, materialistic interests and transient joys. The message of a religion cannot be restricted by interpretations contrived for the benefit of certain individuals or to conform to the requirements of a particular period of time. Doing so is to destroy that religion and replace it with our own aspirations and desires.

As to why “faith” has been stifled in our recent history, one can point to factors such as fanaticism, a lack of vision, and the disloyalty of some of the faithful, as well as the hostility of its disbelieving enemies. “Faith” was sent to convey a message and to penetrate the hearts of people, but to do so in its original form. It did not appoint others as its spokesperson, and no one had the right to speak on its behalf. And yet, in our age, where “expertise” and “specialization” are emphasized in every field, many of us feel confident, like experts to speak about matters of religion without shame or embarrassment. If only religion were also granted its own voice. There is so much more to say on this subject, however, it would exceed the length of this article.

“At the beginning of the empire, the tax rates were low and the revenues were high. At the end of the empire, the tax rates were high and the revenues were low.”

Former US President Ronald Reagan proudly referred to Ibn Khaldun’s above quote in an article for the International Herald Tribune in 1993 titled, “Excuse me Mr. Clinton, I must have misheard you” (February 21, 1993, p. 4). Reagan did not quote Ibn Khaldun first time in 1993. Actually he quoted him many years earlier, at the beginning of his term in the White House, as a support to his economy politics, so called Reaganomics. Although, some historians [1] saw no connection between Reaganomics and Ibn Khaldun’s theories, Reagan caught people’s attention with his reference to this notable, but mostly forgotten (at least in the West), scholar. The name was foreign to many ears, and for many Americans, it was the first time they had heard of him.

Who was Ibn Khaldun, really? Was he an economist? According to many accounts, he came up with many economic concepts 400 years before Adam Smith. Ibn Khaldun was the inspiration behind the concept popularly known as the “Laffer Curve.” Nevertheless, he was not an economist, per se.

Was he a historian? The famous historian Arnold Toynbee declared that Ibn Khaldun’s book, Muqaddimah, is the greatest book of its kind. But still others contend that he was mainly a philosopher and a political scientist.

Today, the consensus among scholars is that Ibn Khaldun was all of those things, yet today, he is primarily known for being the founder of sociology. In fact, Ibn Khaldun’s own accounts confirm this view. In his ground-breaking book, Muqaddimah, often translated as “Prolegomenon,” he declared that he had established a new science. In his own words:

“It should be known that the discussion of this topic is something new, extraordinary, and highly useful. Penetrating research has shown the way to it.” (Baali 1988)

This article is a tribute to Ibn Khaldun, the great fourteenth-century Muslim scholar. It briefly introduces his life and the sociological perspective of his contributions, specifically his ideas on luxury and its impact on the weakening of asabiyyah, or group solidarity. This is one of the most important concepts in his writings and is regarded as the seed of his famous cyclical theory of the rise and fall of the nations.

Ibn Khaldun

Abd al-rahman ibn Muhammad, generally known as Ibn Khaldun (the name came from a remote ancestor), was born in Tunis (North Africa) on May 27, 1332, to an upper class family who had fled from Seville, in 1248, to escape the Christian conquest of Andalusia. His family had witnessed the rise and fall of Muslim power in southern Spain.

As a privileged child, Ibn Khaldun had a thorough education in Aristotelian physics and philosophy, as well as mathematics, religion, geography, and poetry. His teachers were prominent scholars of their time. In the fourteenth century, in an era of unrest and political instability, he began his carrier as a seal bearer and then became a political official. He worked as a statesman, ambassador, and jurist in cities from Fez to Granada.

In 1375, growing exhausted of the politics of his time, Ibn Khaldun confined himself to the Salama Fort, near Constantine, for four years. From this seclusion, he emerged having written one of the greatest studies on history, his magnum opus, Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History.

Drawing on both his personal experiences and the regional history of North Africa, he identified a cyclical pattern of the rise and fall of civilizations, and he then analyzed the factors contributing to such patterns. He studied the dynamics of group relationships and argued that asabiyyah, or group solidarity, is vital to political power and to the ascent of a new civilization. He maintained that the sedentary lifestyles of urban city life introduce luxurious habits into people’s lives, thus gradually causing a deterioration in the asabiyyah and creating the conditions for civilizational collapse. According to Ibn Khaldun, a particularly strong ruler can delay this destruction; nevertheless, the asabiyyah will decay – generally within five generations – as events inherently follow a cyclical process. Every nation contains within itself the seed of its own destruction.

