Freedom in the Framework of Islamic Rationality

Prevailing of the principles and values of liberalism over Western public culture and over the international institutions resulted from Western political, economic, and technological authority has created circumstances under which some of Islamic teachings and legal precepts especially concerning freedom of speech, conversion, and sacrilege are challenged. The limitations and punishments enacted for them are also regarded as something “irrational”, against the human honor, and opposed to the human right. These judgments are rooted in the hegemony of contemporary western rationality over the other rational orders. This article, by offering its discussions in three phases: rationality, justification, and truth, is going to show: 1. The Islamic standpoint about freedom must be understood in terms of the framework of Islamic theoretical and practical rationality; 2. Focusing on rationality without going through justification doesn’t give any right to criticize the other rational understandings of freedom. Freedom ant its limitations is related to both theoretical and practical rationality. Since the origins of rationality in the Islamic thought is greatly different from that of secularism, it must be noted by both parties that they need to have a full understanding of the rational foundations of freedom abstracting from its Islamic or non-Islamic conception. They also need to enter the phase of “justification” and argue about the justifiability of their bases and evidences of their understanding of freedom.