All Islam Ever Wanted was Freedom - 2

Musa wanted to trigger a chain reaction that would start with the emancipation and freedom of people’s minds and souls, leading up to their physical freedom and the freedom of their total being. And that spelled a disaster for Pharaoh, for nothing could stem the tide of freedom and its vast ramifications for injustice and tyranny. The situation manifested itself in the Magicians’ instantaneous prostration to God - following Musa’s triumph as well as Pharaoh’s emphatic defeat – sincerely repenting and rejoicing at their discerning of truth and their tasting of the true meaning of life and liberty.

When Pharaoh threatened the magicians that he will punish them for their betrayal by cutting off their hands and their feet on opposite sides, and by crucifying them on the trunks of palm trees, they - as finally free people enabled to distinguish truth from falsehood and to think freely - calmly responded to Pharaoh and his threats: “Never will we prefer you over what has come to us of clear proofs and (over) He who created us. So decree whatever you are to decree. You can only decree for this worldly life. Indeed, we have believed in our Lord that He may forgive us our sins and what you compelled us (to do) of magic. And Allah is better and more enduring” (Ta Ha, 72, 73).

Moreover, when Musa miraculously left Egypt with his people (an event called the Exodus), and when they stood at the threshold of the Holy Land, the meaning and significance of true freedom again came to the fore, perhaps most dramatically.

The Children of Israel were asked to enter the Holy Land and fight their enemy, the land’s occupiers. They were promised victory if they did so. However, they declined, rebelled and defied the divine orders.

In reality, there was more to the insubordination and rebellion of the Children of Israel than meets the eye. The incident demonstrated that for the Children of Israel, true freedom was a farfetched proposition. Though physically free, they were still saddled with a spiritual and mental bondage.

Consequently, they were denied entry to the

Holy Land for forty years. That was a punishment, firstly for their appalling spiritual and psychological state, and secondly for their resisting of Allah’s command, resulting in them wandering in the wilderness uncertain of where they should go and what they should do. After forty years have elapsed, only then were the Children of Israel allowed to go in. Yet, there is another dimension to the episode. The Children of Israel were taken out of Egypt to the Holy Land with the aim of settling therein and creating a civilization of their own. The age of slavery, ghettos and diaspora was over.

However, they proved incapacitated and well short of the qualifications required for the fulfilment of the task. If they were allowed to proceed in such a state to their destination to undertake the demanding process of civilization-building, they would have caused in the long run more damage and pain than benefit and overall goodness, not just for themselves, but also their future generations. Unquestionably, such are the gravity, intricacy and two-sidedness of the civilization-building enterprise.

During the forty years of life in the wilderness, a new completely free generation of the Children of Israel was raised. They were not part, nor did they carry the scars, of the Egyptian bondage, and were raised under the watchful eye and painstaking guidance of Prophets Musa and his brother Harun (Aaron). As such, they were qualified to enter and inhabit the Holy Land and perform what was expected from them.

Lessons learned

The message conveyed thereby is that great civilizations are engendered and built, not copied, imported or purchased. To do so, power, armies, land, people, resources and other sheer quantitative variables are not enough. What is needed most is all-inclusive human development steeped in complete and authentic freedom. A corollary of this blend is creativity – freedom’s sister - that recognizes no imposed false boundaries, nor point of reference.

The strength of a civilization depends on the strength of its people’s creativity, freedom and holistic human development. A deterioration in any, or all, of the three leads to a commensurate deterioration in the body of a civilization.

Perhaps, today’s Muslims could learn an invaluable lesson from the history of the Children of Israel. Repetitive calls for a renaissance of Islamic civilization could be heard loud and clear almost in all corridors of the Islamic and Muslim cultural presence. Much efforts, time and resources are poured into the idea. Nonetheless, very little progress has been made thus far; the reason being either the total negligence, or merely partial treatment, of the three most critical components, the triplets: freedom, human development and creativity. Apparently, the priorities have been misconstrued and mixed up.

There is no Islamic renaissance as long as the interests of politicians and political parties, governments and their narrow agendas, royalties, and certain institutional entities, are venerated and served at the expense of the interests of the Islamic message and the Muslim Ummah (community) en bloc. The two are simply incompatible.

For example, how can there be a renaissance in education when many new universities are built but no adequate academic freedom is ensured, and the last thing students are taught in their curricula is creativity and creative, along with critical, thinking? Or how can there be a renaissance in politics, economic development, art and architecture when corruption and diverse forms and levels of dishonesty are rife at every level of countries’ institutional presence and operation? In this way, freedom and creativity become highly politicized and maltreated, and so, turned into forms of suppression and banality. If openly promoted, freedom and creativity may yet become dangerous for the establishments.

Some people just seem to be happy about ubiquitous hypocrisy, and about building castles in the air and leading an unrealistic existence removed from the pressures and challenges of everyday life.

Most Muslim countries are well into the second and third post-colonial generation. Yet, they are still wandering in their socio-economic, political, cultural and educational wilderness, not knowing exactly where to go and what to do. They are being mercilessly tossed about by modern ideological and cultural undercurrents. If the Children of Israel needed the lifespan of one generation to turn things around, one wonders how long today’s Muslims need to do the same. Certainly, getting rid of cultural and intellectual colonialism will be the best thing to start with.

The case of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and his mission

When Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) migrated from Makkah to Madinah with his companions, he did so – as is often emphasized - due to the pressing

CHANGE OF NAME safety and security concerns, which to some extent is true. However, he did so, primarily, because he realized, after thirteen years of trying, that Makkah - ill-disposed and hostile as it was - was proving deficient for the implementation of Islam as the religion of freedom, cultural refinement and civilizational consciousness and growth. Other alternatives, therefore, had to be sought.

Madinah turned out to be everything Makkah wasn’t. It was an epitome and receptacle of the earliest manifestations of Islamic civilization. Central to this new culture was the liberation of people from worshipping and submitting themselves to anything and anybody other than the Almighty Creator. People were governed by higher spiritual and moral standards than such as pertained to their own personal, tribal, or traditional interests. The stage was set for the new code of conduct when the Prophet at the beginning of the Charter, or Constitution, of the multi-ethnic and multireligious city of Madinah clearly stated that its citizens, Muslims and non-Muslims, formed one nation – ummah. The content of the Charter oozed throughout the assurance and facilitation of peace and concord, combined with human freedom, dignity and productivity.

Madinah was a truly free and progressive society. It was a model that all subsequent Muslim societies and urban centers tried to emulate. It was a stage where integration, supreme justice and human rights prevailed, where equal opportunities for all were provided, and where, perhaps for the first time in human history, inter-faith dialogues and positive interactions - especially between the followers of the Abrahamic religions - on a regular basis transpired.

The new traditions have been enumerated in the following Qur’anic words: “Indeed, Allah orders justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded” (al-Nahl, 90).

It should be observed that the emphasis in the verse is on a communal, reciprocal and all-embracing good behavior, transcending for a while the parameters of religion, traditional customs and social mores.

It was owing to that that Madinah was thus called. The name “Madinah” is derived from the words “maddana” and “tamaddun”, which mean “to civilize” and “civilization” respectively. Apart from the word “tamaddun”, the word “hadarah” is also employed in Arabic to imply civilization. “Hadarah” (civilization) is derived from the words “hadara”, “hudur” and “hadir”, which mean “to be present”, “presence” and “he who is present” respectively.

That denotes that in Islam, for a civilization to materialize and grow, the presence of enlightened, free, visionary and dedicated people is essential. Their mere presence will ensure the provision of conducive conditions and facilities for a civilization.

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