Abdullah Hakim Quick – Freedom of Expression in Islam

			Let's talk about freedom of expression within Islam, Sharia. So,
		

			talk to me a little bit about the concept of freedom of expression within the Islamic tradition.
		

			Freedom of expression, of course, you know, is based upon how you define, you know that term,
		

			everybody has the right to express themselves. And Islam never came, you know, to quote to shut
people up and to stop them from expressing, you know, their understanding and expressing their
wills. What Islam did do, however, was to bring revelation. And so revelation came, and the the
example of Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him set a base for the society itself. And
so that was, in a sense, the type of limits, you know, and based upon the morality that Islam set,
which is similar to the other revealed religions, in terms of
		

			hygiene, and in terms of family structures, and whatnot, that sort of sets the limits for the
society itself. And so you'll see that freedom of expression is different in different parts of the
world. But every place has to have a limit. For those people who say, there is no limit to freedom
of expression, that's totally irrational. Because if I went into a movie, and I showed that the top
of my lungs fire inside of this movie house, and the people ran out, and they were injured and
killed, I could be held accountable, especially if there was no fire. Yeah, I just decided to call
it that was, that was the wrong use of the word fire. If I was in the middle of an empty field, and
		

			I shouted fire, the people would say, well, he's just crazy. So there's a limit to what you can say.
So you'll see based upon the morality and the law of a society,
		

			the emphasis on limits, many of the secular societies, you know, their limit is their flag. It's
their, it's their royalty, you can say a lot of things, but you cannot talk against the king. You
cannot talk against the flag, you cannot talk against the dominant race. And so they sort of set
their limits, you know, like that. So Islam set limits, as well gave a lot of room for freedom of
expression, but then, you know, set some limits within that. So you would you would actually define
this whole idea of original expression is an actual Islamic concept. It there is basis for it within
the religion itself. Yes, definitely. Because the the the folk Aha, the people of jurisprudence
		

			would tell us
		

			possible Usha Alaba, so that the basis of everything is permissibility. Yeah. Then there's limits.
So it's not the other way around. I mean, sometimes, you know, because Muslims find in Western
society, so many things that are against Islam, you think that Islam is anti everything, but that's
not what it is. It actually, you know, permitted people to live on the earth to express themselves
to have freedom. But then there's some limits to that, in terms of oppressing other people killing
people, for vacation and adultery, murder, injury, so limits, you know, are set within Islamic
society. Okay, so the talks in the south end is really about
		

			how we can actually really, I guess, really balance between freedom of expression within the Western
world, within secular Western world. And within Islam in itself, like right now, for instance, major
events are happening in the Middle East, the ways a lot of Muslims are actually expressing their
concern is through basically through social media posting through
		

			protests, right.
		

			And through writing a bunch of things. But the argument is always made is that these things that you
yourself are doing here within this country here, you're not allowed to do within Muslim countries.
How do you respond to that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole concept of Muslim countries, there is no
pure Muslim country. There are some people to some countries who are practicing aspects of Islam.
And it usually has to do with personal law. Yeah, like how you pray and how you fast and how you
dress, and things like that. But in terms of governments, yeah, they did. There's no real straight
Islamic government in a sense, there are areas where Muslims are more of a majority, you know, like
		

			that. And so, for the most part, to be honest and straightforward. The so called Muslim countries
are basically controlled by royal families, dictatorships central committees. They're not free
Islamic sets, they benefit from the lack of,
		

			I guess, really freedom of expression. That's right, because you know, it is recorded, that even in
the case of some of the great companions of the Prophet SAW Selim, you know, I will walk over the
last one
		

			And Omar, that people actually stood up, you know, against Omar and Abu Bakr said, like, you know,
we will correct you with swords.
		

			Right? And Omar said Al Hamdulillah, I'm glad there are people who will stand up for the truth. If
you try to do that today, right? In the Muslim world, even in Western countries, you'd end up in
jail or dead, but the Islamic way allow that person to express themselves as long as they work on to
take that expression and make it a reality. Yeah, okay. If you want to say something, you have some
macho wisdom about you, you're strong, that's fine. Okay, just just don't do anything. So freedom of
expression was allowed. And it is allowed, you know, within Islam, again, limits are there. And this
is where today, especially with the Palestine situation, people are having a lot of problems
		

			because, you know, they find them, whenever they express themselves about Palestine, they find a
negative reaction, they're canceled, whatever the other side, you know, comes in, then they're
allowed to say whatever they want to want to say. So it's like, there's a lot of double standards
that are out there today. And some of the so called Muslim leaders, who are really ruling according
to their own interest, they have double standards to and the only way we can really go back is to go
back to the original sources, or to certain points in Islamic history. You know, when they were
rulers, you know, who were just unbalanced, and they allowed freedom of expression, difference of
		

			opinion within an Islamic society.