In Our Age of Decadence

according to Sir John Glubb

The Zman today linked to Sir John Glubb’s (1897-1986) treatise on “The Fate of Empires.”

Typically empires last about 250 years or ten generations, and go through a typical cycle from the Age of Pioneers to the Age of Decadence. The penultimate step it the Age of Intellect when universities and arts and letters flourish. The path of decline is peculiarly universal. Here is Glubb’s report on the end of the Persian Empire after the murder of the caliph Mutawakkil in 861 AD.

[C]ontemporary historians of Baghdad in the early tenth century are still available. They deeply deplored the degeneracy of the times in which they lived, emphasising particularly the indifference to religion, the increasing materialism and the laxity of sexual morals. They lamented also the corruption of the officials of the government and the fact that politicians always seemed to amass large fortunes while they were in office.

Well, bless my buttons.

Glubb continues. There was “the extraordinary influence acquired by popular singers over young people, resulting in a decline in sexual morality.” Then there was the women question.

An increase in the influence of women in public life has often been associated with national decline. The later Romans complained that, although Rome ruled the world, women ruled Rome. In the tenth century, a similar tendency was observable in the Arab Empire, the women demanding admission to the professions hitherto monopolised by men. ‘What,’ wrote the contemporary historian, Ibn Bessam, ‘have the professions of clerk, tax-collector or preacher to do with women? These occupations have always been limited to men alone.’ Many women practised law, while others obtained posts as university professors. There was an agitation for the appointment of female judges, which, however, does not appear to have succeeded.

Soon after this period, government and public order collapsed, and foreign invaders overran the country. The resulting increase in confusion and violence made it unsafe for women to move unescorted in the streets, with the result that this feminist movement collapsed.

OK, whatabout the welfare state in the late Persian Empire?

State assistance to the young and the poor was equally generous. University students received government grants to cover their expenses while they were receiving higher education. The State likewise offered free medical treatment to the poor. The first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad in the reign of Harun al-Rashid (786-809), and under his son, Mamun, free public hospitals sprang up all over the Arab world from Spain to what is now Pakistan.

Then there is the tendency for triumphal histories.

When we read the history of our own nation, we find the actions of our ancestors described as glorious, while those of other peoples are depicted as mean, tyrannical or cowardly.

Which mean that we don’t have a clue what went on.

Or history tends to throw shade on our past.

Alternatively, there are ‘political’ schools of history, slanted to discredit the actions of our past leaders, in order to support modern political movements. In all these cases, history is not an attempt to ascertain the truth, but a system of propaganda, devoted to the furtherance of modern projects, or the gratification of national vanity.

Yes, take that, you racist-sexist homophobic white supremacists!

Now, of course, Sir John Glubb was a white male imperialist, who spent 1939-56 as head of the Arab Legion in Jordan. So everything he writes is pure white racist hegemony and domination and you should not believe a word he says.

But I found that notion of women flourishing at the end of the Persian empire rather frightening. On the other hand, Glubb emphasizes is that in the expansion phase of empire society celebrates and and exhibits “almost incredible enterprise, courage and hardihood.” And that’s when women need not apply.