ERROR OF UNILINEAR PROGRESSIVE CONCEPT OF HISTORY
82-Do they not travel through the earth and see what was the end of those before them? They were greater in number than these and superior in strength and in the traces in the land: Yet all that they accomplished was of no profit to them.
40-The Believer, 82
There are verses in the Quran that speak of certain communities in the past who had reached a level of civilization higher than the community in which the Prophet lived. These communities had been the author of works far superior to those produced by the latter.
Especially at the beginning of the 19th century, the ‘historical point of view’ occupied an important place in the history of thinking. Hegel spoke of reality as a historical process that could be understood by the categories of historical explanation. His giving meaning to history, understanding and evaluating it were remarkable indeed. But Hegel interpreted history as a linear and evolutionary system that involved continuous and unilinear development. His approach was progressionist. His interpretation of history may be acclaimed, but a viewpoint that conceives a given historical period superior to the one preceding it is untenable.
The Quran always free from errors, proves once again that it is in the right. It acknowledges that past civilizations sometimes had produced superior works and proved to be more powerful, thus refuting the linear concept of history. Linear development may have taken place in a given period of history. As a matter of fact, advancement of science whose origins went back to the 16th century, followed a positive trend until the 20th century. However, to generalize this progressive advancement to cover the entire history and every domain would be a great mistake. While formulating his thesis Hegel seems to have been bewitched by the advancement of sciences from the 16th century up until his own times.
Disastrous effects of this concept of history are more than the uninitiated may conceive. A glaring example is communism. Marx who inherited from Hegel this wrong interpretation of history led to massacres to which millions of people succumbed and gave rise to both cold and hot wars. As a matter of fact, the share of this Hegelian concept of history in Marx’s ideology is great. While Hegel evaluated history through metaphysics, Marx preferred to view history materialistically calling his school ‘Historical Materialism’.
HISTORICAL VIEW OF COMMUNISM
Marx believed to have solved the problems paused by scientific principles of history. The motto of the Marxists was ‘History is on our side’. This was a progressionist linear historical view. (Marx’s emphases on the means of production and economics had had a great impact). This conception contended that a given community had to pass through stages, namely through feudalism, capitalism and socialism, before reaching communism. According to this conception, each of these stages would mark a higher degree of development than the previous one. Thus, the communist stage would be superior even to the modern one. The communists experienced communism that was the supreme bliss and ultimate perfection in history. Moreover, this was a scientifically established view! Those who were against it were considered unscientific. The eventual collapse of communism discredited the Marxist conception of scientific interpretation of history. According to them, history’s progressive course could not be forestalled, so that communism was the ultimate stage. The progressionist concept of history had been controverted.
Yet most of the school textbooks of today are under the influence of that concept of history whose fundamental logic is the linear progress. There are no scientific data to justify the opinions that assert that man’s ancestors had been primitive hairy creatures as described in the books on anthropology. Engels himself, founder of modern communism along with Karl Marx, acknowledges this. On the assumption that men are fortuitous, he claims that the historical stages must needs be accepted. Describing the primitives as deprived of language, who did not even know how to kindle a fire, similar to hairy monkeys, would be an illusory account devoid of all scientific justification. There are no corroborative evidence to justify that men had first been hunters-gatherers before they came to be acquainted with farming. The idea, which took for granted the fact that history was of a linear and progressionist make up, led necessarily to the adoption of the new conviction that man’s initial stage had been hunting and gathering, the simplest means of supplying food. The distinct periods of the past qualified as stone age, bronze age, etc. are also devoid of all scientific evidence. Whenever such classifications are made, there come moments when gadgets are unearthed, which, in principle should not be dating from the age to which they are supposed to belong. Yet, writers of textbooks are loath to make any corrections therein.
