Why Has Thought Remained Alive… While Reality Has Faltered?
After this extensive review of the trajectory of freedom of opinion and expression in Islamic thought—from the Qur’an and Sunnah, to the Rightly Guided Caliphs, then to early jurists, and finally to modern reformist pioneers—
a question emerges that cannot be ignored:
Why has this thought remained alive, rich, and renewable…
while Islamic reality has remained faltering, and often hostile to freedom across many of its phases?
The first point to affirm is that Islamic thought has never been devoid of voices of freedom.
In every era:
• there were those who defended reason
• those who reopened the gate of ijtihad
• those who rejected clericalism
• those who linked faith to choice, not coercion
From Al-Ash'ari and Ibn Rushd, to Muhammad Abduh, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, and Muhammad Salim Al-Awa, and onward to more open contemporary voices—the chain has never been broken.
The problem, then, was not the absence of thought,
but the isolation of thought from the management of reality.
The Alliance of Power and Stagnation:
The deeper cause of the obstruction of freedom has always been political before being religious.
Since the transformation of the caliphate into hereditary rule,
restrictions began to tighten on:
• consultation
• criticism
• freedom of opinion
Over time, political despotism aligned with juristic stagnation, producing an authority that fears reason,
sanctifies obedience, and searches within religion for what justifies repression rather than what restrains it.
The Closure of Ijtihad:
When the gate of ijtihad was effectively closed, it was not closed to jurists alone, but to society as a whole.
Questioning ceased, criticism was suffocated, and heritage was transformed from a field of understanding into texts invoked for sanctification.
Without ijtihad, freedom of opinion loses meaning,
renewal becomes impossible, and the ability to keep pace with the العصر disappears.
Fear of Freedom:
At its core, the fear of freedom was not religious, but political.
Freedom:
• questions
• holds accountable
• unsettles centers of power
For this reason, not only authoritarian regimes resisted it, but also religious institutions that had grown accustomed to guardianship and monopolizing interpretation.
Why Did Thought Endure?
Because the foundational texts themselves protect it.
The Qur’an:
• elevates the value of reason
• acknowledges difference
• affirms freedom of choice
The lived Sunnah of the Prophet:
• did not establish a coercive state
• did not practice intellectual compulsion
• did not confiscate opinion
Thus, whenever reality sought to suffocate freedom, thought returned to draw its legitimacy from the original sources.
Between Text and Reality… The Great Paradox:
Islam—as text and values—stands on the side of freedom.
But the political history of Muslims has often stood on the side of authority.
Between the two, critical thought has continually paid the price.
Truthfully stated:
Freedom of opinion and expression in Islam is not a foreign idea, not a Western demand, nor a cultural luxury.
It is:
• a natural extension of monotheism
• a condition for the validity of faith
• a foundation for any genuine renaissance
Yet it does not flourish:
• under despotism
• in climates of fear
• with a mind that rejects questioning
Beyond These Installments:
What Islamic thought has offered
has been sufficient to build free and just societies.
What we lack today is not the text, but the courage to read it; not the heritage, but the boldness to activate it.
Here, we close this file—not to place a final period,
but to pose a greater question mark:
Do we, today, possess the political and intellectual will
to move freedom of opinion and expression from books… into reality?
To be continued… in a new trajectory,
Cairo: Five in the evening, local time.
