“Slow surrender”
In a word, Yes.
“The forty year theory.”
A post by Combat_Boots
Ibn Khaldun is famous in the world of studying Middle Eastern history as the author of “The Introduction,” (Al Muqaddimah). In this work, he outlines a cyclical theory of history, which comprises four phases:
1) Raw rise to power from a clan or nomadic group
2) Refinement of the reins of power
3) Apogee
4) Decadence and decline
The clannishness or “Asabiyyah” of a group progresses through “level(s) of civilization…(and is) strongest in the nomadic phase. Once the rise and fall occurs, “another more compelling Asabiyyah may take its place” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah).
The volumes contained in the actual history that “The Introduction” precedes are not only long, but also varied and expansive. In a nutshell, Ibn Khaldun ties time in terms of specific generations to the physical space those generations occupy. For example, the idea of a social contract is explained, as is a description of the tension between the power of the rural versus the city. “Ibn Khaldun conceived both a central social conflict (”town” versus “desert”) as well as a theory (using the concept of a “generation”) of the necessary loss of power of city conquerors coming from the desert” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah).
The length of each of the four power phases listed above is approximately one generation, or 40 years. That being said, we are witnessing waves of varying strength in the global conflict between Islam and the Western World that has existed since the breakout of Islamic military conquest in 711. Significant events in Western-Islamic tension have continued unabated. While these dates are not exactly 40 years apart, they nonetheless suggest that the conflict has never ceased, but, has simply permeated ever more deeply into the ethos of the peoples involved—beyond military capabilities to the citizenry. To wit, as evidence, please consider these dates:
1450s – Vlad Dracula fights the Ottoman Turks
1492 – Moors leave Spain @ Granada
1529 – 1st Siege of Vienna
1530 – Little War in Hungary
1565 – Siege of Malta
1571 – Battle of Lepanto
1590 – Treaty of Istanbul (generally with Persia, but including Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia)
1593-1606 – The Long War
(Note: the Hapsburg/Venetian/Russian forces capture a number of previously held countries in the 16 and 1700s)
1683 – 2nd failed siege of Vienna
1687 – Second Battle of Mohacs
1699 – Treaty of Karowitz
1716-1718 – Battle of Petrovaradin or Battle of Peterwardein
1730 – Rebellion of Patrona Halil and end of the ‘Tulip Period’
1739 – Treaty of Belgrade
1798 – Napoleonic expedition in Egypt
1807 (and following) Tanzimat period of modernization
1813 – Serbian Uprising
1821 – Greek War of Independence
1853 – Crimean War (includes the actual Charge of the Light Brigade)
1867 –Formation of Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Ausgleich or Compromise of 1867,
1877 – Russo-Turkish War 1878 – Treaty of San Stefano
1913 – First Balkan War
1914 – World War I & collapse of the Ottoman Empire
1937– Rise of Nazism, creation of the Islamic Corps under the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
1948 – War against Israel
1967 – Six Day War
1983 – Murders of US Marines in Beirut
2001 – 9/11
The Spice Routes founded the circumvention of the Middle Eastern trade routes as assuredly as the oil routes have led to the same area. The market for trade goods has been and will continue to be the locus of control. It isn’t that the Crusades of 1095-1261 ended; they merely crossed over religious bounds to market control and, now, to recognition of the cultural clash.
Also see: “The Gunpowder Empires” http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlberger/2805/gunpow.htm
Reference: http://www.museo-on.com/go/museoon/home/db/exhibitions/_page_id_977.xhtml