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Chapter 7
The Human or Natural Approach
The human approach to history is just the opposite of the
materialistic approach. It gives basic importance to man-and human values, both in
relation to the individuals and the society. From the psychological point of view it
considers itself to be composed of a set of animal instincts which are common to both man
and beasts and the other set of higher instincts, religious, ethical, inquisitive and
aesthetic which are peculiar to man and distinguish him from the animals. From the philosophical point of view it considers a society to have
two aspects. Firstly, it is composed of individuals, each of them having a mixture of high
and low qualities. Secondly, as a whole, it has its own variety of attributes which are
the eternal characteristics of man in general. A Persian poet expresses this fact thus:
"This sweet water and this saltish water in every vein of
creatures will flow till the Day of Resurrection. "
Here a vein refers to the veins of the society i.e. man in an
indefinite and general application. In some individuals sweet water flows i.e. good
qualities dominate and in others saltish water flows i.e. bad qualities are more numerous
and remarkable. This position will continue so long as man exists on the face of the
earth. The death of individuals makes no difference to it. Anyhow, with the evolution of
man and human society the position will certainly improve a great deal. According to this approach history, like nature itself, is
developing and progressing towards a state of perfection. The development of history is
neither confined to the technical nor the cultural aspects, nor to the growth and
improvement of the means of production. It is an all-round and all pervading process and
extends to all human affairs. Man, as a result of his comprehensive evolution, is moving
towards liberation from environmental and social bonds and is gradually throwing off the
shackles which bind him to his environment. At the same time his adherence to an ideology and faith is growing.
In the future he is expected to secure complete emancipation and with that to reach the
stage of complete adherence to faith and ideology. In the past when man was less able to
exploit natural resources he was a slave to nature. In the future, with more and more
exploitation of natural resources, he will not only be free from the bonds of nature but
will also gradually bring it under his domination and control. It is erroneous to say that evolution follows the development of the
means of production. Those who say so confuse the cause with the effect. In fact, the
development of the means of production is the result of man's natural craving for
perfection, expansion and diversification. It originates from his power of invention which
has, with the passage of time grown and is still growing. According to this approach one
of the characteristics of man is the internal and individual contradiction between his
terrestrial and celestial aspects, i.e. between those instincts which are inclined down
wards and aim only at the individual, limited and temporary gains and those which are
inclined upwards and want to encompass the whole of humanity and aim at achieving the
moral, religious, scientific and intellectual objectives. The famous Persian poet, Mawlawi
says:
The soul inclines to wisdom and science, The body inclines to gardens and fruits, The soul inclines to progress and honour, The body inclines to property and chattels, The body inclines to greenery and flowing water, because it originates from them, The soul inclines to life and the living; because its origin is divine, Allah also inclines to soul, So say that He loves them and they love Him.
