ABSTRACT
A simple and forceful effect of Ibn Khaldun’s view on what he understood by Asabiyyah is that it lays the foundation for understanding the processes of social structuring from emotions, and thereby initiates the genealogy of a set of looks that today, implicitly or explicitly, recover the “group feeling” as an interpretative key to the constitution of society.
Khaldun is responsible for drawing up a history of social change and state changes in the “Islamic world” based on making clear how affective ties between families, family associations, and rulers were the key to the inquiry into, and explanation of, these changes.
The profuse literature on the content and legacy of Ibn Khaldun encourages the thought that his contributions to jurisprudence, history, theory of the state, anthropology and sociology are intimately associated with his view of the specific weight of group feelings as a horizon for understanding the changes that have occurred in societies over time.
The aim of this chapter is to rebuild Khaldun’s place as “classic of the sociology of emotions”. Among the many possibilities for achieving this goal we have chosen to divide the chapter into two parts, consisting of: (a) an introduction and summary presentation of the meaning of Asabiyyah in the construction of the history made by our author in The Muqaddimah, and (b) a systematic reflection on the weight of group feelings as a state theory.
While the two sides travel somewhat different paths, they converge in the interest of pointing out the bonds of group feelings as the explanatory factor of what Khaldun calls civilization, and through it, establishing his place in the sociology of emotions.
