Ibn Khaldun, the great North African thinker and philosopher believed that the state has its foundation on one of the two great moral principles; the sense of Oneness or Group Mind, Asabiya and religion. The State as such is the natural result of human life which requires association and organization; “human association is necessary,” the philosopher expresses this saying, “man is a citizen by nature”.
Mutual help is necessary to satisfy man’s need for food, clothing and housing and man must unite with many of his kind to secure his protection and defense. Experience forces man to associate with others and experience, together with reflections, enables man to live. In addition to this rational explanation Ibn Khaldun states that “this association is necessary for mankind, otherwise their existence and God’s will to make the world habitable with them would not be perfect”. Simply, Ibn Khaldun is of the opinion that religion is the only one of the binding forces which helps in the formation of a state.
The great philosopher, Ibn Khaldun says in his writings that the function of the state is one of supreme importance for it compromises all the worldly good and is the end-all of human desires. It is essential, to exercise sovereignty over others, the states fight against another and create empires. As time passes, the original idea of Group-mind gives place to habitual obedience to common ruler who is considered to be spiritual and secular overload, and it so happens that a royal house succeeds in ruling the people by force who have by now lost all Group sense. He is convinced that a community with a strong Group sense can never be over-powered by any human beings.
According to Abn Khaldun, religion plays a vital role in the affiliation of scattered groups of society and conception of a Group mind deeply develops for mutual existence and help. It is natural that a religious mission cannot achieve success without the existence of a Group mind among the missionaries. If the desired end is achieved and mission is successful, it doubtlessly strengthens the state but it is by no means necessary for the existence of a state to have a prop of religion, although religion itself may prove to be a great incentive towards the creation of Asabiya.
Abn Khaldun believes, “A civilized state comes into being through the establishment of conquest of cities by primitive people welded together by solidarity and religion and aiming at the satisfaction of their natural desires, the actualization of their potentialities, and the completion of the life began in primitive culture. As is the case with other aspects of civilized culture, once a civilized state comes into being, it follows the natural and necessary law of growth, maturity and decline. If not retarded by the lack of necessary initial force or some other accidental hindrance from outside, it passes through five distinct stages, each of which has its own essential attributes.”
During the period of establishment, solidarity based upon familiarities and religions continues to be essential for the preservation of the state. This is the period during which the ruler forces the ruled to build the institution necessary for a civilized culture or when such a culture is already in existence to submit to a new ruling class. There are, thus, new activities to be carried out and new political relations to be created.
These cannot be accomplished except through a solidarity which generates sufficient power to force the subject to accept the directions for the ruler. When aided by religion, solidarity becomes more effective in establishing the state; since the subjects will then obey the ruler and his directives and are more willingly convinced that in doing so they are praying to God.
The second stage in the development of the period of consolidating the ruler’s power is to create absolute kingship. Natural solidarity and religion are checked so far as they mean the sharing of power and are used at the discretion of the absolute ruler. Solidarity is replaced by a paid army, and an organized administrative bureaucracy, that carry out his wishes. Natural solidarity becomes increasingly superfluous. The people generally acquire the habit obeying their new ruler. The impersonal organization of the army and the bureaucracy take care of the protection of the state and the development of the various institutions of a civilized culture.
As the ruler’s lust and aggrandizement for attaining absolute power is satisfied with the full concentration of authority in his hands, he begins to use his authority for the satisfaction of his other desires, in other words, he starts to ‘collect the fruit of authority’. Thus a third stage of luxury and leisure follows. The ruler concentrates on the organization of the finances of the state and goes on increasing his income. He spends lavishly on public works and on beautifying the cities in imitation of famous civilized states. He enriches his followers who, in turn, start living a luxurious life. Economic progress and propriety usher a new era of development, which satisfies the increasing desires of the ruler.
The first three stages are powerful, independent and creative; they are able to consolidate their authority and satisfy the subjects becoming the slaves of these desires. The economic prosperity they achieve is the expression of their power and it is used by them to increase their followers. Having reached its zenith, the next stage is a period of contentment in which the ruler and the ruled are satisfied and complacent. They imitate their predecessors in enjoying the pleasure of life and how their predecessors struggled to achieve them. They think that they continue to exit forever.
However, during this period, the state is already starting to decline and disintegrate and the fifth and last stage of waste and prodigality is setting in. The state has reached old age and is deemed to be slow or nearing death. The very process of establishing it had destroyed the vital forces of solidarity and religion that were responsible for its existence. The rulers had destroyed the communal pride and loyalty of their kinsmen who, humiliated and impoverished, have lost the drive to conquer. Instead, they and a bureaucracy whose services are completely dependent on generous remuneration and whose loyalty does not extend to willingness to die for them. Thus, the fifth phase is one of the extravagance and waste, which results in the decline of the state.