Materialistic theories of history suggest that geography and material resources determine the destinies of nations. Karl Marx went further to suggest that even our ideologies are strongly influenced or determined by changes in economic and other material conditions. A delicious irony of history is that, entirely contrary to his theories and expectations, the ideas of Marx went on to change the lives of millions of people in Russia and China for more than half a century. Without any material resources or compelling historical necessities, the vision of a classless society which promised to look after every member “according to their needs,” inspired Russian and Chinese leaders. The reality of communist Russia was so different from the idealized vision that there is a legitimate dispute as to whether it was a force for good or evil. However, there can be no dispute that the ideas of Marx, without any material resources to back them up, changed the course of history.
It is only because materialist views have become widely accepted that something as obvious as the power of ideas to change the world needs to be stated, argued and demonstrated. The terrifying flash of the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima in which “Practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death” is highly visible. Even more powerfully destructive than the ideas of mathematics and physics which led to the creation of the bomb, are the invisible ideas which allow us to calculate the value of human lives in terms of barrels of oil. Far more than an interplay of material resources, this world is a battleground of ideas, good and bad, which shape our lives and history.
Historians have searched the history of the nomadic Arabs in vain for material causes to explain their sudden rise to world power after the coming of Islam. The ideas of Islam, explicitly preaching the equality and brotherhood of all men, which turned the tides of history. In the words of the brilliant historian Marshall Hodgson, “Muslims succeeded in building a new form of society, with its own distinctive institutions, its art and literature, its science and scholarship, its political and social forms, as well as its cult and creed, all bearing an unmistakable Islamic impress. … (Islamic civilization) came closer than any had ever come to uniting all mankind under its ideals.”
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