MN Book discussion: Al-Muqaddimah (Part 1)

Assalamu alaikum, everybody. Thank you for joining today. So we're going to start with with our new weekly meetings on Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah. And today, we're mainly going to go over the introduction, the the first section in the book, which mainly deals with the issues of the nature of history and the nature of the study of history, where the author presents a couple of problems with some historians and the way they approach recording history. And then inshallah, it will give us a good foundation for our future discussions where the the author goes into more depth regarding the history of the East and the West of the Muslim world.

The history, the the society, all the problems that he deemed necessary to discuss. So to begin with, I'd like to actually read from the introduction about about what Ibn Khaldun actually deems to be the essence of the writing of history. So basically he says that it or the writing of history requires numerous sources and much varied knowledge. It also requires a good speculative mind and thoroughness, which lead the historian to the truth and keep him from slips and errors. If he trusts historical information in its plain transmitted form, and has no clear knowledge of the principles resulting from custom, the fundamental facts of politics, the nature of civilization, or the conditions governing human social organization, and if furthermore he does not evaluate remote or ancient material through comparison with near or contemporary material, he often cannot avoid stumbling and slipping and deviating from the path of truth.

So this is what the author says is the prerequisite for writing about history. Are there any examples either from this section or any other real world examples which deal with the, let's say, the wrong way or an inappropriate way of writing or dealing with history that you can think of?

Like, what do you mean exactly? Like, specific instances where history has been explained in a wrong manner? Or

Yes. So for example, there is an example from the book which the author presents where he says that a lot of historians embellished historical events. They exaggerated figures. For instance, you know, the number of soldiers fighting various wars. And, you know, basically, failed to take into account the well, I mean, the any true historical references and also the nature of societies back in the day.

So the the the example that is given is about the the Jewish people in in Egypt. K?

Yeah. That was very interesting. Especially the in the Quran, like in Surat Tusharah, there's a hint at this. Right? Because even when pharaoh is telling, you know, his people, like, to go chase the Israelites, he's telling them, you know, like, that these are just a handful of people in the, you know, so there's already I think it's, like, 50 or 52.

I'm not sure now. But there was this reference to them being a small group of people. So even we have and this differs from the biblical narration, right, where there are, like, 600,000 men, which means, like, I don't know, roughly 2,000,000 people crossing the Sinai Desert and so on, which would have let some print, you know, like some it would have been recorded in many historical. It would have had great impact, you know, at this time if this had happened, but that was not the case. And subhanAllah, the Quran, you know, gives us the correct historical narrative.

But, yeah, the one of the things that I personally find very interesting is that Ibn Khaldun stresses the importance of understanding how societies function back in the day and, you know, the way the way, you know, people lived, how numerous those societies were. And those, I mean, that type of information is very useful at gauging any figures or any historical claims. And he obviously makes a very important point that we cannot really trust the Torah and Torah, you know, the the Old Testament because it has been altered by Jewish scribes. So, you know, like, for us as Muslims, we obviously take the words of of of God, of Allah above everything else, And we don't need like, you know, we we don't necessarily go the path of secular historians. We we think that the words of Allah are the the truth.

Right? But, you know, he makes a very important point that the Torah Torah is not really is not really that. It has been altered so all the figures are wrong. Well, you know, most of them anyway. Are there any examples from this introduction where the author stresses out the importance of understanding how societies functioned back in the day in order for us to understand, you know, any historical claims, anything that you can think of.

Or it doesn't have to be necessarily from the book, it can be some of the things you know about.

Well I think it's quite normal for Western historians to look at history outside of any actual context of the society at the time of period they're looking at or whatever society they're looking at, they very often take it out of context and and don't actually make go to any trouble to try to understand that society from the perspective of the people at that time. They retroactively analyze the society from the value system and from the understanding and the standards of the era that they're living in. I mean, is a very normal thing. They even have a term for it. I can't think of what it is now, but they have a term for that where you apply modern day understanding to historical societies and and and interpret it.

