The Cause of the West’s Decline Was Discovered Nearly 700 Years Ago

Ibn Khaldun identified why civilisations rise and fall. His theory explains why the West is in dire straits today. By ThinkingWest.

In the 14th century a Tunisian scholar named Ibn Khaldun cracked the code of civilisation. He discovered that societies rise and fall not due to the usual explanations—an abundance of resources, technological superiority, raw military might and, later, the lack thereof—but due to an elusive concept known as asabiyyah. It’s the key to why some cultures last centuries while others crumble quickly.

Now almost 700 years later, Ibn Khaldun’s theory is being put to the test in the Western world. As scholars speculate about decline, citing challenges like economic inflation, spiritual apathy, and an immigration policy run wild, the source of the West’s woes might well be rooted in something more fundamental.

According to Ibn Khaldun, civilisation is downstream from asabiyyah. Everything from national defense, to voting patterns, to social policy is affected by it. So what is asabiyyah, why did Ibn Khaldun posit it was a vital aspect of civilisation, and, more importantly, what does it say about the West today?

The Foundation of Civilisation: Group Feeling

Ibn Khaldun is one of the greatest historians and social scientists of the Middle Ages, though he is often overlooked in the Western world. His work laid the groundwork for a number of fields—including historiography, sociology, economics, and demography—due to its broad approach.

His magnum opus, The Muqaddimah (meaning “The Introduction”), is an attempt at a universal history of civilisations, which describes how they rise and fall, and is wholly underpinned by the concept of asabiyyah.

According to Ibn Khaldun, asabiyyah is the central driving force for the development of civilisation. It can roughly be translated to “group feeling” or “group solidarity”—it’s the deep cultural and social bond a people share*. The success of a society is intrinsically tied to the intensity of its asabiyyah, and in order to preserve power, a people must maintain a stronger asabiyyah than those of its competitor groups.

It might seem like a nebulous concept at first, but Ibn Khaldun claims asabiyyah can be boiled down to something quite concrete: the willingness to fight for one’s group and to advocate for its welfare. Ibn Khaldun writes:“ Asabiyyah produces the ability to defend oneself, to offer opposition, to protect oneself, and to press one’s claims.” And even more simply: asabiyyah “means affection and willingness to fight and die for each other.”

Given this understanding, it’s clear why asabiyyah has serious consequences for a culture as Ibn Khaldun ties it directly to the ability to win wars. He asserts that when two groups of equal number come to blows, the side with the more unified group feeling will dominate. Thus, the strength of asabiyyah determines a culture’s ultimate fate.

But asabiyyah affects more than just the strength of a nations’ army; it also guides political movements and social hierarchies within a civilisation. Ibn Khaldun writes that “...every mass (political) undertaking by necessity requires group feeling.” Groups with strong asabiyyah drive policies and decisions that benefit them, while less unified groups must deal with the consequences.

Asabiyyah is, according to Ibn Khaldun, vital to a civilisation’s long-term health—shaping its internal politics and its position on the international stage—but how does a culture obtain asabiyyah in the first place? Why do some cultures have a strong group feeling while others do not?

Bonds Through Hardship

The strength of a culture’s asabiyyah differs drastically within its own lifecycle. Ibn Khaldun posited that cultures have two fundamental stages. The first stage of a culture is its nomadic, or “desert”, stage during which group feeling is the strongest. In this stage, people are hardy and courageous, unaccustomed to luxury: “Man seeks first the bare necessities…The toughness of desert life precedes the softness of sedentary life.”

Ibn Khaldun offers the Bedouins as an archetypical example, asserting that their toughness, being a nomadic culture, stems from an inability to rely on walls, fortifications, or professional armies for their collective defense—they have only themselves. Asabiyyah, then, is essential for the group’s survival and strongest among such “barbarian” tribes.

Ibn Khaldun writes:

“The hamlets of the Bedouins are defended against outside enemies by a tribal militia composed of noble youths of the tribe who are known for their courage. Their defence and protection are successful only if they are a closely knit group of common descent. This strengthens their stamina and makes them feared, since everybody’s affection for his family and his group is more important (than anything else).”

