Seven centuries ago .. How did Ibn Khaldun predict the fall of the States?

Mohammed Shaaban Ayoub

The contemporary Arab devastation calls for the re-thinking of Ibn Khaldun and his view of human civilization and its fall. The author of the eternal saying "injustice is a muezzin of the destruction of urbanism" explained how countries reach the overwhelming injustice and the effects of this injustice and its effects on society and people.

State from young to old

The state of Ibn Khaldun is the spatial and temporal extension of a nervous rule (category), and the "neuralism" is based on religion, allegiance, common or national thought, or other participations that are suitable for building and sustaining states.

And strong nervousness, "be the prelude of the state and protect from the first" and the rise and fall, too, and nerve is only to the community / meeting or the term Ibn Khaldun "Omran".

Ibn Khaldun does not see the establishment of social life except in the state. He says: "The state and the king of architecture (ie the meeting) are the image of the material, which is the guardian form of its existence. It has been decided in the sciences of wisdom that they can not be separated from one another. ) Can not imagine, and urbanization without the state and the king is impossible; because of the human nature of the aggression of the pretext "; the task of the State to protect society and its members, and society is the basis of the state.

Ibn Khaldun noted that countries are undergoing several developments in two ways: general conditions of politics, economy, urbanization and ethics, and developments that occur in terms of greatness, strength and breadth. And decides that each country moves between five stages: nail, and monopolization of glory, and then the vacuum and the good, and then developed the curse and peace, and then extravagance and waste.

Ibn Khaldun connects the five phases of the state with only three generations. The first generation is the process of building and caring. The second generation follows the first line of tradition and non-deviation. The last generation can be called the generation of destruction.

After building and race in the time of the first generation, the state is transformed into stability and tranquility by the second generation, and civilizational and urban facilities begin to emerge, but at this stage the state is sliding into tyranny and the rule of the individual.

After all was involved in governing one way or another in the first generation of the founding of the States and civilizations, move to "individual isolation and lazy remaining from the pursuit, and the height of elongation to the abyss, it breaks a bit of nerve, and comfort them humiliation and submission.

Just as "nervousness" is responsible for perpetuation, it is also the most prominent cause of decline and decline, and Ibn Khaldun attributes weakness and fall to several factors, including luxury and indulgence.

The first luxury signs fall
According to Ibn Khaldun, the last or third generation to fall under his rule states and the collapse of civilizations is the generation / ruling elite that is keen in its political and moral behavior on greed and luxury. The sense of social, political, military and economic responsibility they have assumed since the time of establishment shifts to another feeling, "Everyone tramples for their own interests, their excessive luxury and their welfare alone.

"They forget the era of the Bedouin and the roughness, as if they were not, and they lose the sweetness of the splendor and the nervousness in which they are the queen of oppression, and inform them of the luxury of his purpose by embracing him (swinging) from the bliss and the liveliness of life, and they become dependent on the state. The defender and the claim. "

"They are trying to show power through the monopoly of arms and the army, to suppress people if they want to revolt and to confront the monopoly of power and wealth," he says. "They wear people's badges, uniforms, horse riding and good culture, They are the most insulted women on the back. "

This elite, which is burdened with money, prestige and armed force, can not find the masses demanding its rights if they are outraged against this injustice and oppression, but seek the support of the external forces which in turn find such systems a political interest in their continuation and survival and oppression of their peoples. The demands came to them (that is, if the revolution against them), did not resist his defender, then the owner of the state needs to invoke the rest of the people of help, and bullying the loyal (external powers), and make those who sing the people of the state some singing, so that God authorized the extinction, Including what I carried. "

Tyranny of governance

If Ibn Khaldun makes luxury the most prominent cause in the fall of the states, through the ruling elite that travel in the bliss of forgetting or forgetting the pain of their people, Vtqtwe them with armed force whenever necessary to silence them, it confirms that tyranny and "Singularity of glory" is the second reason to fall .

This despot soon begins to "deflect the noses of his clan and those who are close to him in the name of the king, and he will be more in the grip of their noses than the rest of their place from the king and the great and the most." If the ruler gets rid of his close associates, he does not feel secure - as far as Ibn Khaldun - , Is soon to fear and fear for the future of his rule, and the continuation of the throne, and can not find this dilemma only cutting off the heads of the moral, and degrade their position, and mockery of them, and exclusion in every way to remain alone and undisputed.

As for the masses or the general public, they are divided into two types during the conflicts in which the ruler gets rid of his assistants who divide him in the government, so that he remains alone in control of the matter alone. These two types, as Ibn Khaldun sees it, are people who can intervene and dare to eliminate this class in college, New "government takes power and fills the vacuum of the contestants and takes advantage of the crucial moment.

Or any other type of long-term in command and delivery, does not care about what is happening, and does not care what is going on, and this type requires only the rule of protection of the army and the army, "Vistegni (ruling) on ​​the strength of the sticks ... This reinforces what has occurred in the hearts of Delivery ... and then the state order is still, and it disappears in itself until it ends to its time.

The collapse in this second case does not require conflict, but a free fall for its natural causes, such as backwardness, poverty, weakness and the most important "injustice"!