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Abstract

How do groups generate the cohesion, discipline, and loyalty needed for sustained collective action under pressure? This paper revisits Ibn Khaldun’s concept of asabiyyah as a theoretical framework for analyzing collective mobilization and social power in contemporary settings relevant to Central Eurasian studies. Rather than treating asabiyyah solely as a historically bounded explanation of tribal solidarity and dynastic rise, the paper argues that it can be reinterpreted as a broader analytical model of how groups produce coordinated action, moral commitment, and strategic endurance.

This argument places Ibn Khaldun in dialogue with modern sociological and organizational theories of cohesion, including social capital, organizational commitment, collective identity, and interaction ritual theory. While these approaches illuminate important aspects of solidarity and cooperation, they often examine them in fragmented ways: as structure, incentive, identity, or emotion. By contrast, asabiyyah offers a synthetic vocabulary that links solidarity to power by showing how loyalty, discipline, and shared purpose become a mobilizing force.

The paper’s contribution is twofold. First, it demonstrates the continued relevance of a classical Islamic concept for contemporary social theory. Second, it shows how this concept can enrich the study of collective life across Central Eurasia and adjacent regions historically shaped by Islamic intellectual traditions, where questions of authority, belonging, resilience, and social coordination remain central. In doing so, the paper contributes to ongoing efforts to rethink Central Eurasia not only as a geographic space, but also as a field of connected intellectual and social formations.