PYRAMIDS, MARTIANS AND ACUPUNCTURE
According to the progressionist linear history conception every one of the stages that human history has gone through is superior to the preceding one. This erroneous conception is inculcated into the brains of the majority of mankind. The supporters of this conception of history were nonplussed in the face of the superior characteristics of pyramids. The question cropped up that inquired into the mystery of the designers of pyramids whether their authors might not have been the Martians! The great Cheops pyramid at Giza, whose volume is about 2.515.000m3, is 147m high, the base measuring 230m. This structure required the quarrying of six million stones, their transportation, amassment and laying in a fashion likely to challenge long centuries to come. Power coupled with skill of the Egyptians leave us astounded. Mentality shapes according to the erroneous conception of history fail somehow to conclude that architecture in ancient Egypt had been in a very advanced stage. For those familiar with the Quranic verses there is nothing to wonder about this, since the Quran mentions of works of superior quality that had been created long before.
9-Do they not travel through the earth and see what was the end of those before them? They were superior to them in strength, furrowed the earth and dwelt in it more than they...
30-The Romans, 9
Acupuncture practiced in China for more than 4.500 years shows that at a given spot on the earth, people were in possession of anatomic knowledge more precise than we came to believe. Acupuncture was the result of a thorough knowledge of the nervous system of the human body and of the distribution of electric in the body. Someone convinced of history’s linear, evolutionist and developmentalist structure cannot come forth claiming that it appears that the Chinese were more versed in the anatomy of the human body compared to us. Otherwise this would lead people to attribute the discovery of such facts to the Martians, like certain writers.
To try to understand history and give a meaning is certainly commendable. But to dare interpret all the periods of history in every geographical corner of the earth within a unilinear and progressionist concept of history is a great error frequently committed. This understanding of history has been the source of views that denied the personalities of individuals. These views that idealize the State led the right-minded to fascism and the left-winged persons to communism. This viewpoint that favored the oppression of the individual by the state refused to see the state at the service of its nationals as a superstructure created by man preferred to consider man as a servant of state in which he had an insignificant presence has been the cause of a great many disaster that appeared to be his ineluctable fate for those who are not familiar with the philosophy of history, these considerations may seem overstatements. If we look closer at a process initiated by Hegel, we may observe that, it had a role, on the one hand, in the emergence of Hitler, while on the other, of Marx. According to this view, the direction of history cannot be diverted. According to this mentality, whether laudable or execrable, the acts people indulge in have no effect on the retrogressive or progressive courses in history. It is the State that plays the historical role and the course of history cannot change its direction. Human element is absent here. The Quran contends that human acts have their consequences in the future development of communities and that many communities have perished because of the evil doings of their members, obliterating their laudable works. This view of life is one that saves the man from being swept by the storms that have raged in history.
It is true that at a certain periods of history mankind marked significant progress following a unilinear and progressive course. But to generalize this movement to cover the entire past is wrong. Such a judgement may be valid for the historical period stretching from the 16th to the 20th century. But to view a period of two or three milleniums from a similar angle would be incorrect. To call a given century before Christ ’the stone age’, thus generalizing it to cover the entire humanity would be improper. Great divergences between communities at a given age, lack of proper communication and reasons that thwarted the political and cultural developments of societies the world over made impossible a simultaneous development of peoples around the earth. Let us assume that one thousand years hence archeological excavations, conducted with a view to having an insight into our level of civilization, will give different results according whether these excavations were made in New York or in a remote corner of Africa. While the one that generalizes his findings will conclude that there had been a progression in the history of mankind, while the other, having recourse to the same method of ratiocination, will conclude that there had been retrogression. Another error generally committed is the fact that products of different domains like communications, arts, medicine, engineering, architecture, morals, farming are put hotchpotch in the same basket. The idea of progression in a given field must not be stretched to cover other areas as well. Therefore, while history advances in certain lines, it may recede in others.
The right thing to do would be to adopt an analytical approach and pick up every single product separately and evaluate accordingly, thus getting rid of the generalizations and facile deductions of the unilinear progressive and evolutionist concepts of history.
