Freedom of Religion and Intellectual Honesty
Tuesday, 13 December, 2011
Ahmed Abdullah Saeed, a good friend of mine, has written an article about freedom of religion being a human right, at Haveeru Daily (http://www.haveeru.com.mv/dhivehi/report/114108). Many readers have commented on the article, and I was surprised to see that someone had accused him of being intellectually dishonest.
While I do not myself agree with Ahmed's proposition that Islam prescribes the death penalty for apostates, I was puzzled that someone found reasons to accuse him of intellectual dishonesty. Why? Was it just because he had spoken in defence of Islam? More than likely, for in today's world, the fashion or trend is to hate Islam, to lie about it, to mock it, to not live it, and to seem as far from it as is possible.
Anyway, let us keep that aside and talk about intellectual honesty and the freedom of religion!
If God exists, and if He created the universe and mankind, then all "intellectually honest" thought processes would lead us to the conclusion that man does not have any right or authority de jure to say anything or do anything against a Command of God. So, the first question is, Does God really exist?
All "intellectually honest" journeys to find God would lead the seeker to the green, blissful, and undying land of faith where he will know beyond a shadow of doubt that God really exists. A human being can consult either the simplest of the signs of God such as the physical signs of God everywhere around us, through common sense, or delve deep into the abstract realms of philosophy, theology and science; still, the intellectually honest and morally upright man will always find that at the end of the dark tunnel, there is a Light that matters more than the most beautiful things mundane, and that that Light is of God. You would come across all kinds of anti-God talks based on pseudo-philosophy and pseudo-science (exemplified in the Theory of Evolution), but if you do a wholesome research, reading not just Dawkin's lies, but also the writings of great religious scholars of the past centuries and modern times, together with the Word of God, being aware of the lex parsimoniae or the Ockham's Razor as well as the true nature of the scientific process, with intellectual honesty, the reality of God's existence will just glow before the eyes of your heart, mind, and soul.
What does this mean?
If you want a rational answer, it means that man is subject to the Commands of God, as He is the Wise, Loving, and Caring Lord of mankind, and as only He has the rightful authority to tell us how we should live. Those of us who defy God and want to have their ways are doing so either out of arrogance, or out of ignorance or indifference.
Man-made laws can never be logically justified. One can provide a basis for a piece of detailed legislation in another, parent law. The chain usually goes down to a Constitution. Where does the Constitution derives its validity? From tradition? From an imagined basis sometimes called the Grundnorm? Are these logically cohesive, objectively real authorities? NO! Any "intellectually honest" and knowledgeable legal philosopher would tell you that!
Every man, according to rational thinking, has the same rights and obligations as any other. While a group of men can hand over the discretion to create laws to be applied among them to some of them, what happens when a member of that group opposes a particular law? Does the rest of the group has the authority to coerce the dissenting man to follow the law? Can they say "you have previously agreed to follow every law made here"? Doesn't he have the right to say "I withdraw my assent, and now I do not want to follow the new law that you guys have come up with?" The simple truth is that tradition and imaginary validating sources are not logical. This necessarily implies that man-made laws cannot deliver rule of law, and can never find a logical basis unless and until they are moored onto a Divine Basis - from which it derives validity and which it uses as a limiting and controlling boundary.
Once a legal philosopher said that "rights are the children of law" (If I am not mistaken, it was Jeremy Benthem). As I have stated above law cannot claim validity unless it has a basis in and is in conformity with the Higher Divine Will. That being the case, laws that create human rights should as well be derived from and in conformity with Divine Law. Just as a law can only be legitimate if it has its basis in Divine Law, a right can only be legitimate if the law that stipulates it is in conformity to the Divine Commands. Also, just as a man-made law that does not have its basis in Divine Law and is contradictory to the Divine Will is an illegitimate and bad law, any right laid down by such a law is also an illegitimate and bad right.
If "rights are the children of law", rights born to man-made law that are contradictory to Divine Will are illegitimate rights.
It is often claimed that rights are created by man-made law that take the form of various international legal instruments, such as the UDHR? According to this claim, rights are based on man-made laws, and we can easily see that it also means that rights are created by global, international social contracts.
