Khaldun and the Bedouin - The End of a Way of Life

1 of 10 Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life Angela Kay Harris American Military University (APUS) [email protected] Anyone who has ever watched a movie set in the deserts of the Middle East has probably seen the exotic, but familiar representation of the area’s nomads. These nomads, known as Bedouins, are almost always shown in traditional dress and riding camels through the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert. While this image of the precarious lifestyle of the Bedouin may have been accurate at some point in time, with the incursion of modernity, expanding cities, and the complications of living such a close and isolated lifestyle, this nomadic group ma y be slowly slipping into the annals of time. The medieval writer Ibn Khaldun might be one of the most important people to have ever documented the sociology and history of the Muslim people. Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis in 1332 and, having been born into a family of scholars and politicians, was well educated (Hozien). He spent more than five months writing the introduction to his famous book about universal history (Hozien). This impressive introduction is known as The Maqaddimah: An Introduction to History and is a compilation of Khaldun’s great wisdom, experience and includes much of his personal knowledge about the nomadic and tribal Bedouin people. While Khaldun discusses many different topics in his Introduction, it is his discourse Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 2 of 10 concerning the social structures of tribal cultures that is some of his most interesting work. The Bedouins, who were originally a nomadic, tribal culture from the northern deserts of the Middle East, were considered by Khaldun to be more courageous and hardy than the Arabs who chose to become farmers and citydwellers. He believes that this is because the Bedouin have had to adapt to the extreme conditions and climate of the desert (Khaldun II.1.1). Because the Bedouin way of life forces them to live a life of bare subsistence, filled with constant exercise and a more natural, unprocessed diet of mainly meat, Khaldun sees them as much stronger than sedentary groups, like the Berbers who eat highly processed foods and partake of very little physical activity (Khaldun I. 5.3). This life of extremes means that the Bedouin would naturally be a hardier people because any weaker children or genetics would have been weeded out long ago due to the fact that they would not have been able to survive such harsh conditions. This natural weeding out of the weakest genes would have left only the strongest and most adaptive genetics to be passed on to future generations. The Bedouin are also adapted to desert life because they are traditionally herders by trade and cities do not offer the necessary vast, expansive areas that are required in order to support the grazing of large herds of animals. Because of this, the Bedouin have evolved sociologically in such a way as to survive and thrive in nomadic desert groups. Since the deserts of the Middle East are unable to support large groups of people or animals for any length of time, the Bedouin are constantly moving themselves and their animals from place to place searching for Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 3 of 10 grazing and water sources. As this type of existence is more primitive and based more on survival than on the acquisition of wealth, Khaldun believes that the Bedouin are the more natural form of tribal existence, having been around long before the farming lifestyle of sedentary Arabs who live within cities and towns (Khaldun I.5.3). It is Khaldun’s conjecture that when a nomadic culture can supply themselves with more wealth and material items than what they would need in order to survive at the basic level of existence, causes such people to “rest and take it easy” (Khaldun II.1.1). The behaviors and changing lifestyle of the Bedouin who are now living in cities and towns are proving that Khaldun was correct and this can be seen by the way that the now sedentary Bedouin men and women spend much of their t ime. The lifestyle change of living in a modern and sedentary society has resulted in Bedouin men spending much of their time sitting around watching television and drinking tea and coffee because there is nothing available for them to do that they are qualified for (Bora 56). When they were nomadic herders, the men had no need for any form of higher education, but this lack of education is now the reason why there is such a high unemployment rate among city-dwelling Bedouins. In addition to this, by not spending time outside the home with other men, Bedouin males are not developing and strengthening the tribal relationships that they need in order to help their families thrive. Nomadic Bedouin women, though, traditionally spent most of their time at home taking care of all the responsibilities involving the dwelling, children and livestock. It is tending to such chores as herding and gathering firewood and water Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 4 of 10 that gives them a feeling of importance and belonging, the chance to mingle with other women, and also helps to strengthen their social ties. Because they have left behind their nomadic lifestyle and have replaced it with a sedentary one living in towns and cities, Bedouin women now spend much of their time confined in their homes because there are no longer any outdoor chores that they are required to do (Gardner). This means that they are