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'Asabiyeh...
By Gerald A. Honigman
In light of all the current unilateral concessions the Jew of the Nations continues to make to merely gain acceptance for its survival from a largely hostile world, there is some important advice and wisdom to be heeded originating in the Muslim world itself.
Zionism has come to mean different things to people over the millennia. The one thing that all the various interpretations have had in common, however, involved an eradication of the powerlessness, victimization, and statelessness the Jew had witnessed since he took on the Roman conqueror of much of the world for his freedom and lost. Massacres, forced conversions, ghettoization, demonization, dehumanization, inquisitions, and such all carefully paved the road to Auschwitz. The Jew was the deicide people in the Christian West and kilab yahud--"Jew dog"--killers of Prophets in the Muslim East.
Zionism meshed together all of the Jews' subsequent diverse fears, hopes, and dreams for a better tomorrow. The key to its future had everything to do with transforming the powerless state of the Jews as a people. Enter “Abd-ar-Rahman Abu Zayd ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun.
Born in the early 14th century C.E., Ibn Khaldun was one of the most important philosophers, jurists, and scholars the Islamic--or any--civilization would ever produce.
Graduate students in Middle Eastern Affairs usually come to know Ibn Khaldun through his work, The Muqaddimah. It is actually the introduction to and Book I of his Kitab al-’Ibar, his History of the World. Besides simply giving an account of events, he offers a rational explanation of the “hows” and “whys” they occurred. Using frequent historical illustrations to make his points, it is here that this great Muslim scholar, who died almost six centuries ago, has some very important things to say about both Jews and Israel.
Indeed, Israel's current leaders should pay careful attention to the lessons.
Before The Muqaddimah was introduced into this discussion, I had mentioned the powerlessness of the Jewish experience and the negative consequences which had derived from this. Ibn Khaldun spoke to this matter as well. Let’s listen:
“Students, slaves, and servants brought up with injustice and tyrannical force are overcome by it…it makes them feel oppressed…induces them to lie, be insincere…their outward behavior differs from what they are thinking. Thus they are taught deceit and trickery…they become dependent on others…their souls become too indolent to acquire…good character qualities. Thus they fall short of their potentialities and do not reach the limit of their humanity. That is what happened to every nation which fell under the yoke of tyranny and learned the meaning of injustice.
One may check this out by observing any person who is not in control of his own affairs and has no authority on his side to guarantee safety. One may look at the Jews (as an example)…The reason is what we have said.”
However one chooses to respond to his assessment, Zionism’s non-religious raison d’etre would have been obvious to Ibn Khaldun, one of the world’s most important thinkers of all times. He devoted much time and effort to the evolution and development of the Jewish nation, its early struggles with its adversaries, and its later fight for freedom with the mighty Roman Empire and its consequences. He then followed this with an analysis of the Jews’ tragic condition of powerlessness throughout subsequent generations.
Ibn Khaldun would have well understood the rebirth of Israel and the ‘asabiyah-- the group consciousness he emphasized throughout his writings--which made it possible…even if it was a consciousness born not only out of a “noble house” but also from the desperation of the Jews’ perpetual victim, scapegoat, and whipping post status.
While he commented that the Jews, who had one of the most “noble houses” in the world, had subsequently lost their ‘asabiyah and for centuries suffered constant humiliations as a result, he would have applauded and understood their desire to end this unfortunate turn of events.
The Muqaddimah emphasizes that the Jews were forced to wander in the desert for forty years due to their “meekness.” Ibn Khaldun stressed that this was necessary so that a new generation would arise with a new, more powerful ‘asabiyah. Prime Minister Olmert and his supporters should pay close attention to this...Jews can't afford another of such wanderings.
At a time when Arabs are demanding their 22nd state (most having been created by the conquest of non-Arab peoples and their lands), chances are more than good that this great Muslim scholar would have approved and viewed the resurrection of Israel as an answer to the unique plight of stateless Jews…the end of an even more tragic and extensive wandering and period of meekness and powerlessness in the desert.
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