From Wikipedia:
Asabiyyah
The
bond of cohesion among humans in a group forming community. The bond, Asabiyyah, exists at
any level of civilization, from nomadic society to states and empires. Asabiyyah is most strong in the nomadic phase, and decreases as civilization advances. As this Asabiyyah declines, another more compelling Asabiyyah may take its place; thus, civilizations rise and fall, and history describes these
cycles of Asabiyyah as they play out.
Each dynasty (or civilization) has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to
emerge on the peripheries of great empires and use the much stronger `asabiyya present in those areas to their advantage, in order to bring about a change in leadership. This implies that the new rulers are at
first considered "barbarians" by comparison to the old ones. As they establish themselves at the center of their empire, they
become increasingly lax, less coordinated, disciplined and watchful, and more concerned with maintaining their new power and lifestyle at the centre of the empire—i.e, their internal cohesion and ties to the original peripheral group, the `asabiyya, dissolves into
factionalism and individualism,
diminishing their capacity as a political unit. Thus, conditions are created wherein a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control, grow strong, and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew.
The Asabiyyah cycle described by Ibn Khaldun was
true for nearly all civilizations before the modern era. Nomadic invaders had always ended up
adopting the religion and culture of the civilizations they conquered, which was true for various
Arab, Berber, Turkic and Mongol invaders that invaded the medieval Islamic world and ended up adopting Islamic religion and culture.
Beyond the Muslim world, the Asabiyyah cycle was also true for every other pre-modern civilization, whether in
China whose dynastic cycles resemble the Asabiyyah cycles described by Ibn Khaldun, in
Europe where waves of barbarian invaders adopted Christianity and Greco-Roman culture, or in
India or Persia where nomadic invaders assimilated into those civilizations.
Some more examples:
1. Northern Europeans consider (and depict) themselves to be inheritors of Greco-Roman cultures, although the original Greeks or Romans were mediterraneans not Germanic.
2. Arab scientist of the Golden age of Islam considered themselves as the intellectual heirs of Greek science and philosophy.
3. Temujin was so inspired by Central Asian culture that he gave himself a Turkic title 'Chengiz Khan'.
4. When the Turks conquered Constantinopole, they considered their rule to be a continuity of the Romans.
5. Alexander the Great adopted Persian culture and customs and wanted to be the ruler of Persia.
6. Every damn American you meet in the countryside has some of the 'Cherokee' blood
- surely they are all lying except perhaps Johnny Depp.
