ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Sociology of the Qur'an Part Ii Criticism of Historical Materialism Now that we have dealt with the fundamentals and the conclu­sions of the theory of historical materialism, the time has come to make a critical appraisal of it. First of all, I would like to point out that my aim is neither to criticize Marx's views scattered in all of his works, nor to appraise Marxism in its entirety.

I only intend to evaluate his materialistic interpretation of history or historical materialism, which is one of the basic tenets of Marxism. Basically, the criticism of Marx's views or Marxism as a whole is a different thing from the criticism of one of its elements such as historical materialism. The criticism of Marx's theories, i.e.

the study of his views in totality based upon the entire bulk of his writings belonging to the different periods of his life, and which are full of many contradictions, is a work that has been done by several individuals in the West.

In Iran, as far as I know, the book Revisionism from Marx to Mao, from which I have drawn abundantly and quoted extensively in this chapter, is the best book on this topic." Our purpose here is criticism of historical materialism by analyzing one or more of the fundamental principles of Marxism which in Marx's own view were considered indubitable, and by critically examining one or more principles which Marx himself does not consider as definite, and has occasionally contradicted them in some of his works, but are nevertheless the necessary part of Marxism; since Marx's own contradic­tion is to be regarded as a kind of deviation from Marxism.

Here I have critically examined certain definite and generally accepted principles of Marxism and the conclusions which necessarily follow from them. Our purpose is not to point out all the occasions when Marx has expressed views contrary to his own principles in his writings, which are replete with contradictions. The real target of my criticism is historical materialism and not the theories of Marx in general.

It is one of the wonders of history that in his philosophical, socio­logical, and economic writings Marx is more or less preoccupied with the idea of historical materialism, but while analysing and evaluating certain contemporary historical events, he pays little attention to the principles of historical materialism. Why does he do so? This question has been answered variously.