losing any connections and social ties that they would have made while they were still nomadic and gives them nothing to do with the over-abundance of free time they now find themselves with. In this sense, Khaldun was correct; the sedentary lifestyle has caused the once nomadic Bedouins to become “used to laziness and ease” (Khaldun II.5.1). They no longer have to hunt or defend themselves, their herds or their property against rival tribes, but instead rely on the protection of living within the city walls and the police to keep them safe. Just as Khaldun theorized, a group of people do become overly trusting and eventually lose their “natural (disposition)” (Khaldun II.5.1), when they turn from their nomadic lifestyle towards one of sedentary city dwelling. Ibn Khaldun also wrote about how some sedentary people choose to find some craft to support themselves and their families, while others turn towards commerce for their income (Khaldun II.1.1). In the case of the Bedouin, their choice of how to earn an income came about because of the changes in the way that the different genders interact with one another and contribute to their families and tribes. This means that the burden of income has been placed on the shoulders of the Bedouin women and girls. Since Bedouin men have not been educated in a Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 5 of 10 manner that gives them much of an advantage in seeking gainful employment in the ‘modern’ world, their wives and daughters have to take on the non -patriarchal role of being the main wage earner for the family. Even though they are no longer in charge of tending the livestock or weaving cloth for clothes and tents, Bedouin women and their daughters are using these same four thousand year old skills to create rugs, pillows and wall hangings to sell in order to support their families (Mort 46). Although they have taken on the wage earning skills of other sedentary groups, the Bedouin have not made it to the point where they are actually living a better or richer life now that they have become city dwellers, as Khaldun claimed would happen (Khaldun II.1.1). In fact, the Bedouin are actually poorer in some ways than they were when they were nomadic mainly because they have not adapted to the sedentary lifestyle. But, this adaptation may come in time and then the Bedouin will be practically indistinguishable from any of the other ci ty dwelling people around them. When Khaldun wrote that the goal of the Bedouin was to become urbanized; entering a more leisurely lifestyle and submitting “himself to the yoke of the city” (Khaldun II.3.1), he was predicting that this change among the Bedouin would indeed happen and he is once again being proven correct. Khaldun’s theory concerning the role of asabiyah or ‘group feeling’ among the Bedouin is also very insightful and his assertion that the conquered will inevitably become like their conquerors over time is definitely beginning to prove true (Khaldun II.7.1-12; II.22.1-6). Because of their assimilation into the modern world that is closing in around them and their own culture and marriage practices, Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 6 of 10 the Bedouin culture is slowly beginning to disappear. Khaldun’s theory that a culture is completely lost within four generations after a family or group is incorporated into a different cultural group is proving all too clear for the Bedouins of today. With the death of their tribal elders, city-dwelling Bedouin families are discovering that their own children and grandchildren are no longer willing to live according to tribal traditions and are becoming nearly indistinguishable from the generations of non-Bedouins that they reside among (Khaldun II.14.4-5). All that is happening to the city-dwelling Bedouin fits in with Khaldun’s claims that a sedentary lifestyle is the “last stage of a civilization and the point where it begins to decay” (Khaldun II.4.2). This is because he is saying that once a group of people become sedentary and live in cities, their society is on its way to wards extinction and this can be seen in those Bedouins who are no longer nomadic. These families are quickly losing their identity and are becoming more and more like those around them. It will not be long before they will no longer be identified as Bedouin at all and will become indistinguishable from any other Arab, thus their civilization is in a state of decay and quickly nearing extinction. The loss of their culture and social structure is not the only thing that modern Bedouins are facing because of their conversion from a nomadic, tribal lifestyle to a sedentary one. According to Khaldun, a group will lose their feeling of solidarity and protectiveness without close blood ties (Khaldun II.8.1), and this can be seen in the marriage habits of today’s Bedouin. Because of their century’s old tradition of marrying within the family, Bedouins are now running out of options that are in accordance to their established rules. This is causing some families to have to Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 7 of 10 search outside their own tribe and culture in order to find people willing to marry their youngsters. Some Bedouins have even begun to look for a spouse among Non-Bedouin Arabs and European tourists, including some who are not Muslim (Kraft 1). Khaldun writes that “purity of lineage is found only among the savage Arabs of the desert and other such people” (Khaldun II.9.1), and that no person would want to go back to the hardships of desert life once they had lived an easy, sedentary lifestyle. He also