\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thinking that freedom means doing what a man likes as he pleases, libertines promote freedom which thrives on the absence of laws. To such habits of mind, liberty is viewed only as casual good-pleasure, self-indulgence, and self-will.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fanatics among them are pleased with nothing but to give vent to their desires. They champion licentiousness without any restraint; they espouse that there should be neither law nor precept whatsoever that frustrates their impulses.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Their worldview is easy enough to state: let every individual lives according to his fancy, even if in contravention of the moral or civil law. Let every person acts as he wishes for his own good as he sees it, as \u201cman is the measure of all things\u201d, and judgments of right and wrong are thus relative.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A libertine will never consent to religion whose ethics consists in God\u2019s will, which they consider as entirely alien to their pleasures. For the libertine, religious rule and obligation is always antithetical to freedom. What matters is the will or pleasure of the individual, not the will of God. The libertine has no respect to God, state, constitution, law, rules and morality.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The following three examples may illustrate their conception of freedom.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first instance is economic in character: the rich among the libertines will contend that as they have earned their wealth, they can spend or dispose of their wealth as they wish. As all the wealth they have earned is their exclusive right, the economically needy, including the indigent, the poor and the orphans, all have no right in it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This rich individual boasts that one can spend one\u2019s wealth just as one wishes, including \u201cthrowing away stacks of money or scattering it about\u201d (the Qur\u2019an, 90:6).<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The people of the ancient prophet Shu\u2018ayb told him, \u201cO Shu\u2018ayb! Does your (religion of) prayer command you that we leave off the worship which our fathers practiced, or that we refrain from doing what we like with our property (without regard to the obligation to others, especially to the poor)?\u201d (11:87).<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Besides scoffing at religious practices like prayer and worship as mentioned above, they demanded rights of property as if there were no other rights even greater than those of property; as if they had neither duty nor obligation pertaining to their property.<\/p>\n
The second example pertains to politics: the powers that be among the libertines contend that they are free to use their power as they wish, even as they are neglecting the welfare of their subordinates, let alone the minority or dissenting groups.<\/p>\n
Just as the wealthy behave as if they are not accountable to a fair distribution of income, the politically powerful act as if they have no responsibility to ensure a just distribution of power.<\/p>\n
Such tyrants and despots are, indeed, a disgrace in human history.The tribe of \u2018Ad, for example, is noted in the Qur\u2019an as following the bidding of every arrogant enemy of the Truth (11:59, also 14:15). They behaved tyrannically with other people, too (26:130), and was destroyed through \u201ca raging storm-wind on a day of bitter misfortune\u201d (54:19, 69:6-8), \u201ca storm-wind furiously raging….for seven nights and eight days without cease\u201d; they were \u201cpursued by God\u2019s rejection (la\u2018nah<\/em>)\u201d (11:60).<\/p>\n Third, at the personal level, the libertine advocates the freedom of sexual acts. Laws forbidding adultery, fornication, homosexual and lesbian acts, for example, are considered repressive. Such laws are deemed as a restraint of individual self-will, and others (even God) have no business interfering with such self-indulgence.<\/p>\n The Qur\u2019an recorded the people of Sodom and Gomorrah as \u201cthose who had been long in the habit of practicing sexual abominations\u201d (11:78), \u201ctransgressing beyond bounds, who lost in sin and crime\u201d (7:80, 83). \u201cGod turned their town upside down, and rained upon them stone-hard blows of chastisement one upon another\u2026and these [blows of God-willed doom] are never far from the evildoers!\u201d (11:82-83)<\/p>\n But if freedom means unregulated impulse, why not grant the same liberty to kidnappers, rapists, murderers and terrorists?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In reality, lawless liberty is at best an animal or brutish freedom. The individual\u2019s power to do as he pleases has no difference from the kind of freedom the beasts of the jungle enjoy.<\/p>\n As licentious freedom is appropriate to animal but not to human life, it reveals an utter immaturity in the development of human thought on freedom, liberty and human rights.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is the role of true religion and sound reason to elevate man from a brutish to a human condition, from the merely animal freedom of doing as he pleases to the truly human freedom of doing as he ought, befitting his human nature (fitrah<\/em>).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No one is free who is not master of himself.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0God differentiates between first, those who have wilfully and persistently rebelled against moral law, and had given themselves up to the vanities and lusts of this lower life, and second, those who humbly feared the punishment of sin and believing in His warnings, restrained their lower desires: \u201cas for him who has transgressed the bounds of what is right, and preferred the life of this world [to the good of his soul], surely Hell shall be the refuge! But as for him who feared his Lord\u2019s Presence, and had restrained his soul from capricious desires, surely Paradise shall be the refuge!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0(the Qur\u2019an, 79:37-41).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Such kind of freedom is at the very centre of man\u2019s religious life, which involves both socio-moral and spiritual activities.<\/p>\n \n (References: Fazlur Rahman,\u00a0Major Themes of the Qur\u2019an<\/em>; Mortimer Adler,\u00a0The Idea of Freedom<\/em>, 2 volumes)<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thinking that freedom means doing what a man likes as he pleases, libertines promote freedom which thrives on the absence of laws. To such habits of mind, liberty is viewed only as casual good-pleasure, self-indulgence, and self-will. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fanatics among them are pleased with nothing but to give vent to their desires. They champion licentiousness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-star","category-220","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}