We all know that contracts are meaningful only as long as the parties are really committed, and that the contents, more importantly, are subject to the mutual, subjective convictions and agreements of the parties. Also, an agreement cannot create something before that agreement. What does this mean? It means that the UDHR, or the ECHR, or any other such social, international contractual arrangement cannot create eternal, inalienable and absolute rights. They can only create contractual rights, and as such, they can never claim universal validity.
The above discussions leads us to three simple conclusions: only rights that are in conformity with Divine Law can be legitimate; only those rights that are based on Divine Law can be eternal, inalienable and absolute; and only they have a rationally whole foundation. That is what Islam gives us, and that is what Islam gave us centuries ago, before the West even dreamt of anything akin to human rights.
The Islamic concept of human rights is that they are rights given to every human being by the Lord of mankind. Human Rights can have legitimacy and universality and inalienability only when they are on the basis of Divine Law. This is something that Muslim scholars, from the time of the Sahabah till now, have taught us. Wise men even in the West have accepted the same notion. Thus, Thomas Jefferson said: "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?" - Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.
If God has given us a right, we have it. If God has not done so, we simply do not have it. God created us, fed us, clothed us, and he is our Master. What we have is given by Him, and what we do not have, is denied from us by Him. The beautiful thing is that He only denied us and forbade us that which is evil and harmful to us, and that He ordered us and gave us only the good and beneficial.
God certainly made us humans and gave us our human rights, since the time of Adam, and He gave us freedom and choice and discretion in certain matters. The rights that He gave us are rightfully ours, and no man can deny us that. They are eternal, inalienable, and absolute. Where He gave us CHOICE and FREEDOM, no person can deny our freedom of choice, and what we have before us are two paths - the Right Path and the Wrong Path. We can chose either in this world, but we certainly would be accountable for our choice on the Day when we meet Him. The Freedom of Choice in religious matters is one such issue.
My brother and friend Ahmed Abdullah Saeed was right in saying that humankind do not have the RIGHT to defy God and adopt false religions and worship false idols. God has merely given us a choice to act as we will in the matter, with a very clear statement that if we chose the Right Path, it will be for our benefit in this world and the next and if we chose the Wrong Path it would be to our detriment in this world and in the hereafter.
Now, speaking about intellectual honesty, human history has shown no people or groups that can match the intellectual honesty that Islamic scholars over 1400 years have shown. If you want to contest, then go home, take books and study history - and make sure that you are "intellectually honest" in the process of studying.
How about the ones who reject God, when the evidences of His existence start from the deepest corners of one's soul and spread up to the farthest reaches of this colossal universe? Are they intellectually honest?
How about the ones who claim that man-made laws are democratic, that they are superior to the Divine Laws? Are they intellectually and spiritually honest?
How about the ones who first deny God, and then necessarily deny God's universal moral laws, and then come up with social contracts of human "rights" and then purport to render the articles of those contracts into eternal truths? Are they intellectually honest?
How about the people who claim that the dirty and black evil of homosexual relations is a human right, and then refuse to accept that nudism, incest, sadomasochistic behavior, etc. are not human rights? (See the case of R v Brown [1992] in the UK) Are they intellectually honest?
How about the ones who say that flogging is against human rights (tell me just ONE of the many human rights stipulated in various international instruments which is violated by the punishment of flogging? Does flogging violate the right to life? No! Does it violate the right to property? NO! Does it violate the right to Liberty? NO! Does it violate the right to education? NO! Does it violate the right to freedom of opinion? NO ... one can go on like this until all the articles of the UDHR and other human rights instruments are exhausted. But there simply is no human right violated by the punishment of flogging)? Are they intellectually honest?
How about the people who say flogging is against human rights and at the same time say that imprisonment is not against human rights? (Imprisonment denies the right to liberty; it denies the right to education; it denies the right to property; it denies the right to enjoy family ... and the list goes on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still, anti-Islamic polemics would just insist that imprisonment is the civilized punishment and that Islamic punishments are vile and cruel and against human rights. The thing is that, you only see what you want see!! If we want to see the Truth, God's laws would ensure that we really see it, and if we have no desire to see the Truth, then God's laws - same laws - would show us many ways to hate the Truth and many reasons to do so!
May Allah forgive us all, and May He never take His Beautiful Light from among us, for, without it, we shall surely in utter darkness! Amin!
