Civilisations, time and the turning wheel

For generations, western history was told as a story of progress. Humanity marched steadily from superstition to reason, from monarchy to democracy, from poverty to prosperity. Whether expressed through Enlightenment optimism, Hegel's philosophy, Marx's historical materialism, or 20th century modernisation theory, history was imagined as moving in one direction. The destination differed, but the assumption remained the same: tomorrow would inevitably be better than yesterday.

That confidence has weakened. Financial crises, endless wars, political polarisation, demographic decline, climate anxiety and the rise of new global powers have made many wonder whether civilisations can also decline.

Suddenly, there is a renewed fascination with the writings of the 14th century Arab thinker Ibn Khaldun. This says as much about the modern West as it does about Ibn Khaldun himself.


Writing in the aftermath of repeated dynastic collapses across North Africa and Middle East, Ibn Khaldun argued that empires rose because of social cohesion, or asabiyyah. Tough frontier communities, united by shared purpose, conquered wealthy states. Over generations, however, prosperity produced luxury, luxury weakened discipline and the ruling elite became detached from the hardships that had once made them successful. Eventually, a new, more cohesive group replaced them. History was not a straight road but a recurring cycle.

This stands in sharp contrast to modern European ideas of inevitable progress. Instead of asking where history was heading, Ibn Khaldun asked why civilisations repeatedly failed.

Yet the idea that every success carries within it the seeds of decline was hardly unique to Ibn Khalun. He was transmitting eastern ideas to the West.

In China, complementary forces of yin and yang expressed a similar intuition. Every force generated its opposite. A dynasty did not rule forever. Prosperity bred complacency, corruption weakened legitimacy, natural disasters and rebellion signalled loss of heaven's mandate, and a new dynasty emerged. The cycle repeated over centuries.

Indian civilisation expressed the same insight through different images. Buddhism insisted on impermanence. Everything that arose eventually passed away. Attachment to permanence created suffering because permanence itself was an illusion.

Hindu traditions framed the idea through the idea of Vishnu sleeping and waking up, with unfailing regularity. Civilisations rose and fell like the rising and setting sun. It was natural, not cultural. New interpretations of Bhagavad Gita paint Krishna as a "saviour who fights forces of dharma". But this misses the point that Krishan embodies time (kala) - and time consumes everything. Oppenheimer and European scholars confused the word "kala" with "death" and tried to equate nuclear holocaust with Mahabharata war. They missed the point. Vishnu's wheel, chakra, became a powerful metaphor precisely because history turned rather than advanced. Waves rose only to fall. Seasons returned. Birth led to death, which led to rebirth.

Ibn Khaldun's great achievement lay in explaining the mechanisms of political rise and decline in remarkably empirical terms that currently makes sense to the West. The idea itself is ancient and eastern.

This raises an uncomfortable question. Why does Europe so readily celebrate Ibn Khaldun today while remaining largely unaware of similar ideas in India and China?

Part of the answer lies in geography and intellectual history. The Arab world formed Europe's immediate neighbour. Medieval Spain, Sicily, the Crusades, Mediterranean trade and later colonial encounters created continuous intellectual contact. Arabic texts entered European universities centuries before Sanskrit or Chinese classics became widely available. Ibn Khaldun therefore fitted naturally into Europe's expanding intellectual genealogy.

The internet has made texts more accessible than ever, yet mental maps change more slowly than technology. Academic disciplines, publishing traditions, language barriers and inherited habits continue to shape what counts as "universal" philosophy. Western readers often discover ideas only after they pass through familiar intellectual gateways. No art historians looks at the image of Vishnu sleeping and says this was the Indian way to explain the cyclical nature of life, not just nature but also culture, how the children of rich people behave in a way that their wealth erodes, and how grand institutions are eroded as ambitious politicians become psychological termites.

Today, as confidence in linear progress weakens, the world is rediscovering older ways of thinking. The future may not be a destination but another turn of the wheel. If that realisation encourages scholars to read Ibn Khaldun alongside Chinese and Indian traditions instead of treating him as an isolated exception, the conversation about world history will become richer, broader and less confined by Europe's intellectual horizons.