Ibn Khaldun notes that desert life accommodates asabiyyah because nomadic and tribal societies are close knit clans bonded by blood ties. Familial bonds are “something natural among men, with the rarest exceptions.” The more immediate the familial relationship, the stronger the group solidarity.

Also conducive to group feeling is the formation of close alliances or client-master relationships which develop in tribal societies. What forms asabiyyah here is the social shame inflicted on a member when his or her neighbour, ally, or client is humiliated. Since desert cultures are small, anonymity is impossible and therefore reputation is paramount. This emphasis on honour and social standing is foundational to the development of group feeling.

Urbanisation and the Decline of Asabiyyah

The next stage of a culture’s development is the urban, or sedentary, stage. In this stage, a culture moves beyond its nomadic tendencies and settles down, building cities and dividing labour amongst various crafts and occupations. Ibn Khaldun writes that urbanisation is ultimately the goal to which nomadic cultures aspire and is a natural development of successful desert societies.

Sedentary civilisation sees powerful dynasties reign, which Ibn Khaldun says is the end goal of group feeling—to establish a “royal authority”. Though dynasties are born out of desert life, they culminate in urban civilisation after their power creates wealth and prosperity through territorial expansion. Thus, urban civilisation is a natural result of a culture’s strong asabiyyah.

The wealth and luxury that urban civilisation engenders initially aids the culture’s power, as it can now support a large population size. The nation grows in power and influence and its population expands rapidly, leading to an increase in loyal followers. This numerical growth strengthens the dynasty, as more people can be used for military or economic purposes.

However, within this growth of urban civilisation lies the seeds of factionalism and an erosion of group feeling—leading to the end of the civilisation as a whole. Over time, prosperity and abundance create a decadent population whose self interest overrides group solidarity. Members of the tribe become preoccupied by personal gain in pursuit of an easy, luxurious life. They grow content to let others deal with the defense of this civilisation and difficult political matters. Ibn Khaldun writes how group feeling is lost when comfort is prioritised:

“As a result, the toughness of desert life is lost. Group feeling and courage weaken...Their children and offspring grow up too proud to look after themselves or to attend to their own needs. They have disdain also for all the other things that are necessary in connection with group feeling. This finally becomes a character trait and natural characteristic of theirs. Their group feeling and courage decrease in the next generations. Eventually, group feeling is altogether destroyed. They thus invite their own destruction…When group feeling is destroyed, the tribe is no longer able to protect itself.”

Along with the detrimental effects of abundance on group feeling, geographical expansion also erodes asabiyyah. As a civilisation expands, it inevitably encompasses a variety of other peoples and cultures—and a multiplicity of cultures means multiple group feelings, leading to factional politics. Each group argues for its own self-interest. Internal division, rebellion, or vulnerability to outside invasion become likely. Ibn Khaldun points to biblical Israel as an example of a kingdom that encompassed many different groups, weakening solidarity and eventually leading to its fracturing and conquest:

“In the age of the Israelites, the same was the case in Syria, where there existed a very large number of tribes with a great variety of group feelings, such as the tribes of Palestine and Canaan, the children of Esau, the Midyanites, the children of Lot, the Edomites, the Armenians, the Amalekites, Girgashites, and the Nabataeans from the Jazîrah and Mosul. Therefore, it was difficult for the Israelites to establish their dynasty firmly. Time after time, their royal authority was endangered. The (spirit of) opposition (in the country) communicated itself to (the Israelites). They opposed their own government and revolted against it. They thus never had a continuous and firmly established royal authority. Eventually they were overpowered, first by the Persians, then by the Greeks, and finally by the Romans, when their power came to an end in the Diaspora.”

Echoes of Asabiyyah

Though Ibn Khaldun’s work popularised the concept of asabiyyah, other historians have arrived at similar conclusions about the importance of group solidarity.

Machiavelli, for example, warns against the use of mercenaries to fight wars specifically because they lack any “tie of devotion” to the people they fight for. This “tie of devotion” can be understood in a similar vein as Ibn Khaldun’s asabiyyah since Machiavelli links the idea with a willingness to risk one’s life in battle. According to Machiavelli, the reliance on mercenaries is a massive liability for a nation because when “war come[s]...they will either desert or flee.” This is contrasted with home-grown soldiers who are inspired to fight because of regional pride, loyalty to their neighbours, and devotion to family—asabiyyah.

