LONDON -- A ruler can obtain power only with the help of his own people. He uses them to fight against those who revolt against his party. They fill his administrative offices and he appoints them to prestigious and lucrative positions. They help him to achieve his ascendancy. This is true so long as the first stage of a dynasty lasts.

With the approach of the second stage, the ruler shows himself to be independent of his own people. He claims all the glory for himself and pushes his people away from it. As a result, they become his enemies, and to prevent them from seizing power, he needs other friends, not of his own mind, whom he can use against his people.

This reads like the wise words of the 15th-century political analyst Machiavelli. In fact, they are the wise words -- with a couple of modernizations -- of the 14th-century Muslim Arab scholar Ibn Kaldun, whose monumental history of the dynasties of Muslim North Africa should have been a foundation stone for the Islamic study of political power and authority.