At five in the afternoon, Cairo time (63).. Islam and Freedom of Opinion and Expression (2)

Is Islam Against Freedom of Opinion?

The West’s Question… and the Ill Intent of Some

For decades, the question of freedom of opinion in Islam has been raised outside its natural context—not as a genuine intellectual inquiry, but as a test of condemnation. A question not meant to be answered, but to be used.

At the heart of this biased usage, the verdict is arranged before the investigation: that Islam, by its very nature, is hostile to freedom.

Yet any serious reading compels us to ask a prior question before the accusation:
Is a religion or a civilization to be judged by the worst practices of some of its followers?
Or by its foundational texts, its method of managing disagreement, and the nature of the relationship between religion and authority in its historical experience?

Obedience… When It Confiscates Reason

The real dilemma begins at a point that appears, on the surface, to be a virtue: obedience.

In Arab culture, obedience has often been presented as the “virtue of virtues,” a guarantee of stability and cohesion, suitable—according to this view—for all times and places.

Yet this “virtue,” when grounded in rigid religious interpretation and harnessed to serve worldly interests with political, economic, and social dimensions, transforms from a moral value into a chronic disease. It leads to paralysis of the mind, incapacity for creativity and renewal, obstruction of any desire for independent free thinking, and ultimately passive submission to the shifting realities of a complex world that never ceases to change.

For this reason, one enduring fact does not surprise us: totalitarian, dictatorial, authoritarian regimes—regardless of their origins or ideologies—do not want a free citizen who experiments, errs, and thinks. They want an obedient citizen: fearful, submissive to rigid inherited traditions, and hostile to everything new and renewing.

It is logical that such rigidity, rejection of renewal, and clinging to all that is traditionally “static” would lead to a dangerous intellectual condition—manifested in a certain belief in possessing absolute truth and unquestionable correctness: a faith that sees only the past and clings to old ideas, however much they contradict the spirit and tempo of the modern age.

Here, precisely, the core of the problem emerges:
Is what is practiced in the name of Islam truly Islam?
Or is much of what is suppressed in our societies the fruit of an old alliance between political obedience and closed interpretation?

The Paradox: Why Islam Alone in the Dock?

The question of “freedom of opinion in Islam” has not been posed with the same intensity regarding other religions or civilizations, despite their well-documented histories of repression—histories that are long-standing and, at certain stages, far more bloody.

Islam in particular has been placed in a permanent dock of accusation—not because of its texts, but because of a political and cultural moment marked by:

• The rise of ideological movements speaking in the name of religion
• The explosion of conflicts within Muslim societies
• The decline of the nation-state’s role in more than one Arab country

In this climate, a deliberate conflation occurred between:

Religion as text,
Religion as political discourse,
Religion as an instrument of power.

Here, ill intent began.

Who Is Asking… and Why?

In many Western discussions, the question is not raised out of intellectual curiosity but from a presumed position of moral superiority. Islam is constantly interrogated:

Does it allow criticism?
Does it accept difference?
Can it tolerate freedom of expression?

Meanwhile, the same questions are rarely asked about:

The limits of freedom of opinion within Western societies themselves,
The unspoken “red lines,”
Or the laws that restrict expression when it touches “political sacreds” or “collective memory.”

This is not a matter of justificatory comparison, but of double standards: freedom invoked as a universal criterion when it serves a particular narrative, and constrained when it challenges a dominant one.

Ill Intent… and Poor Response

On the other hand, the Islamic response has not always risen to the level of the challenge. Instead of deconstructing the question and distinguishing between text and practice, responses often became:

• A total denial that any problem exists
• An emotional defense that justifies repression in the name of “protecting religion”
• A sermonizing discourse that fails to address the modern mind

Thus, ill intent in posing the question met with weakness in answering it, and Islam emerged as the loser in a battle Muslims did not fight well.

Is the Problem in Islam… or in Authority?

When we review the history of repression carried out in the name of religion, we discover a shocking truth: most cases of silencing opinion were not defenses of doctrine, but defenses of power.

Power that uses religion to perpetuate itself,
Organizations that monopolize interpretation to prevent criticism,
Groups that view difference as an existential threat.

In all these cases, the text was not the problem—but who held it, and how it was used.

Why Do We Need to Reframe the Question?

Because the persistence of the question in its accusatory form, and the persistence of the response in its defensive form, means the crisis remains open with no horizon.

We do not need to acquit Islam before an imaginary court, nor to justify everything done in its name. Rather, we need to restore the question to its proper place: as an intellectual inquiry, not a weapon.

In the coming installments, we will step back—to the text itself—and ask:
How did the Qur’an speak about freedom?

To be continued tomorrow…

Paris: 5:00 PM Cairo time.