Ibn Khaldun: Group Solidarity

Summary
Ibn Khaldun: Group Solidarity

The concept of group solidarity rose from Ibn Khaldun and his ways of dealing with people and communicating with them. Ibn Khaldun is a North African Arab aristocrat who settled in a castle in Algeria to write a narrative of the history of the world, in 1375. But before starting off his narrative, Ibn Khaldun thought about the human history in terms of historical meaning, truth and method. It is this “muqaddimah”, an extensive formal essay, which gave him the great image of an incredible writer among his peers rather than the history itself. His great work and immensely talented and exploring mind won him the title, “father of sociology”. He made his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1382 where he then settled in Egypt and revised the introduction to his history many times, which resulted in a very high sophisticated and tough prose that he was proud of.
Human society is necessary to all men because, as philosophers say, he needs a society or city to be social. The example given in this story is about the steps taken after acquiring food, which cannot be a one-man job. It requires a group of men, each with a specific task whether it was grinding, kneading or baking. These steps also require tools and utensils that are made by craftsmen. So a man needs to cooperate with his fellow men in order for them to unite together and be able to feed themselves. Men should restrain themselves in the use of the weapons that defend them against animals to apply aggressiveness and oppression to others. Restrain should be appointed to one man who knows how to control a whole society and has the will and power to do so because sovereignty is unusual to man.
Social solidarity is found in groups that are related by blood or have other types of relations or ties that perform the same purpose. Because where there is blood ties there is unity, there is back up, there is family. The ties of clientship are nearly as close as those of blood because a patron and client are always ready to help one another whatever the reason may be. Kinship is more of an emotional relationship than an objective one.
Bedouins are a perfect example of having tight ties of kinship. They have different ways of living and attaining food because of limited resources and tools. Living together, companionship, friendship, having the same foster parents and other matters, may form group ties. An example is the special relationship between a patron and one of his service workers where there is absence of kinship but the small aspects of kinship lingers between them.
Governors and the state control men and their aggressiveness toward their lust for power. In roaming societies, the chiefs and elders, due to the reputation and respect with which they are held by the tribesmen, check intragroup violence. In the Muslim era men designated themselves by localities, referring to the military province of Qinnasrin, Damascus or al-Awasim that the spread to Spain.
Throughout the different dynasties, the lack of solidarity caused their glorious ruling to weaken and be defeated. When the Arabs were no longer united, Persians, Turks and Seljuks intruded and wiped out the Arabs. To sum it up, kinship is the major factor in the success of relationships.