Posted on 10/25/2001 4:20:53 PM PDT by Pokey78
IS this, in the words of Francis Fukuyama, the end of history? Or the end of the end of history? Is it, as Samuel Huntington would say, a clash of civilisations? Or a war for civilisation against barbarism? What does it all mean? These and other "grand theorists" claim to explain the present crisis, but American gurus have no monopoly on wisdom. Equally illuminating insights into contemporary world history, however, come from a Muslim historian who wrote more than 600 years ago.
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was no less distinguished as a statesman and judge than as a scholar, but it is as the author of a colossal Universal History (Kitab al-'Ibar), and especially of its Introduction (the Muqaddimah), that he is remembered. His family were refugees from the Reconquista, the Christian reconquest of Spain, and Ibn Khaldun served various rulers of North Africa and Granada.
After a life full of adventures, including the loss in a shipwreck of his entire family, he died in Cairo. His last adventure was an encounter in Damascus with Tamerlane, the last of the great Mongolian-Tartar conquerors who destroyed so much of the classical Islamic civilisation of which Ibn Khaldun's history was one of the pinnacles.
What renders Ibn Khaldun pertinent today is not only the fact that he wrote as a Muslim, with an encylopaedic knowledge of the Islamic world, but also the modernity of his methods. There was nothing comparable in the medieval historiography of the West. Ibn Khaldun is empirical and critical in his use of evidence, doctrinally dispassionate and rational in his attempts to account for historical change.
In the Muqaddimah (1377), Ibn Khaldun presented a complex philosophy of history that still merits serious consideration. He anticipated modern attempts to explain the collapse of cultures by climate change. He presented a sophisticated analysis of free trade, markets and the rule of law that foreshadowed Adam Smith. As a political thinker, his secular outlook has much in common with Machiavelli and Hobbes. Though an Arabian determinism permeates his work, Ibn Khaldun does not treat human beings as passive victims, but as active agents with responsibility for their own fate. The Muqaddimah is the product of a cosmopolitan, humanistic civilisation - the antithesis of the reactionary, theocratic fundamentalism of some present-day Islamic states.
Ibn Khaldun is worth comparing with the theories now fashionable in the West. Fukuyama, for instance, argues that rationalism and science flourish only in conjunction with liberal democracy and capitalism; consequently, history has come to an end. In their book Empire - now all the rage in America - the neo-Marxists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri suggest that globalisation has created a new, universal and oppressive form of imperialism, which can be defeated only from within by the "multitude" (a global proletariat), who will create a non-exploitative world order. Huntington prefers to posit seven or eight rival civilisations. The West is only one of these, locked in perpetual struggle with the rest, which sustain themselves by utilising Western technology. All these theories are optimistic and progressive.
Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history, by contrast, is pessimistic and cyclical. The vast scope of his research leads him to conclude that all civilisations pass through several stages, beginning with youth and ending in senility. He does not exempt Muslim states, though as a devout Muslim he naturally subscribes to the universal mission of Islam, which must ultimately convert or destroy the infidel.
He argues that civilisation (umran) arises only where there is asabiyah, "solidarity": the consciousness of communal or blood ties. He compares nomadic peoples such as the Bedouin with sedentary ones, who are far more civilised but lose the capacity for solidarity. Sedentary culture is the goal of civilisation, creating the necessary conditions for science and the arts to flourish. It need not be liberal or democratic, but commerce and property are essential. With sedentary culture, however, come luxury and prosperity, which lead to corruption. He singles out adultery and homosexuality as especially destructive. Senile civilisations abandon religion, thereby sealing their fate.
What, though, does Ibn Khaldun have to tell us about the present situation? America and Europe are certainly sedentary civilisations, while their terrorist opponents are nomadic, ascetic and savage. The attacks on New York and Washington are a test of Western solidarity. According to Ibn Khaldun, once a dynasty (or state) has become senile, its disintegration is inevitable. Solidarity having been dissipated, it seeks to compensate with pomp. Hence it imposes excessive taxation and confiscates property, so undermining the prosperity on which its power is based. America, like the Caliphates or Muslim empires, has expanded so far that its power seems limitless. Once the influence of dynasties such as the Umayyads or Abbasids had reached their maximum extent, however, they began an irreversible decline.
On the outcome of war, Ibn Khaldun argues that psychological factors are more important than military strength. The West must win the propaganda war against Osama bin Laden. The societies from which the terrorists emerge are at least as sedentary and corrupt as those of the West. America is still a vigorous civilisation, more than equal to the terrorist challenge. Its power seems limitless. But it must beware of hubris.
Ibn Khaldun is a useful antidote to the progressive theories that hold sway today. He reminds us that all civilisations decline, with a chilling evocation of the impact of the Black Death: "It was as if the voice of existence in the world had called out for oblivion and restriction, and the world had responded to its call." Yet that devastation in turn brought "a new and repeated creation, a world brought into existence anew". Muslims and non-Muslims alike may take courage from this Sufi sage, who lived in a period of even greater instability than ours.
Sounds rather anachronistic in today's terms. He seems to view the "tribe" as a paramount achievement in social organization. We view tribalism as a couple of cuts below racism on our social values scale. Also, I think his Islamically chauvinistic teleological designs taint the rest of his outlook. Just my thoughts.
Thanks,
Gary
uh oh
Thanks for posting.
I have a new one: BETTER SPAM THAN ISLAM!!
"An empire, as we remarked, seldom outlives three generations. The first maintains its nomadic character, its rude and savage ways of life; inured to hardships, brave, fierce, and sharing renown with each other, the tribesmen preserve their solidarity in full vigor: their swords are kept sharp, their attack is feared, and their neighbors vanquished.
With the second generation comes a change. Possessing dominion and affluence, they turn from nomadic to settled life, and from hardship to ease and plenty. The authority, instead of being shared by all, is appropriated by one, while the rest, too spiritless to make an effort to regain it, abandon the glory of ambition for the shame of subjection. Their solidarity is weakened in some degree; yet one may notice that notwithstanding the indignity to which they submit, they retain much of what they have known and witnessed in the former generation—the feelings of fierceness and pride, the desire for honor, and the resolution to defend themselves and repulse their foes. These qualities they cannot lose entirely, though a part be gone. They hope to become again such men as their fathers were, or they fancy that the old virtues still survive amongst them.
In the third generation the wandering life and rough manners of the desert are forgotten, as though they had never been. At this stage men no longer take delight in glory and patriotism, since all have learned to bow under the might of a sovereign and are so addicted to luxurious pleasures that they have become a burden on the state; for they require protection like the women and young boys. Their national spirit is wholly extinguished; they have no stomach for resistance, defense, or attack. Nevertheless they impose on the people by their bearing and uniform, their horsemanship, and the address with which they maneuver. It is but a false show: they are in general greater cowards than the most helpless women, and will give way at the first assault.
The monarch in those days must needs rely on the bravery of others, enroll many of the freedmen, and recruit soldiers capable, to some extent of guarding the empire, until God proclaims the hour of its destruction and it falls with everything that it upholds. Thus do empires age and decay in the course of three generations."
How can we possibly win a war where we fight against an
enemy who knows no rules but we try to follow rules set
up by CNN.
I just wish Rumsfield et al would just ignore those
questions about our bombs hitting civilians.
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