Traditional and Modern conceptions of “Freedom and Autonomy” 🧵
Historically and traditionally, freedom has always been about self-mastery instead of arbitrary and unconditional self-indulgence and individualism. Before one could worry about outer influence and control, they x.com
Historically and traditionally, freedom has always been about self-mastery instead of arbitrary and unconditional self-indulgence and individualism. Before one could worry about outer influence and control, they x.com
should look into their own self, consider the structure of their Soul, and subdue the desire (nāfs) and spirit or instinct part of it, to the individuated-in-human universal intellect, an intellect which is inspired by The One with some metaphysical and moral truths. So for
example, you desire or are spirited to murder someone, but your intellect or fitrāh clearly tells you that it’s wrong, so you stop yourself from acting purely on desire and instincts. Repeating this process eventually leads to self-mastery and true freedom not just from bad
internal tendencies of desire and instinct but also from any external entity trying to provoke or tempt you into giving into their scheme and falsehood. For scriptural religions, the intellect part also includes following the guidance of the legislative law of God through the
Prophets and revelations. We know that the whole purpose of Islam is the worship of one true God and performing good deeds through a constant struggle and proper regulation of the nāfs.
Such an understanding of the self and freedom was based on a hierarchical vision of Reality. Metaphysical hierarchy; chain of Being or Existence from The Absolute and Muhammadan Reality to the sensible world, social hierarchy; husband-wife roles, hierarchy in the quality of time
or generation; best generation being that of Prophet ﷺ, hierarchy in space; the reward of praying in Makkāh being higher compared to any other Masjīd, hierarchy in knowledge and sciences; the subordination principle in metaphysics and the superiority of knowledgeable over
ignorant, internal hierarchy; superiority of intellect over desire and instinct, and so on.
For only in the intrinsic hierarchy of Being or Existence, every being is determined by God to occupy a proper place and role, which if it leaves and on top tries to occupy the place and role of others, something which the Quran calls transgression against God, anarchy and
disruption results on both the individual and collective level.
It is exactly this crime which the modernity has committed against the whole world and God. One of its main attacks was against the traditional civilization doctrine of hierarchy. Modernism rejected all kinds of hierarchies, starting with the most fundamental, the metaphysical
hierarchy, due to their empirical and modern scientific turn, where they deny everything beyond empirical or at least its knowledge and role in our lives and generally the Being or Reality.
This rejection presents us with flat vision of humans and the Reality, which results in all of your modern ideologies. You can run your own simulations about what results from rejecting the traditional hierarchies. The result will no doubt be empiricism, atheism, physicalism,
secularism, feminism, capitalism, linear view of progress and better times, the inverted model of science where physics is the queen of sciences instead of metaphysics, the leveling of people and equalling of the knowledgeable and ignorant; you see this even in the claim of
modernist Muslim that the Prophet ﷺ and Companions were humans just like us, democracy, individualism, and liberalism.
For our main discussion, modern freedom, which is based on individualism and liberalism, does not consider the metaphysical and internal hierarchy. It has a flattened corporeal or empirical vision of humans and Reality, and so it gives humans a free pass to do whatever they
desire as long as they don’t cause empirical harm to other people. The choice of the individual is governed mostly by his desire and instinct, and it’s an arbitrary choice with no objective moral obligation. The choice of an individual under modern freedom is not even bound by
any metaphysical and moral truths and falsehood, good and bad, religious commandments and so on. The modern individual is the ultimate being at the center of a flat, arbitrary and nominalist world, who is not subjected to any principles or God, rather he is the very being who
creates principles and truths himself. However, all of this is nothing but a great deception, not just on a metaphysical level but also social level, because the moment human desire is given free pass, the human is not only a slave to his own desire but also a slave to the
second-creators i.e., taghūt authorities, who systematically exploit his desires and instincts through propaganda. No better example than capitalism. For more on this type of control, Bertrand Russel has a decent book. x.com
A short excerpt from it,
“Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice
“Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice
of eating mutton. Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible.”
Verily, as Shaykhūna Hasan Spiker notes in the conclusion of his book:
“..... In defiance of those who would have us exchange it for servitude to the world and the devil, we must recover our God-given freedom.” [Inshāllah, Amin]
— (pp. 111-113) x.com
“..... In defiance of those who would have us exchange it for servitude to the world and the devil, we must recover our God-given freedom.” [Inshāllah, Amin]
— (pp. 111-113) x.com
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