Ahmed Abdullah Saeed, a good friend of mine, has written an article about freedom of religion being a human right, at Haveeru Daily (http://www.haveeru.com.mv/dhivehi/report/114108). Many readers have commented on the article, and I was surprised to see that someone had accused him of being intellectually dishonest.
While I do not myself agree with Ahmed's proposition that Islam prescribes the death penalty for apostates, I was puzzled that someone found reasons to accuse him of intellectual dishonesty. Why? Was it just because he had spoken in defence of Islam? More than likely, for in today's world, the fashion or trend is to hate Islam, to lie about it, to mock it, to not live it, and to seem as far from it as is possible.
Anyway, let us keep that aside and talk about intellectual honesty and the freedom of religion!
If God exists, and if He created the universe and mankind, then all "intellectually honest" thought processes would lead us to the conclusion that man does not have any right or authority de jure to say anything or do anything against a Command of God. So, the first question is, Does God really exist?
All "intellectually honest" journeys to find God would lead the seeker to the green, blissful, and undying land of faith where he will know beyond a shadow of doubt that God really exists. A human being can consult either the simplest of the signs of God such as the physical signs of God everywhere around us, through common sense, or delve deep into the abstract realms of philosophy, theology and science; still, the intellectually honest and morally upright man will always find that at the end of the dark tunnel, there is a Light that matters more than the most beautiful things mundane, and that that Light is of God. You would come across all kinds of anti-God talks based on pseudo-philosophy and pseudo-science (exemplified in the Theory of Evolution), but if you do a wholesome research, reading not just Dawkin's lies, but also the writings of great religious scholars of the past centuries and modern times, together with the Word of God, being aware of the lex parsimoniae or the Ockham's Razor as well as the true nature of the scientific process, with intellectual honesty, the reality of God's existence will just glow before the eyes of your heart, mind, and soul.
What does this mean?
If you want a rational answer, it means that man is subject to the Commands of God, as He is the Wise, Loving, and Caring Lord of mankind, and as only He has the rightful authority to tell us how we should live. Those of us who defy God and want to have their ways are doing so either out of arrogance, or out of ignorance or indifference.
Man-made laws can never be logically justified. One can provide a basis for a piece of detailed legislation in another, parent law. The chain usually goes down to a Constitution. Where does the Constitution derives its validity? From tradition? From an imagined basis sometimes called the Grundnorm? Are these logically cohesive, objectively real authorities? NO! Any "intellectually honest" and knowledgeable legal philosopher would tell you that!
Every man, according to rational thinking, has the same rights and obligations as any other. While a group of men can hand over the discretion to create laws to be applied among them to some of them, what happens when a member of that group opposes a particular law? Does the rest of the group has the authority to coerce the dissenting man to follow the law? Can they say "you have previously agreed to follow every law made here"? Doesn't he have the right to say "I withdraw my assent, and now I do not want to follow the new law that you guys have come up with?" The simple truth is that tradition and imaginary validating sources are not logical. This necessarily implies that man-made laws cannot deliver rule of law, and can never find a logical basis unless and until they are moored onto a Divine Basis - from which it derives validity and which it uses as a limiting and controlling boundary.
Once a legal philosopher said that "rights are the children of law" (If I am not mistaken, it was Jeremy Benthem). As I have stated above law cannot claim validity unless it has a basis in and is in conformity with the Higher Divine Will. That being the case, laws that create human rights should as well be derived from and in conformity with Divine Law. Just as a law can only be legitimate if it has its basis in Divine Law, a right can only be legitimate if the law that stipulates it is in conformity to the Divine Commands. Also, just as a man-made law that does not have its basis in Divine Law and is contradictory to the Divine Will is an illegitimate and bad law, any right laid down by such a law is also an illegitimate and bad right.
If "rights are the children of law", rights born to man-made law that are contradictory to Divine Will are illegitimate rights.
It is often claimed that rights are created by man-made law that take the form of various international legal instruments, such as the UDHR? According to this claim, rights are based on man-made laws, and we can easily see that it also means that rights are created by global, international social contracts.