The internal conflict of man, which the ancients called the fight
between reason and passion, automatically leads to the conflict between different groups
of human beings, the elated and morally liberated beings on the one side and the nasty and
brutish beings on the other. This approach accepts the existence of a conflict as a part of the
development and evolution of history, but not in the form of class war between those
attached to the old means of production and old social system and those attached to the
more modern means of production. It claims that a conflict has always existed between men with mature
faith who are free from the captivity of nature and the environment of animal instincts
and have an object in view and the degraded and brutish persons and it has played a very
effective role in the evolution of history. To interpret all the wars in history as class wars is tantamount to
closing the eyes to the most beautiful and the brightest manifestations of human life all
along. Throughout history many battles have been fought to secure material
needs like food, clothing or housing, or on questions connected with sex, power and
prestige. But there have definitely been certain battles which can be described as fights
between the right and the wrong and the good and the evil. They represented a struggle
between the human motives and the animal propensities, between the common good and the
individual interests, between the high human values and the base desires and between the
progressive and the elated man and the low and the perverted man. In the words of the holy
Qur'an they were fights between the troops of Allah and the troops of the Devil. The
supporters of this theory strongly censure the attempts of the materialists to interpret
all religious, ethical and human movements on the basis of class struggle and regard such
attempts as a distortion of history and an insult to human dignity. Historical events show
that many movements which were initiated for securing the primary material needs were led
and guided or at least supported by individuals who themselves were well-off and
well-placed. Contrary to the claim of the materialists that all progressive
campaigns are waged by the oppressed and the deprived classes wanting to displace the
existing system and to replace it by another system which may ensure their material needs
in conformity with the developed means of production there exists historical evidence to
prove that progressive movements have not always been confined to the oppressed classes. They have occasionally been led by the individuals belonging to the
privileged classes who thrust their dagger into the heart of the ruling system. The risings of Abraham, Moses, Muhammad and Husayn were all of this
nature. It is also misleading to suggest that the progressive movements have always aimed
at material objectives. The movement of the early Muslims bears witness to the fact that
this is not so. Ali identifying the nature of this movement said: "They were given
permission to defend their faith with the help of their swords". (See: Sermon 154,
Peak of Eloquence, ISP 1979) Similarly, progressive movements have not always been the
result of the development of the means of production. During the past two centuries a number of freedom movements were
launched both in the East and the West. One such movement was the movement for securing a
constitutional government in Iran, known as the Mashruta Movement. In this case it cannot
be claimed that the development of the means of production had created a crisis in Iran.
It is also not true that unrest in the society has always been caused by the unsuitability
of the legal provisions of the existing system. In certain cases the provisions as such
were quite acceptable, but a campaign had to be waged to secure their effective
enforcement and the Alawi uprisings during the Abbasid period had this nature. Human
conscience is not so depraved that people cannot be inspired by anything higher and nobler
than their basic material needs. From the above the following conclusions may be drawn:1. Evolutionary battles: Battles in history have been of divergent
forms, nature and causes: But those which contributed to the development of history and
humanity have been only those which were fought between the men of high ideology, free
from selfishness and greed and the men of selfish and beastly nature lacking in
aspirational and intellectual life. The nature of the wars which have contributed to the advancement and
evolution was not that of a class war nor that of a confrontation between the new and the
old in the sense mentioned earlier during the course of the discussion on the
materialistic theory. Wars have, by and by acquired an ideological aspect and from the
viewpoint of human values man is gradually coming closer to perfection i.e. to the stage
of an ideal man in an ideal society. He will continue to advance on this path till a world
government, having full regard for all human values is established and that will be the
end of all the evil forces and selfish wars. According to the Islamic terminology this government is called the
Mahdi Government. 2. Absurdity of logical continuity: A logical continuity of the
historical stages as described by the materialists is baseless. Historical events,
especially those of the past one century, prove the absurdity of this theory. During this
period only such countries have gone over to communism as had never passed through the
stage of capitalism. The Soviet Union, China and the East European countries are a
conspicuous example of it. On the other hand the countries with a highly developed
capitalistic system like the United States, Great Britain and France are still maintaining
their old systems and a century old prediction of the protagonists of materialism
concerning the workers revolution in the heavily industrialized countries like Britain and
France has turned out to be mere illusion. It is evident from the above that there is no such thing as a
historical compulsion. It is quite possible that in a capitalistic society the proletarian
class attains such a state of prosperity and well being that it may totally reject all
ideas of revolution. Similarly, it is also possible that with appearance of a clear and
convincing ideology and an elevation of religious and social conscience a nomadic society
may reach the highest stage of human culture in one leap. The renaissance of the early
Islamic era bears witness to this fact. 3. Sanctity of an armed struggle: The lawfulness and sanctity of an
armed struggle does not mean an encroachment on any individual's rights or aspirations.
The struggle becomes lawful and sacred whenever anything sacred to humanity is in danger.
