A dynasty is a period of unified rule by a single group, which in Ibn Khaldun’s analysis lasts approximately three generations before the solidarity that enabled its rise dissolves through the comfort it produces.
In Ibn Khaldun’s civilisational theory, a dynasty begins with a group bound by strong asabiyyah (group solidarity). The founder’s generation possesses the cohesion forged through hardship. The second generation, raised in the founder’s success but still close to its origins, maintains sufficient solidarity. The third generation, raised in comfort without memory of hardship, has lost the cohesion that enabled the dynasty’s rise. The dynasty then becomes vulnerable to a new group from the periphery, still forged in solidarity through shared hardship.
The cycle runs approximately 120 years, or three generations. This is not a moral claim about individual character but a structural observation about the conditions that produce and dissolve collective cohesion. Each dynasty carries the seeds of its own collapse: the success it achieves produces the comfort that destroys the solidarity that produced the success.
The concept applies beyond political dynasties to any group that achieves power through collective cohesion: empires, corporations, political movements, and social institutions. The pattern is structural, not cultural: the mechanism is the same regardless of the group’s identity, beliefs, or stated values.