Like, example, your your the way that you would interpret, say, rights or oppression or freedom or opportunity or so forth, they they operate according to twenty first or twentieth century standards and very specifically, Western European American standards of and understandings of these types of things. And so they will characterize these societies according to that understanding and and refer to them as, for example, say, oppressive or patriarchal or restrictive or primitive or so on because they're not they're not actually putting it in the in the context of the time period that it was. I think that's a really important thing that Ibn Khaldun contributed to the understanding of how to how to analyze history. Unfortunately, I think a lot of historians have not have not taken that on board in their their own way of presenting history. And also of course there's the there's the fact that it's not it's not just the westerners but but for westerners we find it very often that they manipulate history for the purpose of present day utilization of narrative.

So they create a narrative based on a certain reading, certain understanding, a certain interpretation of history for the purpose of propagating that narrative, the the a current day narrative. They use historical examples even though those historical historical examples are taken out of context. So there's a lot of manipulation with regards to how they present history in the West. And again, not the only ones who are guilty of this. But, you know, I I this is I can't give you an exact a specific example of what he was talking about, from the book because unfortunately I haven't had time to to to catch up on the chapter.

But this is this is certainly something that we see in modern historians and historical books, historical accounts and and and there's an even new phenomenon of people sort of just online who are not historians, who are not academics, but they'll hear something about something in history and then they'll do a blog about it and try to present it in a certain way because they're trying to drive a narrative today. And so they'll use something from the past without actually having any real historical understanding or any context of that society and the understanding of the people at the time and so forth.

Yeah, that's a good point actually and there are various instances of that happening where, especially when it comes to Islamic history, a lot of these secular thinking historians will cherry pick some instances from the history to make a point about, you know, a good or a bad point about Islamic civilization. The the example the author gives, and I'll actually read this very short excerpt, is about, know, Raquel, I'll just read out loud. He says that another fictitious story of the historians, which they all report, concerns the reason for al Rashid's destruction of the Armistice. It is the story of al Abbasid, al Rashid's sister, and Jafar bin Yahad bin Khalid, his minister. Al Rashid is said to have worried about where to place them when he was drinking wine with them.

He wanted to receive them together in his company. Therefore, he permitted them to conclude a marriage that was not consummated. El Abbasah then tricked Jafar in her desire to be alone with him, for she had fallen in love with him. Jafar finally had intercourse with her, it is assumed, when he was drunk and she became pregnant. The story was reported to a Rashid who flew into a rage.

And the author then says, this story is irreconcilable with El Abbasid's position, her religiousness, her parentage and her exalted rank. So basically this is a sensationalist story that some, you know, quasi historians reported. And Ibn Khaldun says, well, you know, aside from the fact that you don't really have any concrete evidences, it doesn't really make a lot of sense given what we do know about those characters in the past. So his main argument about talking or writing about history is that you need to understand the people you're talking about, you're discussing. You need to know about their histories, I mean their biographies, their nature, their personalities, etcetera, which I think a lot of Muslim historians and scholars did very well, as we know from science of transmitting narrations in our tradition, where we have biographies of the people who transmit it.

So we developed science based on that. And we pay a lot of attention to the character, not only of the people involved, but also the people who transmitted that knowledge as well. So we can get, you know, a fairly accurate idea, a fairly accurate picture of what exactly and what truly happened in in in the past. So, yeah, this is this is one example where the author says that, you know, this could not have happened because of the of the character of the of the people involved. Are there any other examples that, you know, we can discuss here in that deal with this particular issue?

Good morning, everyone. Did you mean from within Almukandema or generally speaking?

Yeah. It can be from the book or, you know, some other example that you know about.

