Shared Purpose

The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.

Livy, “History of Rome”, Book I

Recently, I finished a great history book about the Mongol invasions in the Middle East titled The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East. The book is a fun read, highly recommend for any history nerd.

The author writes about why he believes that the Mongol invasions, which were so devastating and so unstoppable at first, stalled and then fell apart.

He cites a famous Islamic historian named Ibn Khaldun (1332 – 1406) who had examined past empires and nations and developed a concept called “Group Solidarity“. The idea is that when a group is united in purpose, they can accomplish a lot, but over generations people in that group gradually develop diverging purposes, and they lose group solidarity. By this point, they compete with one another, or even sabotage or openly fight one another.

In the early decades of the 13th century, when the Mongol hordes expanded to the West, they smashed countless kingdoms and empires carving an empire from China to Eastern Europe. Under Chingis Khan (a.k.a. Genghis Khan), they fought under a single banner, but after his death, the territory began to fracture. The north-western part of the Empire was bequeathed to Batu Khan (one of Genghis’s grandsons) as the new Golden Horde, while the southwestern part of the Empire became the Ilkhanate under Hülegü, another grandson of Genghis, and finally China founded a dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty, under Kublai, yet another grandson of Genghis, and so on.

In time, the Ilkhanate advancee stalled when they lost s small battle to the Egyptian Mamluks, then the Ilkhanate and the Golden Horde gradually started to clash with one another, Even within the Ilkhanate dynastic disputes meant that different factions of the Khanate family (and their noyan allies) fought with each other.

As Ibn Khaldun rightly explains, the Mongol nation had a strong sense of group solidarity in the early generations, but as the sense of solidarity faded, people began to think of their own interests, causing the empire to fracture. Each khan and vassal noyan was fabulously rich, and had plenty of land and wives, but they were not content, and kept looking out for their own interests.

Of course, it’s not hard to find other examples of this in history, both ancient and modern history. It’s a pattern we all know, but Ibn Khaldun gives it a name, and that’s important. It’s not hard to see the powers of today falling apart in when they too lose their group solidarity and each leading figure begins to think of their own self-interest.

Anyhow, I don’t know much about Islamic history, but I think Ibn Khaldun deserves recognition for his analysis of history, and for coining this pattern of human behavior that keeps shooting us in the foot over and over again.

P.S. been on family vacation this week, but I have more fun stuff coming next week and onward.