Freedom as the highest value in Islam

Şahin Alpay

I was extremely happy to visit, during most of the past week, Tunisia, the cradle one may say of the recent Arab revolutions against autocratic regimes. The occasion was the invitation to the symposium on “Religion and State in the Arab World” jointly organized by Centre for Arab Unity Studies based in Beirut and Swedish Institute, Alexandria, to present a paper on Turkey’s experience. The symposium took place between October 15 – 17 at the coastal city of Hammamet, and was attended by distinguished academics, journalists and some politicians from all over the Arab world. It provided a great opportunity for me to gain insight into Arab affairs in the post – Arab Awakenings era.

The high point of the symposium was surely the talk given by Rached El Gannushi, the leader of Ennahda, the main party in the ruling coalition government of Tunisia that was formed following elections for the Constituent Assembly last year. It was a great honour to personally meet Sheikh Gannushi, certainly one of the foremost contemporary Muslim liberal thinkers, I have admired since mid – 1990s when I was first acquainted with his thought. I listened to his presentation (in English simultaneous translation) with keen interest. I believe it is highly worth sharing with readers the crux of Gannushi’s views on democracy based on the teachings of Islam. This was his argumentation:

Secularism developed in the West as a procedural solution to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Muslims do not need such a procedural approach to the relationship between the state and religion, because for Muslims the state is a public whereas religion a private affair, and the former therefore should be impartial towards all religious beliefs. The spheres of religion and politics are separate. Religion has to do with revelation, our divine origin and destiny, meaning of life and values, whereas politics have to do with personal opinions and earthly matters.

Due to the absence of a church in Islam Muslims are free to have a diversity of philosophical and political views, and even conceptions of Islam. The best mechanism to determine the conception of Islam embraced by the believers is democracy, that is freedom to express views and an elected parliament through which the believers (ummah) can deliberate on the proper legislation to adopt.

Fundamentalists want to impose their conception of Islam by force, by using the state. Islam, however, does not need to impose religion through the state, because it rests in the consciences of the people. Islam should be free from the state, because the state is human, whereas religion is divine. If the state is involved in religion, it is bound to turn into a mafia – like institution. There is no compulsion in Islam which ensures the rights and liberties of individuals. God created human beings to be free, and the highest value in Islam is freedom. Coercion in religion only creates hypocrats. The state belongs to citizens irrespective of their religious beliefs, and has to ensure respect between different beliefs. Citizens are free to act in line with their convictions, in loyalty to laws adopted by the parliament.

There were various reactions to Gannushi’s arguments from the symposium floor composed mostly of secularists, of both assertive and passive kinds, and Muslim liberals but also some Islamists and leftists. When a participant remarked that the idea of individual freedom is based on liberal philosophy while there is no concept of individual freedom in the Koran, Gannushi responded by saying that neither is there the concept of creed (akida) in the Koran, but no one can argue against the fact that Koran rests on it. To a question whether personal freedom also involves conversion in religious belief (apostasy) he responded in the affirmative.

In response to various criticisms directed towards the performance of the Ennahda dominated government, he admitted that the situation is far from ideal. He said that democracy in Tunisia is only in its second year, and that the country is involved in a process of learning how it works. He emphasized that as long as the door of freedom stays open, it is possible to correct mistakes, and that in Tunisia which did not benefit from freedom for centuries, the door of freedom is now wide open, with no prohibited parties, no political trials, and no restrictions on the media.

In replying to questions on the attitude of Ennahda towards the Salafis (Muslim fundamentalists), Gannushi said they should be arrested when they commit crimes, and that currently about 120 of them are detained for attacking the US Embassy last month. He was, however, against putting them in prison simply for expressing their views, as the former autocratic regime used to do, since that would be the best way to help them increase their influence in society.

After nearly a week in the country, meeting and talking to people, my general impression is that Tunisia is surely on the way to consolidate a democratic regime based on individual freedom.

Published on Sunday's Zaman, 21 October 2012, Sunday

Posted in: Freedom, Islam, Rached El Gannushi, Tunisia