Well, you can refer to the events reported of the Umayyads, but later on during the Abbasid era. So the history of Islam as we know it today was started to be written during the Abbasid period of Tawari and the famous historians that we know of. And there would be reports of of the Umayyad rulers doing this and that, and sometimes it would be reported that an Umayyad ruler used to eat a 100 sheep a day, for example. I think it was Suleyman of Naval Malik, one of the most, yeah, one of the most famous Umayyad rulers. He was the one who was right before Omar ibn Abd al Aziz, and and this was the guy who they thought would was the the best of the Umayyads, of course, second to to Omar ibn al Ghaziz.

And so they would report stuff like that he would eat a 100 sheep a day and and do things like that. So I think this would be something that can be in relation to the point you were discussing that it could not be it simply could not be reconciled with that a man could eat no matter what the man was, could eat a 100 cheaper there or something like that. With that, they they they also reported that the Abbasids would excavate the the bodies of the of the Umayyads and whip them in revenge for what happened to Al Hussein radiAllahu andhu 'adlaw. So I do not believe that Al Al Mansoor would excavate the bodies or Al Safaq would excavate the bodies and work them in revenge. There were, of course, massacres, but not to the extent of excavating bodies of the dead, I mean.

Yeah, that's a good point actually. I think the author does talk about sensationalism a lot in this introduction. Basically he says, and I'll quote here, you know, speaking about those stories and historians, he says, there are many such stories. They're always cropping up in the works of the historians. The incentive for inventing and reporting them shows a tendency to forbidden pleasures and for smearing the reputation of others.

People justify their own subservience to pleasure by citing the supposed doings of men and women of the past. Therefore they often appear very eager for such information and are alert to find it when they go through the pages of published works. I mean nothing has really changed. We have this happening today as well where public figures gets smeared left and right without any concrete evidences. So and, yeah, I suppose a lot of people like a good, you know, a good gossip.

They like, you know, hearing negative bad things about other people. So it make it make sense that, you know, historians did that kind of thing as well. Not really paying attention to objective truths, right, rather getting their bias in the way and, you know, basically succumbing to that pressure to to get rid of either, you know, opponents or people who think differently than them. Right? Now I I'd like actually to move on to a related a related topic, and it has to do with the tools a historian needs to possess in order to recount historical events accurately.

So Ibn Khaldun says, the scholar in this field needs to know the principles of politics, the nature of things, and the differences among nations, places and periods with regard to ways of life, character qualities, customs, sects, schools and everything else. He further needs a comprehensive knowledge of present conditions in all these respects. He must compare similarities or differences between present and past conditions. He must know the causes of the similarities in certain cases and of the differences in others. He must be aware of the differing origins and beginnings of dynasties and religious groups, as well as of the reasons and incentives that brought them into being and the circumstances and history of the persons who supported them.

His goal must be to have complete knowledge of the reasons for every happening and to be acquainted with the origin of every event. Then he must check transmitted information with the basic principles he knows. If it fulfills their requirements, it is sound. Otherwise, the historian must consider it as spurious and as spurious and dispense with it. So I'd like to ask you then, when it comes to the knowledge of of he he mentions the nature of things and the differences among nations, places, periods.

Can we think of any examples where the particular knowledge of a place or of how, you know, a particular nation behaves can give us an insight or two about historical events that happened in some area, country or region.

I mean, I think I knew of something, I read about something, some tribes in Central Asia, they had a very different approach to life. They were step tribes and they would, you know, band their heads or tie clothes around their heads ever since they were babies. And so their heads would grow in a very weird shape, and they used to think that this was healthy for them or something. And and they also had this weird thing that men would consummate with women regardless of their relationship from they would consummate with women from a certain age, and they would say that all of the children of the tribe are their children so that there was equality among them. Of course, it's wrong, but I mean, to them that was perfectly natural and they didn't see anything wrong with that and that's how their society used to function.

I think the tribe's name was the Heruli or the Eruli. I'm not sure if I remember the name correctly, but I did read it somewhere.

That's for, like, Central Asia. Right?

Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. I I did I did actually stumble upon that a while ago. I do remember. I have to remember about that.

That specific tribe?

The custom of dropping their heads?

Yeah. And in relation to that, I think it was mentioned in the history of Herodotus, I just remembered right now, that the king of the Persians, he had an envoy from the Greeks and another envoy from India. And the Indians back then, it was their custom to eat their dead. That's how they would use to honor their dead. The Greeks on the others on the other side would burn their dead.

And so the Persian king would he the story goes that he asked the the Greeks, would you eat your dead? And the story said that they were utterly disgusted at the at the at the mention of the fact, like, why would they eat their dead? And then he asked the Indians, would you guys burn your dead? And they were equally disgusted by the fact that they would burn their dead instead of eating them because they thought that they're by eating them, they would, you know, revive them in themselves or something. And so in that particular instance, heraldatives would say that and thus different peoples have different customs and custom, I think, is God or something like that, that to each people, their custom is their ultimate belief.

You know, that really made me think of there's a famous lecture on YouTube by by that political scientist, Roy Casagrande from from The US, where he talks about the the Aztecs. And, you know, regarding the customs, when we are in the twenty first century read about the human sacrifice that they, know, the the ritual they performed, naturally we feel disgusted. But then, you know, the professor explained, really excusing the act, but explained the reasons why they did that, You know, how that there was a shortage of animal protein because they didn't really, you know, have enough of it that the diet was, you know, based on corn. Right? So, you know, even though it was disgusting, there was still there was still some reasoning behind it and they did it sparingly, like, you know, once a year.

And and then he contrasted that to to what the Spanish did once they entered the area, you know, and all the massacres and slaughters they committed. And, you know, a present day European, you know, doesn't really think too much about, you know, the Spanish and the way they conducted themselves in The Americas. But he or she would have a great contempt and discussed for what the Aztecs did. So it really goes to show that if you want to discuss history, you need to understand and appreciate the civilization you're talking about, to understand why they did certain things. And I suppose in this instance, the professor employed or rather took heed of the advice of Ibn Khaldun.

Right?

Anyway Contextualization.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So that's what I was going with, and you you summarized it in one word. Thank you.

Another thing that I'd like to to discuss, I know I'm I'm jumping from from section to section, but there's a lot to cover. There is a section in this introduction where he talks about historical changes and how they occur. Basically, the author discusses this, you know, this proverb that says the common people follow the religion of the ruler. Okay, or you know, the deen, the the way of doing things. And he goes on to say, when politically ambitious men overcome the ruling dynasty and seize power, they inevitably have recourse to the customs of their predecessors and adopt most of them.

At the same time, they do not neglect the customs of their own race. This leads to some discrepancies between the customs of the new ruling dynasty and the customs of the old race. The new power, in turn, is taken over by another dynasty, and customs are further mixed with those of the new dynasty. More discrepancies come in so that the contrast between the new dynasty and the first one is much greater than that between the second and the first one. Gradual increase in the decree of discrepancy continues.

The eventual result is an altogether distinct set of customs and institutions. As long as there is this continued succession of different races to royal authority and government, changes in customs and institutions will not cease to occur. What do we make of this? How can we understand this?

I'm sorry to interject. History is a topic dear to my heart, so I would be going back and forth with you a lot on this topic if you don't mind. No

need to apologize at all.

So I think it refers to the strength of the conquered peoples, culturally speaking. Because if the conquered peoples do have a strong culture, a comprehensive culture, the the the ruler who was usually a bit on the he's not up to date. He and the army are not usually up to date with the sophistications of the city that they just conquered. This is actually something that Ibn Khaldun refers to a lot, the and the, like, the the the people of the desert and the people of the of the city. And that the people of the desert are always they're much more hardened than the people of the city, and they're less sophisticated in terms of the luxuries of life that they are presented with.