Likewise, the 20th-century British soldier and historian John Glubb echoed Ibn Khaldun on a number of topics. Perhaps most similar is his understanding of the decline of civilisations due to an unraveling of group solidarity. In Glubb’s 1978 essay entitled The Fate of Empires, he posits that along with internal division and a lack of willingness to fight, an influx of foreigners creates competing group identities within a large geographical empire, leading to factionalism.

Glubb claims that when a culture is homogeneous, there is a feeling of “solidarity and comradeship” among the people, but a large number of foreigners disrupts this. Glubb lists several reasons for foreigners disrupting the unity of an empire, but most pertinent to our discussion is that, in hard times, they are less willing to sacrifice their lives and their property for the empire. This is essentially the same reason why Machiavelli warns against using mercenaries as it is the opposite of true group feeling.

Asabiyyah In the Modern World

If Ibn Khaldun is correct regarding the necessity of asabiyyah in a civilisation, then determining the degree of asabiyyah a nation or people possess is a pressing concern for those who want to see their culture survive long term. The question arises over how one might even measure such a difficult-to-pin-down concept—but Ibn Khaldun’s simple definition of the “willingness to fight and die” for one’s culture gives us a good approximate variable to measure.

A recent survey sheds light on the willingness of various nations to fight if they become embroiled in war. Though not a perfect gauge for asabiyyah given people’s answers to survey questions won’t necessarily map to real-life situations, it’s a good starting point to develop a high-level comparison for different nations’ level of group solidarity.

In a 2024 Gallup International poll, the question was asked: “If there were a war that involved (YOUR COUNTRY), would you be willing to fight for your country?” The dichotomy between the answers of Western nations and other parts of the world is striking. Of the top five nations who responded “Yes” most frequently, most were Muslim majority countries from West Asia and the Middle East. Armenia stood out at 96%, Saudi Arabia at 94%, and Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Georgia all responded “Yes” at well above 80%. In contrast, the highest “No” responses were overwhelmingly Western European nations—Italy at 78%, Austria at 62%, and Germany, Nigeria, and Spain at over 50%.

The US and Canada showed more willingness to fight (41% yes and 34% yes respectively) than Western Europe, but not nearly to the degree of the Middle East and West Asia. India also had a high frequency of “Yes” responses, with over 75% responding in the affirmative, and Latin America followed behind with an average of 58%.

Asabiyyah and the Polarity Shift

The contrast in asabiyyah between the Western world and rising non-Western regions appears to be an existential reality. Gallup’s study indicates significantly stronger group feeling in the Middle East, India, and West Asia, contrasting sharply with a hollowed-out asabiyyah in the West. Taking Ibn Khaldun’s philosophy of history at face value, non-Western civilisations are positioned for longevity, while the clock is ticking for the Western world.

By the metrics established in The Muqaddimah, the West is in profound trouble. We, unfortunately, perfectly fit the criteria for civilisational decline. First, Europe, the United States, and the Commonwealth nations have achieved unprecedented levels of material comfort, trading the hard-won social cohesion of our ancestors for the luxury of decadence.

Second, rapid geographic and cultural shifts have fractured our societies. Unprecedented immigration and rampant identity politics have birthed competing groups within Western borders. Instead of a unified nation, we now harbour a hyper-individualistic patchwork of conflicting tribes—the exact internal factionalism Ibn Khaldun warned would invite destruction.

There is no one asabiyyah within Western nations, but rather many asabiyyahs.

To confront this trajectory is not an exercise in defeatism, however. Rather, it is a necessary act of realist thinking. Diagnosing the life threatening wounds our civilisation has sustained is the first step for enduring what comes next. The illusions of perpetual hegemony and infinite economic prosperity are evaporating, preparing the way for the realisation that a multipolar world awaits.

To understand where global power will lie in the next decades or centuries, GDP or military units may not be the best measure of long-term cultural success. If Ibn Khaldun is right, the best predictor of the future world order will be whether or not a people are willing to put everything on the line for their nation, their families, and their fellow countrymen—whether or not they have asabiyyah.

*Note: “group feeling”, “group solidarity”, and “asabiyyah” are used interchangeably in this essay