Ageing brain and geopolitical leadership: a bio-psycho-sociological approach to the fall of Sharif of Mecca Husayn bin Ali, 1908–1924

ABSTRACT

In 1908 Husayn ibn Ali was proclaimed Sharif of Mecca, in 1916 King of Hejaz and in 1924 Caliph. However, that same year he had to abdicate and ended his last years in exile. What happened? The case of Husayn aims to show the importance of an interdisciplinary approach for understanding the political behavior. The aim of this article is to show that complex social environments require a single/multi-selves structure and that this structure is more or less balanced or biased between the two poles depending on the person's age and the type of social environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Sharif of Mecca
• Husayn ibn Ali
• leadership geopolitics
• aged political rulers
• complex environments
• single/multi-selves psychic structure
• interdisciplinarity approach
• brain and society

Acknowledgements

The translation of this paper is funded by the R&D Project ‘A proposal for the epistemological integration of sociology and biology from the analysis of human ambivalence (PR65/19-22435) (2020–2022)’ granted to the author by the Administration of the Community of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid (Spain).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Comunidad de Madrid: [grant number PR65/19-22435].

Notes on contributors

Jesús Romero Moñivas

Jesús Romero Moñivas has a Doctorate in Sociology by the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) (2009). He is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Sciences at Complutense University of Madrid and UNED. He is author of a lot of publications. For a more information on publications: jesromero.wordpress.com.