And so, naturally, the the the culture of the city will always be sophisticated, comprehensive, and dominating even if they were militarily defeated. And so the the the the ruler who comes to to to to rule the city will inevitably have to drown, so to speak, in the in the in this dominant culture that he is now ruling in order to be able to to move things about and to shake things about to to move I mean, to to have the people comply. So in a way, they they minimally defeat him by forcing him to comply with their culture. I think an example of that is the the the the Mongols when they conquered Iraq and and Iran in the think it was the I I always get messed up. I think it it's the thirteenth century, like, and so and and and his descendants.

And so they conquered Iraq and Iran, which were deeply, deeply sophisticated Muslim societies that had their own institutions and their had they had their own and they had their own culture. And so after a while, those Mongols, they had to adopt Islam, and they started their own Muslim dynasties. The same thing, I think, could not be said about Egypt or The Levant because they they didn't they didn't succeed in in taking those. So more or less, the the ruler was part of the culture. But in Iraq and Iran, no, they adopted Islam, and they had their own dynasties, which had and and this new culture had a mix of the Mongol culture and the Muslim culture.

And so it was the dominant culture up to the the point where the Soviets came, I think, or something like that. And so, yeah, I think this was an example of cultures mixing between the ruler and the and the ruled.

And to what extent? I mean, I'm not very familiar with our region. I mean, how much knowledge and heritage was lost when the Mongols took over? I mean, is that something historians write about? I mean, obviously, a lot, but in the in the hearts of people and the way people lived.

The Mongol invasion of Asia was, of course, it was a it was a catastrophe. It was devastating. I mean, I think when I don't remember the writer. I think it was in the or someone like that. He he he essentially wrote that the Mongol invasion of the Muslim lands was like, I'm now writing the obituary of Islam.

Who who would write who would want to write that? Because it it is such was the degree of devastation that, you know, entire cities were razed and books were burned or thrown into rivers. And we all know the famous stories. I mean, Bukhara, Samarkand, Maru, Baghdad, those were all beacons of light. And I do not say this in an exaggerating word because I'm a Muslim, and I'm just trying to project power in our past.

No. This was the these were facts on the ground. These cities were beacons of of science and light in their day. And so they were all raised into ground to the ground. Again, going back to the point by Khadun about the the Baddawan and Hadarah, that the people of the desert are hardened, and the Mongols were very, very hardened people.

And those those cities were extremely sophisticated in terms of life and luxuries and so on and so forth. And so they couldn't resist the the the the overwhelming power of the Mongols. And so, yeah, a lot of knowledge was lost and to the point that the Muslim scientists, the they said that we are now going to close Bab El Istihad. We're we're not going to to to think about new right now because we want to sustain the the the social fabric, and we want to keep things as they are and to preserve the as much as we can. And and it it you know, some of the the the beacon the beaconing of light transferred from Central Asia to the Levant and to Egypt, especially because it was the last stronghold for Islam back then, and it wasn't invaded by the Mongols.

And so, you know, the the the culture the cultural powerhouse, you can say, shifted from Central Asia and from Iran and Iraq and westwards towards Cairo. To what extent it affected the knowledge itself, the closing of Babbel HD Head, and the transfer of the powerhouse of culture. I I I don't know much details about that much more details about that, I mean.

Yeah, thank you, brother. That was quite helpful, actually. I suppose we can talk a little bit about the colonial rule. I mean, the rule is probably not the best way to describe it, the colonial subjugation of Muslim lands is closer to the present day. I mean, obviously, we know that whenever the the new ruler takes over, they do change things a little bit even if it is in the form of soft power.

You know? They they impose certain values, they, you know, change the language, or they they alter something in the fabric of the society. So to what extent did Muslim lands change under colonial rule, for example? Because I guess that's we can relate the most to that example.

You mean modern colonial rule or

Yeah, I'm talking like, you know, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth century.

