Fadlullah's view regarding freedom and confronting backwardness

Freedom and Confronting Backwardness According to the view of Sayyed Fadlullah

Freedom, which Allah has given us, is not a slogan we raise while living in thousands of forms of slavery. It is first to be the master of yourself. To possess a willpower that would enable you to control your instincts and uphold your responsibilities.

It is to possess the ability of saying "no when this "no" raises you to the highest spiritual levels, and to say "yes", when this "yes" reflects what you believe in. Fasting is an example of what it means to say no since it exemplifies the liberation from slavery, since it is to say no to your hunger and thirst as well as to your sexual desires.

When this "no" is a result of awareness and not traditions and habits it will extend to confront everything that undermines life; any person or party that wants to send life to the abyss.

That is what is meant by the saying that there are those whose fasting only yields hunger and thirst, because their fasting has turned into a habit, and they were unable to challenge this habit. This applies to many of the backwardness situations in our habits, traditions and even in our religious practices, but we are not bold enough to try to change it, because we have become their slaves. This slavery even makes us believe that these backward phenomena are sacred…

What can we say about the state of a nation that turns its backwardness to sacred issues?

Allah has called on us to be free, and freedom cannot live in a cell. It penetrates all fields, politics social relations cultural and even religious practices are manifestations of this freedom.

Dialogue on religion for example should be free without any accusations of deviation or even unbelief. To be free is not to be dominated by those whom circumstances made them in positions of power, since everyone, except those whom Allah has made infallible, is not above criticism or getting engaged in a dialogue.

Power, whether based on money, politics or arms, does not forbid you from being a corresponding force. It may enable some one to become tyrannical but he cannot confiscate the nation, since he might be inventor or a leader and the nation will recognize his role, but the nation will continue to produce these individuals who will perish while the nation will stay.

We have grown accustomed in our literature to say if a religious or political figure dies, Islam or the country has died. Islam does not die if someone dies even if he were the Prophet, who died but the Message remained.

Thus, those who stop thinking and allow one person to impose his thought on them are intellectual slaves. Intellectual freedom would imply that they have to study his thought and either accept it if they are convinced by it or reject it if they are not. We, in our communities, not only in Lebanon, but also all over the Muslim and third worlds, are used to say that people follow individuals then we say this group is the party of this or that individual but groups should not be named after to people but they should refer to the lines and Messages.

In this country and in the Arab world, we are used to say: the Khoumeinists and the Sadrists... etc. We do not even accept to be called the Muhammadians. We are Muslims, and Muhammad is our Messenger. They want to ascribe as Muhammad's to suggest that Islam is a human message… that Muhammad came up with out of his personal genius. But it is the revelation of Allah who told Muhammad to say that he is a human like any other human but whom Allah reveals to.

Thus, we have to judge the people by their thought and by their actions. But at the same time we have not to deal with it as being sacred, unless it is revealed to us by an infallible. This is because ideas may conform with a certain time, but with the advent of new circumstances, new ideas would emerge, and we stick to the ones of the previous stages, because we adopt the thought of a certain individual. We should be with the thought of truth. If someone is with this thought we support him, and if he is not we would not be with him.

We are living in a state of freezing the thought. It is not the responsibility of the individual who put forth certain ideas since he did not seek to impose them, but our slavery to the leadership imposed his thought on ours and prevented the advent of any new one.

This way of dealing with the leadership, whether political, social or religious… those who meant to give us a glimpse of light have led us to complete darkness as their ideas began to belong to a previous stage. Thought is an on-going process that enables us to surpass the thought of any particular thinker just as he surpassed the thought of those before him.

In the light of this, we notice that even at the level of political thought and agendas of many of the secular and Islamist parties have been frozen, because they consider the ideas they adopt as sacred. That is why these parties were not able to pass that test of time since the thought of the new generations surpassed them.

When your thought is not infallible you have to listen to criticism, since he who criticizes your thought respects you because he considers it as worthy of discussion and evaluation. But he who accepts it outright does not respect your thought, would be respecting you and not your thought, perhaps out of the position you have assumed. The Leaderships have taught us that criticism is an act of hostility. But we are the ones that have put them where they are, because we have praised  them and sought to earn their satisfaction, to the extent that they thought that they should be right. We have taught them how to become tyrants and then we started complaining about their tyranny.

We are living in a stage where everybody demands freedom, saying that Lebanon is meaningless without freedom. But tell me which party or political organization gives room for this freedom in its ranks, with the exception of none whatsoever. You are not allowed to criticize a leader or a wrong political stand although such criticism would enrich your party or organization since it gives them a new spirit.

Our problem in this country, or in other eastern countries, lies in the ability to enslave the citizens whether by telling him that thinking is impressible, as a form of treason that undermines the religion and the nation, or by means of emergency laws and intelligence agencies which prevent the citizens from expressing outwardly what they think about, to the extent that those citizens have grown afraid of being caught in the act of thinking.

That is why we have become stagnant in our Islamic and Arab world while the rest of the world is moving whether rightfully or not. It is a world that moves, produces and plans. A world in which the citizen can face his leaders, whether in the United States Britain, or other countries, to tell them that they went wrong and even sue them. When can we do this in our countries and when can we reach this level?

The Messenger said: That which caused those before you to perish lies in that they used to pardon the thief if being from a noble class, while punishing the burglar if  being weak.

By God if Fatima bint Muhammad steals I shall cut her hand.

This is what Islam is. A man called Al-Abbas bin Murdas came to the Prophet who was distributing the booty of Hunain and told him that he has to be just. The Prophet did not punish him but engaged in a dialogue with him saying. Then who can be called just if I am not. Imam Ali did not fight the Kherijites when they said that he has deviated. He only did so when they started to kill innocent people.

In this respect, I would like to narrate an interesting story. It is related that Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) was sitting with his companions when a beautiful woman passed by them. The eyes of these men are covetous and this glancing is the cause of their becoming covetous. Whenever anyone of you sees a woman who attracts him, he should meet his wife because she is a woman like his wife.

Then, one of the Kharijites said: Allah may kill this heretic. How logical he is! The people then leapt towards him to kill him but Amir al-mu'minin, peace be upon him, said: Wait a bit. There should either be abuse for abuse or else pardon from the offence.

You either punish with an equal punishment or forgive him which is nearer as to piety. Thus, the Islamic leadership does not punish who object or criticize it. In this regard, we go back to Imam Ali who stood before the judge while he was the ruler when accused by a Jew of steeling his armor.

If we want to advance and confront the great challenges that face us we have to be free.

But freedom does not mean chaos. It is to say what you believe in based on your responsible attitude of study and faithfulness and then accept discussion and criticism. We cannot assert our positions and protect ourselves against what is being plotted against us when we are merely numbers in the ballot box of some leader… When we only know how to applaud and cheer but not how to think. God has created us free and we should strive to keep this freedom.