Ibn Khaldun and the Kurdish State: Memory and Tribal Experience
Let me begin by outlining some crucial background data:
For Muslim Arabs, the experience of a permanent and constitutive state began with the Prophet Muhammad.
The year was 622. In Medina, the first political-legal Islamic state was established. This structure possessed military, administrative, and legal characteristics – it was a fully-fledged state. Simply put, the practice of state-building for Arabs occurred in the first half of the 7th century…
During the reign of the Four Caliphs, the state evolved into a central political structure that transcended Arab tribal divisions. The umayyads and then the Abbasids continued this trajectory…
The Arab experience with statehood isn’t simply about “having established a state in the past”; how the state was established, how it was governed, and how it collapsed all contribute to a powerful collective memory.
This political memory encompasses questions like:
– What problems arise when establishing a state?
– How does one balance central authority with regional needs?
– Where do the boundaries between religion and politics lie?
– How does one manage rebellion, opposition, and maintain legitimacy?
Looking at the situation in Syria through this lens, we see that Arabs established a state early on, and the state consistently preserved it’s memory.
Conversely, the Kurds remained outside of state structures until the modern period, and their experience with nation-building was very late and fragmented – exemplified by the 11-month Mahabad Kurdish Republic in Iran or the autonomy achieved in Iraq. In essence, the Kurds were unable to establish an independent state or move beyond a tribal-principal system…
Let me elaborate on my point:
THE REAL PROBLEM OF THE KURDS
Damascus, alongside cities like Rome, Athens, and Beijing, is one of the cities with the longest historical memory of state centralization in the world - a history spanning three thousand years.
Damascus has navigated numerous pivotal moments. For example, when it served as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to Central Asia was governed from within its walls. Damascus’s identity as a “center of state” was established on a global scale…
Why couldn’t the Kurds achieve statehood while the Arabs have maintained a state experience for fourteen centuries?
This difference isn’t attributable to race, religion, or inherent “ability”; rather, it’s explained entirely by social association and the change of “asabiyya” into political form.
Asabiyya is a concept of social solidarity that begins with blood ties but can expand around political goals.
The state represents the highest political form of asabiyya…