Well, I mean, speaking from my own experience here in Egypt, I mean, there were certain topics that were not even subject to discussion before colonial rule that suddenly came to the forefront because the colonizers assumed that they knew everything. Of course, they knew nothing, and that they wanted and that they had in their mission to this mission to enlighten, so to speak, the colonized lands and to force them to their own way of life and their own social norms. And so topics about, you know, in Islam, a man is allowed to marry for women under certain conditions. Women have modest wear. It's not looked very kindly upon or it's frowned upon to wear different or a bit revealing clothes or something like that.

And, you know, we have that in certain cases and not old cases, a man would inherit twice as much as a woman if they have the same father and mother and the father died for some, for example. So topics like these would go up in flames essentially and it and all of this happened immediately after the colonizer left because during their time colonizing this or that country, they would make it their mission to to attack these gibbons, let's call them, and they would say that, oh my god. How do you how do you not allow women to to go out and and wear that kind of thing or this kind of thing? Or why do you not allow women to to inherit as much as men? Or how is it possible that a man can get married to four women at once?

And essentially devastating the social fabric of the society because after that, people would not really understand what's the source of their conviction? Is it the norms that were brought by the colonizer who had been, you know, devastating, culturally speaking, their social norms for as long as they they were colonized, different examples across the the region, or their own social norms that have been deeply, deeply, deeply carved and, you know, maligned because of the colonizer and that were now being advocated by the social the the religious the religious elite who are fighting waging a war against these social norms that were brought by the colonizer and thinking that they are now in a very tight very tight corner. And so I would say that the the the that this dissociation and this confusion and this, you know, feeling of of of being lost immediately after the colonizer left. Because, I mean, twenty to thirty years later, things started again to to return back to normal. I mean, people returned to religion or returned to being, you know, in middle, like, in the middle nation.

But immediately or during the colonizer, no. It was it was very it there was a sense of being lost, a sense of being, I don't know what to do, where do I what's my moral ground, what's my cultural ground?

And is there a way to compare that to what we have today where, you know, these big superpowers through trade, soft power, through cultural pressure can change the way our entire nations think about themselves and think about the world.

You mean other than the West, of course? China or You're talking about China and Russia and those?

Yes. I mean like because obviously in the case of the West, we're talking primarily Europe and The United States. You know, whenever they and we talked about this in previous content talks. Whenever they give aid, it is always with strings attached, you know. Like, can we notice that in the workings of other countries, Muslim countries?

You mentioned Asian countries as well.

I'm I'm not sure I I I have much information about that. I do not believe that those countries, those superpowers are forcing some cultural norms in exchange for the aid that they are giving, much like the West does. And I think brother Shahid can may be able to expand upon upon that much more. But I do not believe that China, for example, would put conditions on on any country that it makes a trade with that it trades with that you have to to be Buddhist or something like that. They simply know, and it's within their, you know, Yanny, within their scope that you have your culture and I have my culture.

And as long as we do business together and no one is harmed, then so be it. I don't I don't need to force you to do something. If you do come to my country, then you have to comply with my culture, which is which and that is normal everywhere in the world. But this projection or forcing of culture upon remote countries and the feeling that I have the burden of enlightening others, I do not believe that those new superpowers or emerging superpowers have that philosophy.

Well, think that if you're talking about China, for example, they definitely don't have the same domination approach as the West, as America or Europe. But they are a very insular nation. They're very insular. And yet they are reaching out to different parts of the world and they are interacting with other cultures. They themselves would like to interact with other cultures as little as possible even when they're doing that in another country.

So they generally do have a a sort of a hands off and an indifference to whatever your culture is. It's it's it's similar in a way to the expansion of Islam where we weren't really interested in whatever your cultural practices are within your country, whatever your etiquette is, whatever your traditions are, as long as they don't contradict with Islam. So when when Muslims expanded, you you see that many sort of localized customs and localized traditions and localized cultures remained, and that's the case until today. That's why people talk about there isn't a monolithic practice of Islam or observance of Islam around the world. There's all different cultural practices that have been allowed to continue.

