How "Asabiya" Changed My Life (Special Paper)

In Memory of Jesse Dudley Freeman

For years, I poured myself into studying Arabic and the interconnectedness of identity in the Middle East. The concept of kin is historic and deep, with broad families distributed over vast territories connected by shared language, history, memories, relatives, and lineage. What holds these communities together is a type of societal cohesion which lacks proper description in the english language. The early Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun termed it “Asabiya (‘sabiyya)”, from the root form “asab” meaning to “to bind”.

This abstract noun describes in no specific detail the informal ties which bind communities together. It goes beyond the often physical descriptors we use to identify kin - blood, marriage, lineage - to identify a sense of shared loyalty and solidarity. According to Khaldun, this is the more basic force of history. 

Most often, Asabiya is used to define the underpinning of major groups, such as tribes, states, and empires, but I want to explore a more tangible and personal expression of it. 

When I was born, the first people to hold me beyond my parents were Mary Joe Freeman and Jesse Dudley Freeman, from whom I received my name. They were not my blood grandparents, nor were they the blood of my parents. They shared none of the traditional descriptors used to identify kinship - blood, marriage, or lineage.

Throughout my childhood, they were “granny” and “papa” to me. They were present at soccer games, took me to church, anguished at my poor humor, and snuck me cookies when my parents were not watching. As I grew up, they challenged my thinking, let me challenge theirs, encouraged my explorations, and listened ambitiously to my stories of travel in the Middle East. They were in every aspect of life - my grandparents. Their daughter was my aunt, and her daughter my cousin. We were a family, albeit not one bound by blood but by “asabiya” - an intangible shared sense of loyalty, solidarity, love, and choice. 

I searched for years to understand how to describe the concept of family. I watched politics fracture and break apart families. I watched religion tear others apart. I saw how marrying the “wrong person” if not in line with family priorities could undermine basic relationships in families across cultures. Traditional ties - blood, marriage, and lineage - were in themselves insufficient to define family, but a family built on “asabiya” was one which transcended the physical and bound people together through the intangible. It did not weaken in the face of political strife or religion. Rather, it opened its arms wider to embrace a broader idea of family and came to encompass members stretching from Egypt, Ukraine, Florida, and beyond diverse religious backgrounds and philosophies of life. 

The Asabiya in my family began with a choice by Mary Joe Freeman and Jesse Dudley Freeman to unconditionally love and embrace without conditions my family. In so choosing this path, they built a foundation of love and loyalty which has become a rich tapestry of legacies. Perhaps, the most personal of legacies is the one given to me by my grandfather - his name.

Rest in Peace Papa