Ibn Khaldun · Civilisations
Ibn Khaldun’s central concept - the group solidarity that binds people together, drives the rise of dynasties and civilisations, and whose decay brings them down.
At the heart of Ibn Khaldun’s science of society is one of the most powerful concepts in all of social thought: asabiyya - group solidarity, social cohesion, the bond of mutual feeling and loyalty that binds people together into a cohesive, united group willing to support and sacrifice for one another. Asabiyya is the feeling of solidarity, the ‘group feeling,’ that unites people - originally rooted in kinship and the bonds of blood, but extending to the broader solidarity of a tribe, a movement, a people united by common feeling and loyalty. And asabiyya, Ibn Khaldun argued, is the engine of history: the force that binds groups together, gives them their strength and cohesion, and drives the rise of dynasties, states, and civilisations. The strength of a group, and its capacity to rise to power, depends on the strength of its asabiyya - its solidarity, cohesion, and mutual loyalty.
But asabiyya, Ibn Khaldun argued, tends to decay - and its decay brings down the very dynasties that its strength had raised. When a group with strong asabiyya rises to power and establishes a dynasty, the very success and prosperity that power brings tend to undermine the solidarity that created it. In power, the group enjoys wealth, luxury, ease, and security; and these tend to erode the asabiyya - the hardy solidarity, the mutual loyalty, the willingness to sacrifice - that the group had developed in the hard struggle for power. The rulers, grown comfortable, luxurious, and secure, lose the hardy solidarity of their origins; the bonds of mutual loyalty weaken; the group becomes divided, self-interested, and soft, its asabiyya decayed. And as the asabiyya that had raised the dynasty decays, the dynasty weakens and declines - until it is overthrown by a new group with strong, fresh asabiyya, which rises to power in its turn, only to repeat the cycle. The decay of asabiyya through the prosperity and luxury of power is the engine of the fall of dynasties, as its strength was the engine of their rise.
The rise and decay of asabiyya thus drives the cyclical rise and fall of dynasties that Ibn Khaldun saw as the basic pattern of history. A group with strong, fresh asabiyya - typically a hardy people from the desert or margins, united by strong solidarity - rises to power, overthrowing a decayed dynasty whose asabiyya has weakened. The new dynasty flourishes on its strong asabiyya. But the prosperity and luxury of power erode its asabiyya over generations; the dynasty weakens and declines; and it is overthrown in turn by a new group with strong, fresh asabiyya, which repeats the cycle. History, for Ibn Khaldun, is in significant part this wheel of dynasties - the cyclical rise and fall driven by the rise and decay of asabiyya, as hardy groups with strong solidarity rise to power, grow soft and decayed in the prosperity of power, and are overthrown by new hardy groups with fresh solidarity. Asabiyya - its strength driving the rise, its decay driving the fall - is the engine of this cyclical wheel of dynastic history.
This is the opening of the lesson. The rest — the dialogue, the primary source, and the recall — is in the app.
You learned that asabiyya (group solidarity) is the central concept of Ibn Khaldun’s social science. Explain what it is and how it drives the rise and fall of dynasties, in your own words.
Leads to Émile Durkheim.
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