ʿAṣabiyya: Group Feeling

ʿAṣabiyya is the natural feeling of loyalty and solidarity that binds members of a group together — whether the group is a tribe, a clan, a religious community, or a ruling dynasty. It is rooted in blood kinship but extends to clients and allies who share the group's interests and identify with its honour. A group with strong ʿaṣabiyya acts as one: its members defend each other unreservedly, share in each other's victories and defeats, and willingly sacrifice personal advantage for collective survival. Ibn Khaldun treats it as a natural social phenomenon, not a moral virtue: it is not good or bad in itself but the precondition of any collective political achievement.

Political power — the ability to rule, to command obedience, to defend territory — is, for Ibn Khaldun, impossible without ʿaṣabiyya. A ruler who cannot rely on the unconditional loyalty of a cohesive group cannot maintain power against internal rivals or external challengers. The history of dynasties is the history of groups with strong ʿaṣabiyya conquering groups whose solidarity has eroded. Desert and nomadic peoples typically have stronger ʿaṣabiyya than settled city-dwellers, because the harshness of their conditions demands constant cooperation and mutual defence. This is why, across history, the periphery regularly conquers and replaces the exhausted centre.

Once a dynasty achieves power, the very conditions of success begin to undermine its ʿaṣabiyya. Urban life, luxury, and the security of settled existence soften the toughness and solidarity that made conquest possible. The ruling group begins to compete internally for privilege; the ruler increasingly relies on paid soldiers and bureaucrats rather than loyal kinsmen; the original spirit of collective loyalty is replaced by individual self-interest. This decay is for Ibn Khaldun a natural and almost inevitable process — dynasties typically last no more than three to four generations before their ʿaṣabiyya has so far declined that they cannot resist a new challenger from the periphery with its solidarity still intact.

ʿAṣabiyya is developed throughout the Muqaddimah but receives its most systematic treatment in the first book. The concept anticipates later sociological ideas of social cohesion (Durkheim's solidarity) and political sociology of elites (Pareto's circulation of elites), though Ibn Khaldun's formulation is richer in empirical specificity.