I think the Chinese are very much this way as well. It it has more to do with the fact that they're they're just very insular with regards to their own culture. Now it has to be considered though, I don't know if this is really really touches upon anything from Ibn Khaldun, but the Chinese are investing in countries that have already been ransacked by the West. So it's not as if the Chinese are now interacting with already sovereign, powerful, whole independent countries. They're dealing with countries that have already been ransacked, already been pillaged, have already been weakened, and will maybe already even have an instinct to placate and to appease and to be obsequious with a more powerful player in their country.

So not necessarily that the Chinese will require that, but it is something that is has is a learned reflex of oppressed people, to try to deal with, you know, a powerful force that has come into your country, that's more powerful than you and it's very important to you, for example, to deal with them in a in a potentially an obsequious way. I don't think the Chinese are requiring that of anybody. But I think that overall it's it's definitely healthier. It's definitely less aggressive. It's definitely less.

There's less erasure of a local culture as a result of the the the approach that the Chinese are taking. But there's just, there's the sort of indirect cultural changes that will happen as a result of, for example, you have more people who can speak Mandarin in Africa than you ever had before. People learning Mandarin because it's because again, the Chinese are very insular. So if you wanna deal with them, it's extremely beneficial if you can speak their language. So, you know, these kinds of things will happen.

And then trying to understand the Chinese culture will will happen. You know, to what you you can argue to what extent that that that represents a compromise in your own culture. Just trying to understand and relate to a more dominant society. But I I don't I from from what I have seen, I don't believe that the Chinese are really trying to enforce any particular cultural changes on any of the countries in which they're investing in So

I I suppose we can actually talk a little bit about the the the value of generalizing. Thank you. Because when even says, you know, we need to understand the differences among nations, places, etcetera. And he goes on to say about character qualities, customs, obviously, as well. So to to some extent, I suppose, must be we must be we must generalize.

Now this word, generalization, from what I can see, has a lot of negative connotations in contemporary discourse. Right? Like we are constantly told not to generalize, know, to approach every individual as an individual, right? So how much value is there in generalizing people, nations, and how important is it in studying history?

Well, I mean, in this modern world I'm not sure if generalizing would suffice because now have the structure, the political structure itself is different. You cannot say that you have a certain rule or law that you have to apply that you can apply to everything and everyone. I mean, I myself find it extremely difficult to have this, you know, steps that I can walk through and reach a certain conclusion because the variables the variables are simply so much so many. And differences between nations, the Asian nations within themselves, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, I don't I I I know they have this Asian, you know, the the Asian way of life, like the the hardworking people's honest and so on and so forth. But that's as far as you can go.

Each country has its own conditions which are affected by the religion of this country, the society of people living in this country. Colonization, of course, had its own played its own part. And the same thing can even be said about, the Middle East right now. I mean, the Khaleid lead a a way of life that's different from The Levant, different from Egypt, different from North Africa. And so these cultures, they were already different before the advent of the colonizer end.

After the colonizer left, again they even evolved in a much, much different way. So I'm not sure if generalizing is even a suitable tool right now. Historically speaking, you could generalize some cultures, some cultural norms, some military tactics or military campaigns that this nation did not do. But I think Marshall Hutchinson used to say that even historically speaking in the spectrum of cultures, you have to give every civilization a bit of uniqueness. You cannot simply brush them all with the same brush because they did have major differences between them.

And so you have to study each culture in relation to other cultures and you have to treat it as a unique culture, you cannot generalize.

Personally I think generalization is inevitable, it's unavoidable. I think the question, brother Nihil, itself is a bit too general. You know, it depends on it it it depends obviously on how you're using it. If you are if it's an informed generalization, which is basically the same as collating data and arriving at an average and saying that, you know, based on multiple experiences, multiple studies, multiple research and so forth, significant research and so forth, this is generally true of this people or this is generally true of this nation, this is generally true of this so called civilization, what have you. I I I don't think it's it's something that can be avoided, but obviously it has to be I mean, Ibn Khaldun himself makes many many generalizations throughout his book about different peoples.

