PicoBlog

When I was 14 years old, I encountered Dune in my school library. It blew my mind; it was one of the best books I had ever read. And when I read it, I could tell that the society of the Fremen, the native humans of Arrakis—the planet on which Dune is set—had names that recalled Arabic culture. It wasn’t until this year that I learned how deep that influence is. The occasion I have for thinking this is the release of the film adaptation of Dune. If I were 16 years old, I would be seeing it over and over—I’m a little too old now to be that excited by a movie. What got me thinking about Dune and its Arabic inspiration was my reading of Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography by Robert Irwin.

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was a scholar and judge (an especially common job for an intellectual in the medieval Muslim world). He wrote a history of the world called Kitāb al-ʻIbar, but where he differs from every historian before him is in the preface. This is called Al-Muqaddima (which means “the introduction”) and it is a theory of how civilizations come into being, thrive and decline. And Dune’s author, Frank Herbert, apparently read it and was influenced by some of its ideas, as well as by the cultural milieu from which Ibn Khaldun emerged.

In the West, Ibn Khaldun is seen as an intellectual precursor of such social sciences as sociology, economics, and political science. This is because he developed a theory of how societies come together, become nations or civilizations, and decline. He was influenced by his time among the Bedouin people. Away from the cities and libraries that educated him in North Africa and Spain, Ibn Khaldun developed theories about how nomadic people become settled people—and subsequently build cities and libraries. He said that there was something that drew nomadic people together into an almost unstoppable whole. He called this quality “'aṣabiyyah” which is basically “solidarity” or “social cohesion.” This is a unity that extends beyond family or tribe—it’s general enough that it can unite a huge number of nomads. A perfect example of this is Islam—a religion can be the source of 'aṣabiyyah, but not necessarily. The Mongols had 'aṣabiyyah, but weren’t unified by a religion.

It is obvious that Herbert picked up on this idea of a scattered wandering people (the Fremen, who prior to coming to Arrakis were known as “zensunni wanderers”, acquiring a religious motivation (the coming of the Lisan al Gaib, the “off-world prophet”) to unite and crush the settled peoples of the universe. The Lisan al Gaib provides the 'aṣabiyyah needed to make the Fremen an unstoppable force. Like the Arabs once they were inspired by Islam; like that of the Mongols after Genghis Khan united the steppe tribes. And these nomadic armies are exceptionally cruel. According to the movie, the Fremen will kill 60 billion people in their interplanetary conquests.

But 'aṣabiyyah isn’t the only thing that Herbert derives from Ibn Khaldun—prophecy plays a huge part in the story of Dune. Herbert makes prophecy the result of the machinations of the Bene Gesserit, a society of female clerics. In other words, the prophecy that leads the Fremen is a centuries old manipulation, not magic. The only magic in the book is the “spice”, an alien substance that is produced on Arrakis that gives its addicts foresight. Otherwise. Herbert is a 20th century man. While Paul essentially gains magic powers from ingesting spice, his rise to power is the result of a conspiracy, not a prophetic (or magical) event.

But Ibn Khaldun was a medieval man. Magic, sorcery and astrology are real phenomena that have the ability to affect civilizations, and he writes at length about them. In a weird way, modernity might be defined as when we stop believing in prophecy and start believing in conspiracy. It removes the supernatural from the equation.

Ibn Khaldun was in Damascus when it was besieged by the nomadic conqueror Timur in 1400. He wrote about this encounter in the autobiographical section of Kitāb al-ʻIbar. Timur was a terrifying and bloody conqueror (as Paul will become in Dune). Ibn Khaldun wrote:

Before this, when I was in the Maghrib, I had heard many predictions concerning his appearance. Astrologers who were experts in the conjunction of the two superior planets [Jupiter and Saturn] were awaiting the tenth conjunction in the trigon which was expected to occur in the year 766 (1363-4). One day, in the year 761 (1359-60), I met in Fez in the Mosque of al-Qarawiyin the mosque-preacher of the city of Constantine, Abū ‘Alī ibn Bādīs, who was an authority in the astrological sciences. I asked him about this expected conjunction which was to occur and what its meaning was. He answered me, “It points to a powerful one who will arise in the northeast region from amongst a nomadic nation, tent dwellers, who will triumph over kingdoms, overturn states and dynasties, and become the masters of most of the civilized [literally: inhabited] world” I asked, “When will he appear?” He said, “In the year 784 (1382-3) and news of him will be widespread.”

Ibn Khaldun is terrified and is desperately trying to flatter the conqueror by regaling him with these auspicious portents. But Ibn Khaldun believes the astrological predictions. All throughout Dune, there are episodes like this—recitations of the signs of the coming fulfillment of the prophecy.

Herbert also knew who he was writing for. He wrote this novel in 1965 for a 14-year-old American boy to read in 1977. And in order to make it appeal to that boy, he gave it a boy protagonist, who grows from a somewhat pampered child to a terrifying leader.

The idea of a “white savior” coming to rescue colonized people is patently offensive—apparently it never occurred to Herbert in the mid 60s when he wrote Dune. He wanted Paul (who becomes the Lisan al Gaib) to appeal to me. The story is in this regard insane. It’s as if in Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence went on to become king of the Arabs and conquered Europe

This issue is addressed in the movie—Chani, Paul’s Fremen wife, is reluctant to join Paul’s jihad because she recognizes it was a religious conspiracy cooked up hundreds of years earlier by the Bene Gesserit. Even Paul is reluctant to assume religious leadership of a foreign people. But the basic story remains the same. You can’t get around Dune being a “white savior” story. Paul might be Timur, but he is also Tarzan.

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