The Freedom of Belief and Expression

Albeit, by reflecting on the earlier discussions, the perspective of Islam on the freedom of belief as well as the freedom of expression is clear, since there are more emphasis these days in the political literatures of our country on the topic of freedom of belief and after that freedom of expression and press freedom, we will examine these two topics separately.
Some of the so-called intellectuals say: The freedom of belief and freedom of expression are among the rights and freedoms that are above the law, which no law has the right to set limit on. Every person in whatever circumstance, social system, value system, and religion he belongs to is free to choose whatever belief, thought or idea he would choose. And then he is also free to express this belief and thought, to propagate and discuss and engage in a dialogue with others regarding the same. He has equally the right to print and disseminate it to the society (freedom of the press).
This is something that has been accepted in the world today (or it is better for us to say that it is claimed that all countries of the world have accepted it) and one of the requisites of the democratic nature of a government is this very issue. If in a country every person is free such that he could think whatever he likes, say whatever he likes, and write whatever he likes, that society is a democratic one, while the opposite is undemocratic. Nowadays, one of the problems of our Islamic system, they are saying, has something to do with this issue.
Freedom of Belief as an Affair beyond the Realm of Law
As what we have indicated, one of the freedoms which has been given much importance and chanted as slogan is the freedom of belief. Man is free to have whatever belief he is inclined with. No one has the right to insult the belief of others, or to condemn, prosecute and punish them on account of their belief. Of course, there are Muslim legal experts, both in Iran and other countries, who have come to the defense of the Islamic viewpoint in this regard, publishing numerous works on these topics.
What we are able to state as of the moment is that at the outset this question must be posed: Is “belief” [‘aqidah] as a conviction and a personal affair related to the heart, in principle related to the matter of law [huquq], or not? Sometimes we want to express a belief or to make practical steps derived from it. If this is the case, this is no longer related to the freedom of belief; instead, it is freedom of expression or freedom of action.
Belief is that which is in the heart and mind. Our question also is this: Is such a thing, in principle, related to the law, or not? In our opinion, the answer to this question is a negative one. The subject of law is the social behaviors, and legal laws are enacted for establishing order to the social relations.
Any affair that is purely individual and personal, and totally belongs to the private realm of individual life has nothing to do with law. This kind of affair is situated at the realm of ethics. It would possibly find belongingness in the ideological and moral “must” and “must-not”, but the legal law is not enacted for it.
An action can possibly be so abominable from the moral perspective, but in any case since it is a personal affair nothing has been written about it in the legal law books. As a personal and private affair, belief is not situated in the realm of law.
Whether it is good or bad, correct or wrong, belief has nothing to do with law. The goodness and badness, or correctness and wrongness of a belief must be examined within the pertinent field. If a person believes in a superstitious and irrational affair—of course, it is not a rational act—yet, in any case, it is not related to law.
As such, to advance the proposition that legally speaking man is free to have whatever conviction he wants is incorrect and fallacious because the scope of law and legal rules is the social behaviors and relations while conviction is a personal and individual affair related to the heart. So, in the legal laws of Islam a law pertaining to belief does neither positively nor negatively exist:
﴾!…الدّينِ فِى اِكْراهَ لا!﴿
“There is no compulsion in religion.”[1][27]
This noble ayah [verse] is a witness to the fact that since it is an affair related to the heart and soul, religion is not for compulsion and imposition. Conviction cannot be imposed. Belief cannot be created by force; coercion cannot change it either. Belief cannot be subjected to law such that we could express it “legally” or “legally” remove it from the mind and heart of human beings. Belief is based on reason.
So long as the reason behind it exists, belief will also remain. If the reason behind it was altered, belief will also fade away. If the reason was proved false, the belief will also die out. Therefore, the question on whether belief has freedom in Islam or not is an irrelevant question because neither Islam nor any other legal system could positively or negatively formulate a law concerning belief.
Yes, once the belief is expressed, propagated and disseminated, and put into action so as to draw the attention of others toward it, at the time it will enter the sphere of social action, and enacting legal law regarding it becomes possible. From then on, the discussion is on the freedom of expression, which we will examine.
The Freedom of Expression in the West: From Slogan to Reality
Before describing the viewpoint of Islam regarding the freedom of expression, it is fitting to take a glance at the condition of freedom of expression in the West. The truth of the matter is that freedom of expression in the West is merely a slogan.
Its claimants have never practically accepted it as an obligation and they do not. Like many other slogans, this slogan is only a means to put pressures on countries that are not ready to abject surrender themselves to the capricious desires and unreasonable demands of the World Arrogance. If there is an issue, which is incongruous with their interests, there is no mention of freedom of expression.
Of course, in a bid to deceive public opinion, they usually attempt to surreptitiously and clandestinely create these restrictions, not imposing them in a conspicuous and lucid manner. There are a lot of relevant instances. We will cite here two or three cases as examples.
I have personally a piece of reliable information that sometime in the past, the representative of the Supreme Leader (Ayatullah al-‘Uzma Sayyid ‘Ali Khamene’i) in London had submitted a news item to the newspapers for publication. Although he was ready to pay the necessary amount, none of the newspapers was ready to publish it. The pretext was that the news item was related to a speech of the Supreme Leader, which was not concordant with the British policy.
After much effort, and many mediations and recommendations, one newspaper was finally willing to publish the news item. After its publication, the newspaper was immediately prosecuted. This is while they are regularly propagating to us that Britain is one of the most liberal countries with respect to the freedom of the press.
Another example is related to Mr. Roger Garaudy, the famous contemporary French researcher and thinker. He is considered one of the luminaries of France in this era. He is a philosopher as well as a historian who has written and published numerous books many of which have been translated into different languages. He recently wrote a book in which he proved as substantiated by evidence and documents that the massacre of millions of Jews during the Second World War in Germany and some other countries is a sheer lie.[2][28]
The nature of the case was that if there is a controversy on this claim of Mr. Garaudy, another person or persons could present counter documents and evidence proving its inaccuracy. But the way they dealt with Mr. Garaudy in France, the “bastion of freedom”, was that they prohibited his book, summoned him in court, tried him, and convicted him to pay heavy fine.
More interesting was that a German publisher who translated into German and published his book was forced to sell his publishing company. Thereafter, the said publishing company was totally effaced and omitted from the list of German publishers. As if it did not exist at all; that it has no external existence. The crime they accused Professor Garaudy of was that he has offended the Jews throughout the world.
This is while the publication of a book such as The Satanic Verses is not prohibited not to mention the fact that it won literary award and was translated into tens of languages. The British government is also spending thousands of pounds daily for the security of the book’s writer; for Iran and some Muslim countries they set the abolition of the religious edict [fatwa] against Salman Rushdie as the prerequisite for the improvement of diplomatic relations with Britain.
Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi
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