claims that it is this hard, desert life which helps to keep the Bedouin bloodlines pure and unmixed with those of other Arab groups (Khaldun II.9.1). Since many Bedouin are no longer desert nomads, Khaldun’s claims would help to explain why they are losing their pure lineage and are beginning to marry non-Bedouins, both Arab and European. They are no longer living in harsh and secluded desert conditions that non-Bedouins would not want to be a part of, thus they have other choices in the people they can marry. The fact that Bedouin men are now living in cities and marrying women that are not members of their family or tribe may account for the loss of solidarity and group feeling among modern Bedouins today. This may be because, as Khaldun claims, there is strong correlation between group feeling and blood ties (Khaldun II.8.1). The lack of blood ties among their younger generations may well be the reason that many town-dwelling Bedouin are no longer interacting together as a group or tribe. Since they no longer have blood ties with one another, they are losing the group feeling or feeling of oneness that helps to hold them together. Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 8 of 10 Another complication brought about by the loss of blood ties and a group feeling is the lack of affection and protectiveness a person or group feels for those that are a part of their tribe or family. Khaldun writes that when a person no longer has anyone to take care of that is related to them, they seldom feel the need to protect or care about those people around them (Khaldun II.7.8). He claims that such people are not able to live in the desert because they would be quickly captured or destroyed by any group that may want to conquer them, as there would be no one who would want to help protect them. Since the city-dwelling Bedouins are losing their blood ties and are marrying outside of their culture, they are also losing their ability to live in the desert. This is resulting in a rapid destruction of the traditional Bedouin lifestyle and culture. After centuries of being a proud, socially bound, nomadic group, the Bedouins are becoming the victims of their own asabiyah. Since they can no longer continue to exist as a nomadic desert tribe with a centuries old code of behavior, the Bedouin must become urbanized in order to find a way to prolong their existence. But, the price the Bedouin are paying for that continuation is the loss of their culture, their customs, and their identity. They are, in fact, slowly being forced to emulate those around them, becoming more like modern Arabs and less like traditional Bedouins. Due to their own behavioral codes and the incursion of the modern world, the once great Bedouin people may no longer exist within a few more generations. Ibn Khaldun had enough insight to understand that humans are not the product of some inherent disposition, character or temperament, but are rather Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 9 of 10 created through the customs and conditions he or she has grown used to (Khaldun II.5.2). This type of change is exactly what is now happening to the modern Bedouin. Today’s Bedouin are losing their “natural disposition” (Khaldun II.5.2), because they are becoming accustomed to different conditions than what they have been used to for many, many generations. They are living in cities and towns under the conditions and laws of others and their children are growing up as members of this type of society. The habits and customs of the sedentary city-dwellers are now becoming those of the modern Bedouin since they have started living within cities and adopting the lifestyle of other non-nomadic groups of people. Because of all of these types of changes, the Bedouin’s way of life, their traditions, and their culture is disappearing quickly. Many Bedouin children have been born and raised under the laws and conditions of the sedentary Arabs whose towns they now live in and these children are nearly indistinguishable from any other Arab around them. When their parents and grandparents have died, there will be no Bedouins left who have not been influenced by the sedentary Arabs they now live among and the Bedouin will no longer exist as a cultural group. It would appear that Ibn Khaldun was not only insightful about the structure and evolution of the Bedouin people, but that he was almost predictive in his descriptions of their eventual conversion to a sedentary lifestyle. Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris 10 of 10 Works Cited Bora, Daniele. "Bedouins of the Holy Land.” Middle East 01 Aug. 2006: Research Library, ProQuest. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. Gardner, Ann. “Reflections on Fieldwork Among the Sinai Bedouin Women.” sherryart.com. SherryArt, 1995. Web. 19 Feb. 2011. Hozien, Muhammad. “Ibn Khaldun – His Life and Work.” muslimphilosophy.com. Muslim Philosophy, 27 Jan. 2007. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. Khaldun, Ibn. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Trans. Franz Rosenthal. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1989. eBook file. Kraft, Dina. "A Hunt for Genes That Betrayed a Desert People.” New York Times 21 Mar. 2006, Late Edition (East Coast): National Newspaper Abstracts (3), ProQuest. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. Mort, Jo-Ann. "Bedouin women weave tradition, economics together.” Washington Jewish Week 11 Dec. 2008, ProQuest Religion, ProQuest. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. Khaldun and the Bedouin: The End of a Way of Life A. Harris