''Ibn Khaldun's Understanding of Civilizations and the Dilemas of Islam and the West Today''

Since the September 11, 2001 many debates were spread out through whole world. Mainly,
two of them are of great importance: ''clash of civilizations'' and ''dialogue of civilizations''.
None of them is entirely new, on contrary they have been present for long time. In ''clash of
civilizations'' Muslim people are seen as the threateners to West. This idea was absorbed
rapidly as well as the other one.
As already said, none of those ideas is new. They were known but kept somewhere
sideward, till the September 11. That day was a turning point in lives of many people in the
world. After the four hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, new way
of life was widely seen. There were a thousands of victims, more people were suffering,
flights were suspended, emergency was declared, simply everything was in chaos. All this
influenced Americans to become more patriotic nation prooved with stars and stripes seen
everywhere. But, also a nation that declared Muslims with no doubt and no evidence as a
terrorists.
American life has changed, as well as the life of Muslims all over the world. In media there
were many titles accusing Muslims of being terrorists, Americans were putting on the idea
that they were hated nation, etc. Since that day it was obvious that Muslims will be
responsible for every other bombing or such thing in the future. It affected indirectly lives of
all Muslims, no matter which country they come from.
A few months later a boming on Afganistan has begun even if it was a bit odd in the
comparision of the economical and industrial developement of those two countries. Many
people protesed around the world, but unhopely. People argued that this was the war between
Islam and the West. Every day more and more non-Muslim people were gaining the idea of
the Islam as the terroristic faith even if all happened had nothing to do with Islam. In the Holy
Book or Qur'an the killing of other people is forbiden. Hate toward the Muslim people
become excessive. Woman wearing the hijab were attacked and abused, Arabs were killed,
movies representing the Muslims as a terrorists were filmed, etc. Even when the explosion in
the Oklahoma City had occured, at first Muslims were blamed to be responsible for it. Later it
was very hard to accept that it was the act of white Anglo Saxon American. As well as the
Isam is being seen as the terroristic faith, the followers of this faith were seen as the terrorists.
The action of few people had labeled all Muslims as a terrorists even if, as already said, that
action had nothing to do with the Islam. All over the world misunderstanding and the lack of
dialogue among civilization was present and seen. But why?
IBN KHALDUN AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF CIVILIZATIONS
Ibn Khaldun is the scientist of all times. Even if he acted in the past, many of his works can be
used and applied on nowdays. Not only he is important, but many others such as Karl Marx,
Max Weber, Emil Durckheim, etc. But there is some difference between those scientists and
sociologists and Ibn Khaldun. The main difference is that Ibn Khaldun being objective since

he is scientist still thinks as a believer. According to Ibn Khaldun it is the 'asabiyya' or 'social
cohesion' that is in the first plan of his work. It is the core of his understanding of society. One
of his principles states that the social organization is needed by human beings. The main
purpose of human beings being created would not materialize. People are here to implement
God's vision on earth, to spread it aout among other people. To follow the Holly Book which
neccessary means be moralistic. And no former is about to collapse if being moralistic.
Ibn Khaldun's works are very important. At the time of writing, they were inovative scince
he used the philosophy in the explanation of sociological terms. in most of his work he did
not act as an isolated writer. Indeed, he was the participant of the history. From his papers and
studies, but as well as from his life we can learn many things, but great accent he put on the
knowledge and on the theory that the intellect is of the greater power than all other tnihgc, and
only by intelect and knowledge we can win all other odds.
GLOBAL THEORIES
Scince the September 11 had occured the relations between Islamic world and the West had
sharpened a lot. To avoid further misunderstanding that would lead to further hateness and
wars, the Muslims should explain themselves, their religion to Western civilizations and so
the Western civilizations should greet those explanations and show some effort to understand
it. But, the Muslims mostly reject being involved iin any discusions with Western world,
because globalization for them means Westernization. In all those things Muslims are a bit
distrustful and think that they will be again accused for something. In the past, there was the
time of real ''globalization'' for Islamic world, when they could move freely, they lived with
other nations, people of other religion, which is the one principle of Islam: All people are
same in front of the God. At the period of this kind of harmony, Europe has achieved the
highest point in art, architecture, literature, etc. Which means that people living together
contribute much more to all cultural developements. Muslims were first to inform the Europe
of many developements, and people are often unaware of the Isamic contribution in the aspect
of inteligence to the Europe.
After the those times that Muslims had lived, it is realistic that now they will be suspicious
after all things that happened to the Islamic countries. But all those wars, all bad things
brought one positive result to the Islam: the discution on importance of the religion in today
society. It is staded that the background for further conflicts will be religion, not economy.
Islam in current society is seen as the enemy faith. On contrary, there are few Islamic states
that are very important for West countries. The inhabitants of those countries are left out of all
theories thah Muslims are 'terrorists'. This represents them as a 'bridge nation' between two
opposed sides and it is to hope that they will bring together those opposed sides together.
Some rulers have that as their aim to achieve. Prince of Wales held a speech on importance for
West and Islamic countries to understand each other, which means a lot, science a leader of a
nation is of that willingness.

