106. Karen Armstrongwere right, to subjugate others. This conquest meant that the
dominant group could absorb the resources of the subject
peoples, develop a culture and a complex urban life. But as
the ruling class became accustomed to a luxurious lifestyle,
complacency set in and they began to lose their vigour. They
no longer took sufficient heed of their subjects, there was jeal-
ousy and infighting and the economy would begin to decline.
Thus the state became vulnerable to a new tribal or nomadic
group, which was in the first flush of its own asibiyyah, and the
whole cycle began again. Ibn Khaldun's masterpiece Al-
Maqaddimah: An Introduction to History applied this theory to
the history of Islam, and would be read closely by Muslim
empire builders in coming years, as well as by Western histo-
rians in the nineteenth century, who saw Ibn Khaldun as a pi-
oneer of their scientific study of history.
Ibn Khaldun was able to watch the decline of the Mongol
states during the second half of the fourteenth century, which
clearly confirmed his theory. Their original asibiyyah had
peaked, complacency had set in, and the stage was now set for
other dominant groups to take control. It seemed likely that
the new leaders would come not from the Islamic heartlands,
but from the fringes of the Muslim world, which had not been
subject to Mongol rule. By this time, the Mamluk Empire in
Egypt and Syria had also started its decline. At its height, the
Mamluks had created a vibrant society, with a strong esprit de
corps, and a flourishing culture. But by the fifteenth century
the empire had outrun its resources, and, like any agrarian
state, had begun to fall apart.
The ruler who most fully expressed the spirit of the age
was a Turk from the Syr Valley, who had grown up in the
Mongol Chaghaytay state in Samarkand, and was passionate
about the Mongol ideal. Timur (1336-1405), known as
Timur Lenk (Timur the Lame) because of a pronounced
limp, and Tamburlaine in the West, seized power in the de-