Abstract
As the Islamic world declined in the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun wrote the Muqaddimah, a massive philosophical work in which he sought scientific grounds for a universal analysis of human beings. By seeking a global history of humanity, one that was not derived from the particular history of any one group, he was able to offer insight into the importance of group solidarity, assabiyeh. In this essay, I discuss the dynamics between autonomous individuality and group identity and offer some cultural comparisons to illustrate more general insights.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Although generally unknown, female artists in 17th Century Europe made significant contributions. Judith Leyster (1609–1670) apprenticed to Frans Hals, was a member of the prestigious Painters’ Guild, and taught male students. Most of her work was attributed to men. Anna Maria Sybilla Merian (1647–1717) produced volumes of flower engravings as well as drawings of insects, which became significant resources for the subsequent classification of species. After moving to Surinam, she produced Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, considered one of the world’s best books of biological illustration. Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) received more for her art than Rembrandt did for his work. See The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art 1998 (New York: Penguin Books) pp 40–43.
Cf. speech delivered by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. See http://www.hartford-wp.com/archives/45a/058.html
Robert Michel’s The Iron of Oligarchy is the classic example here, and Karl Marx followed in his teacher GWF Hegel’s footsteps by declaring, ‘history repeats itself.’ Depending on the level one deals with, of course, for in other respects, ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’, and we can look at the issue of individuality vs. groups across history. To that extent, we deal with the same questions, which is among the reasons for studying history.
And not necessarily unlike the long periods of stasis punctuated by change claimed for biological evolution. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium .
Such critics of positivism also oppose the notion that history has precise and repetitive cycles. They understand every event in history as unique, an insight noted long ago by Heraclitus of Ephesus and reinvigorated more than a millennium later by GWF Hegel.
To be sure, his theory had no precise notion of natural selection or branching evolution. Ibn Khaldun’s ‘evolution’ was just the Great Chain of Being, not a unique notion at the time and derived from Aristotle.
In contrast, the polygenist Lucilio Vanini (1585–1619) asserted that ‘negroes’ descended from apes because of their skin colour while other races did not.
Following Galen, Ibn Sina (Avicenna; 980–1037) had identified nerves as the consolidators of perceived pain in the muscles, as unifying agents as it were, analogous to group solidarity.
The work of Peter Kropotkin on mutual aid should be considered in this regard (Kropotkin 1915).
From a longer perspective, we understand today that the decline of Islamic world was due in no small reason to the European discovery of the sea route around Africa and establishment of direct trade with China and the East. The excision of merchant profit in the Middle East led to its precipitous decline, one which, intellectually at least, has yet to be reversed by the creation of a handful of oil-rich oligarchic states in the 20th century. Evidently, the variegation of social life produced by robust forms of economic activity creates intellectual and artistic possibilities that the mere acquisition of wealth cannot. Thus, hopes to stimulate a revival of ‘the golden age of Islamic intellectual civilization’ through the translation, publication and discussion of classical philosophical texts appears to be of less value than hoped for.
There is debate as to the beginnings of the Renaissance. Some scholars refer to the Renaissance of the late Medieval period beginning about 1100 – a period of the early Crusades, the building of monumental cathedrals, the founding of the Hanseatic League, the rise of towns and the development of Gothic art. Kenneth Clark called this period Western Europe’s first ‘great age of civilization’ and traced its beginning to around the year 1000. See Kenneth Clark’s The Gothic Revival (1928). A major contribution to the rise of Italian power and its Renaissance was the Venetian-sponsored Fourth Crusade’s sacking of Constantinople in 1204. Others date the beginning of the Renaissance to Florence in 1401 or to when Greek scholars fled Constantinople in 1452 following the Ottoman conquest of the city. One can also argue that the period from 962, the crowing of Otto as Holy Roman Emperor, to 1452 (i.e. the High Middle Ages), was qualitatively a different world from the Renaissance. It included the Crusades, the Lateran Council and the heyday of Scholasticism. Even in the time of Bracciolini (who discovered the Lucretius manuscript that helped inaugurate Christian humanism in 1417), the Church’s control over life made the notion of an individual almost incomprehensible. Curiosity was sin then.
References
Enan MA 1975 Ibn Khaldun: His life and work (Lahore, Pakistan: NP)
Goodman LE 1972 Ibn Khaldun and Thucydides. J. Am. Orient. Soc. 92 250–270
Hitti PK 1971 Makers of Arab history (New York: Harper and Row)
Hodgson M 1974 The venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press)
Hourani A 1991 Islam in European thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Ibn Khaldun 1986 The Muqaddimah: An introduction to history (translated from the Arabic by Franz Rosenthal) (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul)
Kropotkin P 1915 Mutual aid: A factor in evolution (London: Heinemann)
Lawrence BB 1984 Ibn Khaldun and Islamic ideology (Leiden: E.J. Brill)
Lewis B 1966 The Arabs in history (New York: Harper and Row)
Mahdi M 1957 Ibn Khaldun’s philosophy of history (London: Allen and Unwin)
Malcolm X and Haley A 2001 The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Penguin Books)
Rosenthal F 1969 Ibn Khaldun: the Muqaddimah; in Bollinger series (ed) NJ Davord (Princeton University Press)
Southern RW 1962 Western views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press)
Uvroy D 1993 Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press)
Von Martin A 1963 Sociology of the Renaissance (New York: Harper and Row)
Wahba M and Abousenna M 1996 Averroes and the Enlightenment (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
[Katsiaficas G 2014 A personal perspective on individual and group: Comparative cultural observations with a focus on Ibn Khaldun. J. Biosci. 39 1–6] DOI 10.1007/s12038-013-9393-9
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Katsiaficas, G. A personal perspective on individual and group: Comparative cultural observations with a focus on Ibn Khaldun. J Biosci 39, 327–332 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-013-9393-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-013-9393-9