Ibn Khaldun: Alive and Well in the Middle East Today
War is father of all, and king of all.—Heraclitus
Ibn Khaldoun was one of the world’s first great historians, economists and sociologists. Born in North Africa in the 14th century, he was also an adventurer and a diplomatic advisor who once parlayed with Tamerlane the Conqueror at the gates of Damascus, trying to convince him not to sack the city (unsuccessfully, as it turned out). His renown is primarily due to his work ‘Al Muqaddameh’, the prologue to his universal history.
Ibn Khaldun put forward many important ideas, but two that have left the greatest impact are the explanation of the rise and fall of societies, and relatedly, the concept of ‘asabieh’, an Arabic word with a rough translation of ‘zealous group feeling’. Through his studies, Ibn Khaldun noticed that new and vibrant societies were set up by groups, often nomadic, who were full of enough vigour to displace or conquer an urbanized group gone soft. However, as the conquerors prospered, within a few generations, they would become decadent, only to be dominated by a new wave of asabieh-filled horsemen from the desert or steppe.
He believed this rise and fall to be inevitable because once prosperous, citizens became self-centered, pleasure-seeking and unwilling to make the sacrifices that a group requires to fend off others. Fragmentation ensues and a society is easily taken over by a more cohesive force.
In today’s world, with infinite concern for victims, the idea that dominance and asabieh define human history, or that they are a requirement for the rise of a society, is forgotten. Instead, Western colonialism is carved out as the only culprit, while other forms of asabieh-driven conquest are often ignored. Nevertheless, Ibn Khaldun’s proposition may still be true for all of human history before, say, 2017. Indeed, it does not take much to see that, whether we like it or not, the world is still full of nations with rising asabieh – China, Russia and Iran come to mind.
His ideas may also apply in today’s Middle East, and specifically to Israel. Israel once succeeded in conquest (1948, 1956, 1967) due to strong asabieh combined with organizational skills. It has since become a prosperous country and has changed from being a Sparta with bad food in the 1970s to a more complex yet split society, ie the fragmentation phase has set in.
Today, there are Israelis who wish for a cosmopolitan and pleasant life with equality for all colours and genders, and those who still want to fight and conquer as a way of life. This is most visible in the difference between the glass towers of Tel Aviv, which is a money-making centre not unlike Dubai, and Jerusalem, a frontier town populated by many aggressive religious Zionists, and the gun-totting hilltop youth in the West Bank settlements still intent on taking land as their religious or ethnic right.
There is a third Israel that could rise again after this war, and that is the remains of the more classic Zionism defined by the security state. That was the secret of Israel's success between 1948-67 and beyond. Due to the direct security threat of the events of October 7, this third factor will likely rise again now to run the country, incarnated possibly in a soldier-politician like Benny Ganz. However, it is unlikely to be as hegemonic as it was in the 1950s or 60s. Israel is in a period of fragmentation with significant governance problems. Religious Zionists have also now deeply penetrated the security system: will this equal civil war? Internal fragmentation, Ibn Khaldun would respond, is a symptom of decline.
Nevertheless, Israel continues to have many enemies, including those that would like to reverse its previous success through their own vigorous group feeling. Ibn Khaldun would argue that if Israel does not have the fighting spirit anymore, it will die - likely a decadent and slow, if fitful, slide where it is slowly absorbed into the rest of the region.
The security establishment may make deals with Arabs; however, these may be insufficient to dampen the group feeling of Iran, its allies, and many other Muslims and Arabs after this war. Ibn Khaldun also suggests that “at the end of a dynasty, there also often appears some (show of) power…it lights up brilliantly before it is extinguished,” i.e. a show of military might may not be all that it seems.
Ironically, it is asabieh, the key to group success, that is the main barrier to finding arrangements with the enemy, or what people call peace. An exception may be the rare case of an asabieh turned on its head, such as what former Egyptian President Sadat did after the Yom Kippur war. He reached peace only after first fighting successfully, demonstrating asabieh.
Strong group feeling on both sides also explains why there has been no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli version is fortified by a historical sense of being under threat, and that of the Palestinians by solidarity against Israeli occupation. Both know that a diminishing asabieh may well spell doom. What helps a group dominate, or survive, prevents it from getting along with neighbours.
Is there a way forward beyond the devil’s entrails that define human history, one asabieh conquering another? Social justice warriors believe this is a question of enforcing equality and rights. For example, they call for one state for Israelis and Palestinians where everyone can live happily ever after. However, ethnic identity and the group feeling that comes with it cannot be so easily managed or ignored. This is why economic peace, partial peace deals like Oslo, or Trump’s Deal of the Century, don’t work: they are all overturned by forms of asabieh.
There may be another way forward. The first step is not to deny or sidestep this intense group feeling but to accept it as part of our age-long socio-biological evolution. ‘We are all asabieh’. Indeed, we may need its milder forms in order to thrive. An atomized world without group belonging or attachment to a culture is a poor space for people to have meaning and an essential sense of belonging. Technological and economic answers are not enough.
Asabieh is a kind of jet fuel composed of basic innate needs such as belonging, identity, achievement and meaning, all jammed together into an explosive mass that cuts through the world like a hot knife through butter. This can be an effective method for domination, but if we are to graduate to another level of more respectful international relations, the answer may lie in managing the elements of asabieh. If we learn to direct the pack of motivations that constitute Ibn Khaldun’s great discovery to more constructive ends, there may be hope.
An arch-example is that of Jerusalem, a lodestone for ethnic, religious and historical identity for many groups - and a magnet for asabieh-laden vectors, viz, Hamas’s Al Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, and religious Zionists’ fixations and intentions with holy sites. The city of peace is defined by the attempt by many groups to possess it, rather than its more metaphorical meaning available in Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
If we can accept this socio-biological imperative yet tame and diminish its excesses, a greater calm and sense of perspective may ensue. We can begin to see that others are seeking to have the same basic innate needs and motivations met. We can then cultivate ‘mutual needs satisfaction,’ i.e. both sides can have critical drives attended to, if imperfectly.
From that perspective, we can also see that, as waves of conquest and domination took place, something else occurred in parallel: a great relay between civilizations, seeding and cross-fertilizing each other, prodding each other along, and passing on a human torch of development that is beyond the narrow gaze of our identity-driven manias. In a way, ironically, the Abrahamic religions themselves are just that, if their derivatives today are far from that understanding.
Is this possible in the Middle East today? Not likely, because the cultures there are very immersed in concepts of group feeling merged into unshakable sacred values of history, affirming Heraclitus’ adage above. The only problem for the region – and the world – is that asabieh in a nuclear age is something that even Ibn Khaldun had not foreseen.
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This article was written by John Bell, the Director and a Co-Founder of The Conciliators Guild.
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