Whenever any right, especially that which pertains to the entire society, is threatened an
armed struggle is allowed. Freedom is one such right. A struggle for the liberation of the
oppressed, as specifically mentioned in the holy Qur'an, is another instance. If the belief in the Oneness of Allah, which is the greatest asset
of humanity, is in danger then a fight is naturally lawful. 4. Reforms: There is no reason why partial or gradual reforms should
be condemned. History does not compulsorily pass through contradictions and the
transformation of one contradiction into another is not a universal truth. Hence, it is
not correct to say that partial and gradual reforms prevent an explosion and block the way
to evolution. Even partial and gradual reforms do encourage and help those who
fight for a rightful and just cause and bring the chances of their final success closer.
In contrast corruption, turmoil and perversions help the hostile forces and slow down the
movement of history in favour of the righteous people. According to this approach, what is
required is a sort of development which precedes the ripening of the fruit on the tree and
not an explosion. The better the care, anti pest protection and watering of a tree, the
better, healthier, and sometimes earlier is the fruit it produces. 5. Disorders: The same reasons which justify partial and gradual
reforms also make unlawful subversion and sabotage with a view to creating deadlock and
crisis, which is recommended by the materialistic theory. 6. Vacillations of history: Although, on the whole, history moves
towards evolution, yet contrary to the materialistic view, such a movement is neither
compulsory nor inevitable. It is also not essential that every society in any stage of its
history should be more perfect than it was in the preceding stage. The prime mover of history is man who is free and the master of his
actions. Hence, history fluctuates in its movements. Sometimes it goes forward and
sometimes backward. It sways now to the right and now to the left. Some times it moves
fast and sometimes slow and occasionally stands still. A society continues to rise and
fall. The history of human civilization is nothing but a series of rises, falls and
extinctions. As the famous historian, Toynbee, has pointed out, decline of every single
civilization is inevitable, though on the whole, human history continues to advance
steadily along a line of evolution. 7. The evolutionary march of humanity towards freedom from the
restrictions imposed by natural environments, economic conditions and individual and group
interests has on the whole, been guided towards a purposeful life, a better ideology and a
deeper faith. The will of a primitive man is mostly conditioned by his natural and
social environments and his animal impulses, whereas a culturally advanced man with his
broad outlook has gradually attained a great deal of freedom from such restrictions and
has consequently, to a large extent, brought his environments and his impulses under his
control. 8. The jihad and the efforts to persuade others to adopt the
righteous path are quite different from a class war, for they have a humanitarian basis. 9. The power of conviction and reasoning is genuine, natural and
effective. A conviction enables the human conscience to overcome material urges. 10. The Hegelian and Marxian triangle of thesis, antithesis and
synthesis is neither applicable to history nor to nature and consequently it is a false
presumption that history passes through contradictories or that historical stages are a
series of contradictories derived from each other and transformed into one another. The triangle of thesis, antithesis and synthesis is based on two
transformations and one combination i.e. the transformation of a phenomenon into its
antithesis, then its transformation into the antithesis of antithesis and the combination
of these two forms at the third and last stage viz. the synthesis. But, in reality, nature does not work in this manner. What actually
exists in nature is either a combination of two contradictories without transformation, or
transformation of one contradictory into another without any combination. The third form
which is met with is evolution without either transformation or combination. Many elements which are somewhat contradictory to each other combine
together but are not transformed into each other. For instance, water is a mixture of
hydrogen and oxygen. In such cases there is a combination, not transformation. There are
other cases where nature gradually tilts from one excessive state to the opposite state
and in the process strikes a balance between the two. In such cases there is a
transformation, but no combination. There are still other cases where a third thing comes
into being as a result of the combination of the two things. Of course, there is no harm
if we call the resulting third thing synthesis and the two original ones thesis and
antithesis respectively, but that means nothing more than the use of common and familiar
terms. The same is the case with the use of the word "dialectic".
It is a beautiful and well-sounding word and no writer would like to be deprived of it.
Therefore, there is no harm if it is used in connection with any idea that combines the
principles of motion and contradiction though it may not have those distinctive features
of dialectic thinking to which we have referred before.