THE BREAKDOWN OF IBN KHALDUN'S CYCLE

In the study, Ibn khaldun proposed that the Muslim leadership play a important role in 'society
cohesion'. Today, military, democrats, kings, and religious scholars (Talibans) are the leaders
of many countries. This leadership is relevant from country to country. Many countries would
agree that Talibans are of unacceptable behaviour and that by this behaviour they represent the
Islam as a bad religion. So bringing those kind of leaders results in a leadership collapse.
People of different cultures live together, fullfil the integrity but all this is broken when the
inapropriate leader is in charge. The theory proposed by Ibn Khaldun states that the leadership
collapse occurs when the people from mountains come to cities and become dominant but at
the same time can not provide the integrity as seen before their arrival. At that point, people
that lived in cities together slowly start to break down which is seen years later. All this brings
the conclusion that the factors for breakdown are: lack of knowledge, gap between rich and
poor people, massive urbanization, migrations to West, etc.
JEHANNUM (HELL) OR JAIL: THE DILEMA OF THE MUSLIM SCHOLAR
If the social cohesion breaks down, so the message of the God will. In order to transfer the
message of the God, the knowledge is important. But there is a fact that scholars in Muslim
world are chased out of their homes, so mostly they escape to Western parts of the world.
Under this condition, Muslim world is of the lowest education and woman have no rights. So
other scholars, such as Talibans, are free to interpreate Islam very narrowly and somethimes
very wrong. They use a Islam as a tool for repression aand tyrany grows up without anyone to
talk about it and giving the world bad image about the Islam.
THE CHALLENGE TO IDENTITY
The collapse of 'social cohesion' or the 'asabiyya' and the growth of globalization have
challenged ideas of identity that identify Muslim people. Mostly, identities are based on
blood, place or religion. In the past, among the race, nationalism and religion, nationalism as
identifying sources, the nationalism was dominant. The background of World War I and World
War II was the nationalism. Many other wars were the results as the nationality conflicts.
Under the globalization, this order has changed. In Balkan ethnicity and the religion are fused
with each other, as in ther many other places. Nationalism changed science the borders of
countries have changed, and peolpe are mostly free to be found in any place in the world. But
under the migration effect the nationalism as well as the ethnicity is weakened. Religion can
be flourished anywhere. In most of the countries one sources interferes with another which
results in high tension between those three sources of identity. Those tensions are expressed
throug the violence in the countries, so the 'social cohesion' in that countries is at the lowest
level. But on contrary in those countries there is highest level of 'unifying factor of dynastic
rule or language' that makes those countries resistant to global changes.