We all know that contracts are meaningful only as long as the parties are really committed, and that the contents, more importantly, are subject to the mutual, subjective convictions and agreements of the parties. Also, an agreement cannot create something before that agreement. What does this mean? It means that the UDHR, or the ECHR, or any other such social, international contractual arrangement cannot create eternal, inalienable and absolute rights. They can only create contractual rights, and as such, they can never claim universal validity.
The above discussions leads us to three simple conclusions: only rights that are in conformity with Divine Law can be legitimate; only those rights that are based on Divine Law can be eternal, inalienable and absolute; and only they have a rationally whole foundation. That is what Islam gives us, and that is what Islam gave us centuries ago, before the West even dreamt of anything akin to human rights.
The Islamic concept of human rights is that they are rights given to every human being by the Lord of mankind. Human Rights can have legitimacy and universality and inalienability only when they are on the basis of Divine Law. This is something that Muslim scholars, from the time of the Sahabah till now, have taught us. Wise men even in the West have accepted the same notion. Thus, Thomas Jefferson said: "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?" - Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.
If God has given us a right, we have it. If God has not done so, we simply do not have it. God created us, fed us, clothed us, and he is our Master. What we have is given by Him, and what we do not have, is denied from us by Him. The beautiful thing is that He only denied us and forbade us that which is evil and harmful to us, and that He ordered us and gave us only the good and beneficial.
God certainly made us humans and gave us our human rights, since the time of Adam, and He gave us freedom and choice and discretion in certain matters. The rights that He gave us are rightfully ours, and no man can deny us that. They are eternal, inalienable, and absolute. Where He gave us CHOICE and FREEDOM, no person can deny our freedom of choice, and what we have before us are two paths - the Right Path and the Wrong Path. We can chose either in this world, but we certainly would be accountable for our choice on the Day when we meet Him. The Freedom of Choice in religious matters is one such issue.
My brother and friend Ahmed Abdullah Saeed was right in saying that humankind do not have the RIGHT to defy God and adopt false religions and worship false idols. God has merely given us a choice to act as we will in the matter, with a very clear statement that if we chose the Right Path, it will be for our benefit in this world and the next and if we chose the Wrong Path it would be to our detriment in this world and in the hereafter.
Now, speaking about intellectual honesty, human history has shown no people or groups that can match the intellectual honesty that Islamic scholars over 1400 years have shown. If you want to contest, then go home, take books and study history - and make sure that you are "intellectually honest" in the process of studying.
How about the ones who reject God, when the evidences of His existence start from the deepest corners of one's soul and spread up to the farthest reaches of this colossal universe? Are they intellectually honest?
How about the ones who claim that man-made laws are democratic, that they are superior to the Divine Laws? Are they intellectually and spiritually honest?
How about the ones who first deny God, and then necessarily deny God's universal moral laws, and then come up with social contracts of human "rights" and then purport to render the articles of those contracts into eternal truths? Are they intellectually honest?
How about the people who claim that the dirty and black evil of homosexual relations is a human right, and then refuse to accept that nudism, incest, sadomasochistic behavior, etc. are not human rights? (See the case of R v Brown [1992] in the UK) Are they intellectually honest?
How about the ones who say that flogging is against human rights (tell me just ONE of the many human rights stipulated in various international instruments which is violated by the punishment of flogging? Does flogging violate the right to life? No! Does it violate the right to property? NO! Does it violate the right to Liberty? NO! Does it violate the right to education? NO! Does it violate the right to freedom of opinion? NO ... one can go on like this until all the articles of the UDHR and other human rights instruments are exhausted. But there simply is no human right violated by the punishment of flogging)? Are they intellectually honest?
How about the people who say flogging is against human rights and at the same time say that imprisonment is not against human rights? (Imprisonment denies the right to liberty; it denies the right to education; it denies the right to property; it denies the right to enjoy family ... and the list goes on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still, anti-Islamic polemics would just insist that imprisonment is the civilized punishment and that Islamic punishments are vile and cruel and against human rights. The thing is that, you only see what you want see!! If we want to see the Truth, God's laws would ensure that we really see it, and if we have no desire to see the Truth, then God's laws - same laws - would show us many ways to hate the Truth and many reasons to do so!
May Allah forgive us all, and May He never take His Beautiful Light from among us, for, without it, we shall surely in utter darkness! Amin!
Comments