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.