MUSLIM RESPONSES TO THE KHALDUNIAN BREAKDOWN

Case Study One: The Scholarship of Inclusion, A Personal Account
Today in the society there is a huge tension to exclude the Islam from teh society. Most of the
Muslims are aware of this phenomenon and each of Muslim people reacts differently. As an
example, Akbar Ahmed's live was shown. The main task and aim of Akbar Ahmed was to
repair breakdown. He has written many articles, filmed many videos and filmes, held many
speeches in order to change the image about Islam that many non-Muslim people had. He
gave his best to produce a interfaith dialogue, that people of different religions start to
understand and listen each others. He had the intension to make projecs such as 'Living Islam'
and 'Jinnah Quartet' in which he succed. All this project, as said earlier, were supposed to
repair breakdown, to show Islam as it is, a one tolerant faith.
But making this kind of projects had its cost. Many other people tried to make similar projects
but were not succesfull in that. For example, there was intention to make a film called
Ataturk, but after the main actor had received many death trethes, he backed up. So likely, in
the projects of Akbar Ahmed, there were much absurd accuations andt threathening. Some
Muslims were of opinion that this kind of projects were excellent because they will provide
the interfaith dialogue, but other Muslims were against those projects because their oppinion
was that other faith followers are not believers, are bad people, and people should not get in
contact with them. What is obvious from these projects is that they affected the young people,
and helped to change their image and oppinion about the Islam.
CASE STUDY TWO: THE SCHOLARSHIP OF EXCLUSION
Some see Talibans, as the part of Islamic world, vut it should be knoen that their actions have
more connections with the Pukhtunwali, than with the Islam. The base of Pukhtunwai is
revenge. No matter when the revenge will ocur, it is important to occur. The Talibans go to
madrasa, which is a kind of religious school. Ant their religion commands them to seek
knowledge. But in their syllabus, there is no non-Muslim scientists.The basis of this madrsas
go back to the 1857 when there was the division of education. The one type had idea to
combine modernity with Islam, while the other type made schools just made oh Muslim
people. This schools have influenced the Talibans. They will not stand again someone who is
against West even if it would lead them to their destruction. They are keen on conflict with the
West.
SEARCHING FOR A POST-KHALDIAN PARADIGM: GLOBAL SOCIETY IN THE 21 ST
CENTURY
After all things talked about in this paper, A General Theory should be discovered. It is certain
that many modern age sociologists would be supprised about the condition today society lives
in. About th emisunderstanding of religion and lack of interfaith dialogues. The one thesis in
the clash of civilizations states that future wars will occur as a result of religion
misunderstanding. It is known that Islam is the enemy religion. But among other religion
there is clash, misunderstanding as well. But mostly hostility is shown towards the Islam.

What sholuld be done? As a prevention of wars and repairing th ebreakdown some essential
questions should be asked, such as: How the people are negotiating the idea of God?, why
there is misunderstanding of God, divine, other religions? Why does not people try to get the
idea of God and divine in other religions? Which does not necessary mean that all religions
should be accepted. Also, important questions are, why do the people kill in teh name of the
God if every religion forbids any criminal acts? What can be done about all of these things?.
In order to achieve some kind of harmony among the religions, first of all these questions
should be asked, and answers should be found. At least, the there should be an effortput up in
order to understand other religions and to get the answers. This is like the pre-condition of the
harmony among religions.
CONCLUSION
Conclusion states that there should be taken some serious actions in oreder to produce the
dialogue among the Islamic world an the West. The identifying problems should be identified
in order to make the idea of th edialogue stronger. In many issues and problems, Muslims find
the solutions in their religion. The religion gives them a strenght needed to face those issues
and problems. Muslims need to rebuilt the idea that shows the Islam full of justice,
tolerance,etc. West countries shoul get in conntact with the Islamic world, should insist on
cooperation, common fight against criminal, etc. Both sides should give a chance to each
other. The September 11 and events happened later showed that world really needs that.