I mean, one thing stands out, it's been a long time actually I read Moqaddimah, it's probably twenty years or more. I remember him talking about people of hotter climates tend to be a certain way, tend to have a certain approach to life, and tend to be have a certain attitude and personalities and so forth and character traits and so on. This is a massive generalization. Obviously, in any generalize in any generalization that you use there will be exceptions, But I think it's inevitable and and it's the way that we generally approach life anyway is through sort of generalizations about people, about people from different countries or different nationalities and so on. I think it's it's inevitable, but you have to it has to be an informed generalization.

It has to be based on information and not based on a lack of information or lack of experience and just propaganda, for example. And you always have to leave room for for exceptions. But I don't think that it's possible to actually approach life without operating in some way or another on the basis of generalizations.

Yeah, I think because it relates to the fact that we like to label things, We as human beings, mean. We like to put things in order and in order to put things in order, we have to have certain boxes and to put each and everything in a certain box so that we can interact with this or that thing or this or that culture. And so we have this very fitra of tending to look for the similarities and saying, Okay, so we can make this or that general statement. And the very few are the people who actually have a keen eye for the differences, for the subtle differences and say that, okay, while this or that is a general statement, but you have to be aware or you have to be careful that this culture is different from that culture in in the terms of this and that aspect of social norms and so on and so forth.

Sure, absolutely. I mean, you can I can just give you sort of an example of a generalization that is true and then a generalization that is not true and that was thought to be true and became a mistake? There was an Egyptian who went to Singapore and he thought because he he well, he's Egyptian but he grew he grew up in in the West, he grew up in in America. Growing up in America made him think everybody likes hamburgers. This is just the thing that everybody likes, there's no one who doesn't like hamburgers.

So he started a hamburger place, all, you know, all, what do you call, you know, organic ingredients and so forth, it was like real hamburgers, not McDonald's, it was like proper burgers. And his business completely failed because that's not the cuisine that people like in the region. Everybody everybody in the region, a generalization that is true is that everybody likes to eat rice, they like to eat chicken, they like eggs, they like these kinds of foods. And your generalization that everybody likes burgers is maybe a true generalization in America and it would work there, but it's not a generalization that works here, and the generalization here is that everybody eats rice, And they like it, and they're not looking for something different. So, I mean, you do have to make, you you know, generalizations, but again, they have to be informative generalizations.

Thank you for the the insights. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, whenever I read and this might be a bit off topic, but whenever I read novels written by, you know, authors of the past, I I actually come across many, many, many stereotypes and generalizations and whatnot, which is fine for a novel. Right?

But if you want to engage in historical discussions, then obviously, you have to take everything with a with a grain of salt. I'd like now to move to what what I think would be nice final point to discuss. It doesn't have to do much with the nature of, you know, of history. And, I mean, it's not particularly relevant to this segment, but the author does briefly mention how importance how important is group feeling. I think the the Arabic term is Asabir.

Right? For a particular dynasty to thrive and to rule well over a nation and how the nation that loses that group feeling ultimately fails and, you know, succumbs to external pressure. The example he gives is the late stage Arab states in in Spain. Right? And he mentions that they lost that group of feeling, and, you know, they they became completely subservient to their Spanish well, at that time neighbors and, you know, de facto rulers.

So, I mean, we are taught today and, you know, looking at it, I mean, most of us received in some way or another, you know, a type of Western education. We are told that tribalism is bad and how how we should abandon that group feeling and, you know, think for ourselves. How can we I mean, how do we understand the importance or is it important to have this group feeling in in one nation? And, you know, is it is it the same as nationalism as, you know, deranged patriotism and whatnot?