Possessing a keen eye for human behavior and a rare capacity for organizing his observations, Ibn Khaldun changed history by merely recording events and telling stories which could explain and predict human behavior. His methods grew from his belief that scientific research requires: (1) accurate observations; (2) logical and objective methods; (3) gathering data from the present and the past; (4) careful recording; and (5) the courage of careful description and reporting (Faghirzadeh 1982). Unlike most writers before him, he emphasized societal, economical, psychological, and environmental factors that governed events. This revolutionary approach laid the foundations for a new science: Ilm Umran (the science of society), as Ibn Khaldun called it in Muqaddimah. Explaining societal factors almost five centuries before nineteenth century classical social thinkers such as Comte, Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, he is considered the forerunner of sociology. And his profound insights and observations about the society in which he lived still inspire the sociological studies of our times.

Having written his book, Ibn Khaldun grew tired of seclusion, went to Cairo, and adopted a teaching role at Al-Azhar University. His reputation had preceded him there: Al-Azhar was crowded with students and many distinguished scholars who came to listen to his theories on social phenomena. While he was in Cairo, he learned the devastating news that his entire family had been lost in a shipwreck as they were coming from Tunis to join him. Except for his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1387, and a few trips to Damascus, he remained in Cairo for the remainder of his life, serving as a chief justice. He died in 1406 at the age of seventy-four, shortly after his sixth nomination for the judgeship.

He continued to write until the end of his life. Alongside Muqaddimah, the other volumes in Kitab al-Ibar, his book on world history, dealt with the history of Arabs, Persians, Europeans, Romans, Jews, and Greeks. In the last volume of his book, he initiated a new tradition by writing an analytical autobiography, known as Al-Tasrif.

Over the last two centuries, following the first complete French translation of the Muqaddimah by de Slane in 1863, Ibn Khaldun has been discovered by scholars in the West and acknowledged as one of the great thinkers of the Muslim world. Yet it was Franz Rosenthal’s first English translation in 1958 that allowed the Muqaddimah to achieve the most acclaim in the United States and abroad.

Asabiyyah and the cyclical pattern

Let’s look closer at asabiyyah. Derived from the Arabic root asab (to bind), the concept of asabiyyah is one of the most significant concepts in Ibn Khaldun’s writings. Although some suggested keeping the Arabic term, because it cannot be translated adequately, the English translation “group solidarity” comes close in meaning to the original term. Asabiyyah, in Khaldunian terminology, then, is a social bond of cohesion that is used to measure the stability and strength of social groups. The solidarity among group members is mainly due to the constant cooperation and interdependence of its members. In this respect, an individual’s identity is fused into the group of which he or she is a member, and they thus become “one of the others” (Ibn Khaldun 1967, 277).

According to Ibn Khaldun, this bond, asabiyyah, is the most important factor in the development of a society or a civilization from a nomadic tribe to a state. He argued that asabiyyah is strongest in the nomadic phase, and decreases as a civilization advances. The concept of asabiyyah fit under his general scheme of the cyclical process and the rise and fall of civilizations.

From his perspective, every cycle has 5 stages: 1) invasion; 2) summit; 3) tolerance; 4) tyranny; and 5) decadence (decline). In other words, every society is created, approaches perfection, declines, and is replaced by another society. It is a strong sense of asabiyyah that leads to conquest, then to the sedentary urban life; it is, finally, a taste for luxury that leads to societal collapse. Thus, nomads, who once had a strong solidarity among themselves and were known for their bravery and hard-work become less brave, less hard-working, and far more individualistic urban city dwellers under the influence of luxurious habits. Ibn Khaldun summarized the whole process as follows in Muqaddimah:

As a result, the toughness of desert life is lost. Group feeling and courage weaken. Members of the tribe revel in the well-being that God has given them. Their children and offspring grow up too proud to look after themselves or to attend to their own needs. They have disdain also for all the other things that are necessary in connection with group feeling…. Their group feeling and courage decrease in the next generations. Eventually group feeling is altogether destroyed. … It will be swallowed up by other nations. (Ibn Khaldun 1967, 107)

Ibn Khaldun placed emphasis on the power of religion to keep asabiyyah strong in a society. In his view, religion is not merely a set of moral laws, but determines all relations in a society. He maintained that if piety is replaced by ambition, and if the latter takes over human behavior in a society, then the treacherous desire to gain wealth will permeate people’s hearts. This will make a society and its people capricious, hence the corruption and eventual decline. As an example, he pointed to the time of Harun al-Rashid, and how after it passed, pleasure-seeking and corruption destroyed the strong asabiyyah of earlier Islamic civilization. They had abandoned the path of piety.

Luxury and the cyclical process

Luxury constituted a fundamental theme in the sociology of Ibn Khaldun, for to him it was the main factor distinguishing urban city life from nomadic life. He maintained that luxury in the cities follows certain economic factors. In cities, surplus labor is available to produce luxuries; thus, city people have higher incomes than people in rural areas, and this leads to higher standards of living in housing, clothing, etc.

Although a luxurious lifestyle initially causes prosperity in the city and adds to the civilization’s strength, Ibn Khaldun argued that such luxurious customs eventually become drawbacks. They create many demands and impose so many needs that the individual cannot earn enough to satisfy them. Furthermore, as a result of the additional taxes imposed by the government on such goods, the price of the various goods increases, and this in turn contributes to the cost of living, which consequently reduces the majority of people in the city to poverty. Thus, luxury increases the expenses of both the people and the state and leads, according to Ibn Khaldun, to the bankruptcy of the state.

Ibn Khaldun argued that luxury not only weakens the state economically, but also causes other physical, moral, social, and political disadvantages. Physically, it makes people weak and less immune to diseases, especially “when a drought or famine comes upon them” (Ibn Khaldun 1967, 177-182). Morally, luxury is destructive in the sense that it convinces people to value material comfort above all else and prefer their individual interests over the interests of others. Luxurious practices become indispensable. Desiring and obtaining luxuries eventually results in a degradation of the soul and breeds dishonesty and other immoral behaviors.

Moreover, it also destroys asabiyyah in the group since the pursuit of material comfort becomes the essential aim of most individuals. As a result of the disintegration of the group feeling, the group becomes easy prey for the next conqueror. The state’s leaders become increasingly lax and less disciplined, while also becoming more concerned with maintaining their power and lifestyle. Their ties to the peripheral group loosen, and asabiyyah turns into individualism and factionalism, and thus their political power diminishes. Under these conditions, they are susceptible to political disintegration, especially by the groups at the periphery. Thus, conditions for a new conqueror are ready and the cycle begins anew. Through this center-periphery model, Ibn Khaldun explained how each civilization has within itself the seeds of its own downfall.

Conclusion

Some may consider Ibn Khaldun’s approach to be a very deterministic perspective on history, and others may find nomadic invasions irrelevant to our age. His idea is obviously a theory, and every age and society have their unique social dynamics. What history is teaching us is that no civilization lasts forever, and certain aspects like group solidarity, religion, obsession with pleasure, and luxury do have roles in the ebbs and flows of nations. However, these dynamics and aspects have manifested in different ways across different times and cultures. Today, nations and cultures are interacting in different ways: through travel, the internet, immigration, etc. Ibn Khaldun’s theories do give us a perspective on how we can observe, contribute to, and be prepared for these ever-changing dynamics.

Note

[1] Daniel Snell, a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma was one of them. For his criticism, see, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/07/opinion/l-reading-reagan-s-favorite-arabic-sage-943993.html.

References

Baali, Fuad. 1988. Society, State and Urbanism: Ibn Khaldun’s Sociological Thought. State University of New York Press, Albany.

Faghirzadeh, Saleh. 1982. Sociology of Sociology: In Search of Ibn Khaldun’s Sociology Then and Now. The Soroush Press, Tehran.

Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Translation by Franz Rosenthal. 1967. Princeton University Press. Vol I