The world 1,400 years ago was not dark. Had it been so, we would have never been asked to undertake a journey to China in search of knowledge
WAS the world perennially immersed in darkness one thousand and four hundred years ago? This is a sensitive question, for many teachers have linked it to our religion, Islam.
We would try to arrive at an agreeable answer to the query purely through an academic overview of what is being taught to students in the name of history in the educational institutions all over the country. It has nothing to do with any religion. This article refers to the extracts from the history of mankind. I have thought it necessary to discuss it with you essentially from students’ point of view who, when step out into the practical world, are beset with cross-intersection of comparative studies, and are simply left bewildered and lost. They wonder why the truth about the vast world that existed beyond their realm was kept concealed from them. They fail to understand why the facts about the diverse humanity and their cultures that existed elsewhere, were held back from them. Why were they told that beyond their domain existed a world of villains, demons, and evil-doers. They were repeatedly assured that away from their frontiers was a cobweb of underdeveloped societies — a godforsaken world surrounded by darkness.
A teacher must restrain himself from transferring any information that happens to be untrue. He should take up with authorities the issues pertaining to misreported facts in the distorted history books. Unfortunately history is always twisted with ulterior motives on the implied instructions from the socio-political policy planners of a country. Ultimate sufferers in the planned game of disinformation happen to be the learners who are intentionally kept in the dark. In the age of multi-media technologies it is no more possible to keep people uninformed for a very long time. They are bound to find out the facts. It is then that the learner’s faith in teachers and the history they teach melts away.
Mankind’s history is a record of material and spiritual development of man during different eras of his existence. It has always been progressive, and never retrogressive. No era in the history of mankind was plunged in darkness. Each era contributed towards metaphysical and physical development of man. We do not know who invented wonder implement called wheel that initiated mechanization, and revolutionized the entire pattern of the life of man.
Almost half a million years ago Old Stone Age man (Palaeolithic) flaked and polished stone tools, made hand axe, ignited fire, gathered food, and domesticated dog. Neanderthal Man (150000 BC) had a primitive religion, and wore a certain kind of clothes. Man has been engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, pottery techniques, textile spinning and weaving, making of copper and iron tools and weapons, and cast iron implements, painting, sculpture, and written history in one form or other for the last ten thousand years. How can we label remarkable eras gone by as eras submerged in darkness.
A casual look at the magnificent archaeological remains of Assyria and Babylon, Mesopotamia across Tigris and Euphrates called the heart of ancient city-state civilizations, Egyptian pyramids, the 60-feet high temple at Abu Simbel (3000 BC) testify what man was capable of accomplishing between 5000-3000 BC. How can we dub the great eras of stone masonry as eras of darkness, or eras without a civilization? A random glance at the ancient architecture in Greece and Rome (Italy) leaves us bewildered. Hitherto we have not touched upon faiths (religions) of man in different eras of his existence, and neither shall we in the remainder part of this article. It is beyond our domain. What we are tackling is gradual development of civilizations over the millenniums.
Spiritually and intellectually the world prior to 1,400 years was persuasive and far ahead of our modern era of science and technology. Hazrat Ibrahim (Prophet Abraham), Hazrat Daud (Prophet David), Hazrat Moosa (Prophet Moses), and Hazrat Isa (Jesus Christ) had lived and influenced the world more than 1,400 years ago. Their era was era of radiant brightness.
The world was overwhelmed by the advent of apostles, thinkers, the sagacious, the spiritual guides, saints, sages and the sufis like Confucius (551-476 BC), Zarathustra (628-551 BC), Siddhartha Gautama Buddha (563-483 BC) and Hammurabi (18th century BC) who was known for his legal code. Who would deny the everlasting impact that the great Greek philosophers and thinkers Socrates (469-399 BC), Plato (384-322 BC) and Aristotle (484-322 BC) left on the development of truth-seeking thought process in the history of mankind? No teacher would like to tell his students that the era of the thinkers and the philosophers was an era of darkness. Wasn’t it Socrates who said, “There is an infinitely worthier subject for philosophers than all these trees and stones, and even all those stars; there is the mind of man. What is man, and what can he become?”
We, like numerous entities, are a part of one huge humanity. We are joint share holders in world heritage. We do not have plausible reasons for giving up our share in universal understanding and disassociating ourselves from rest of the world communities. Aren’t we, without knowing, sinking into abysmal isolation? The world prior to 1,400 years was not as dark as it has been painted in our distorted history books. Had it been so dark you would have never been asked to undertake a journey to China in search of knowledge. You have been preordained to seek knowledge from cradle to grave.
