Islam and the Discovery of Freedom

Abstract

This very stimulating and perceptive work was born out of the author’s solidconviction that freedom is the ideal that all societies should strive for and thatthe history of humanity has been one of constant struggle against oppressiveforces of authority in order to realize this utopia. The original edition of herwork, The Discovery of Freedom: Man’s Struggle Against Authority, unfortunatelylacked academic credibility due to several factual errors it contained,and was withdrawn from circulation after its publication by the author herself,and would have been relegated to the obscurity of history were it not for thework of Dr. had-ad-Dean Ahmad. He chose to concentrate on the section ofher work relating to Islam and published it separately from the original versionunder this new title, Islam and the Discovery of Freedom. By providingdetailed annotations and a running commentary throughout, as well as rectifyingmost of the historical errors, he has been able to redeem the force and qualityof the author’s original argument.Although more famously known for her mother’s best selling book, LittleHouse on the Prairie, Rose Wilder Lane (18861968) was a journalist dedicatedto the cause of freedom as well as a best selling author and biographer inher own right. She acquired her knowledge of Islam through her work for theRed Cross just after the First World War when she documented their activitiesin Russia, the Balkans and the Middle East.To understand the important place Mrs. Lane has given to Islam one has tounderstand the central thesis of her original work. She maintains that mankindhas made three notable attempts to free itself from the shackles of oppressivepower and authority. The first attempt was orchestrated by the ProphetAbraham, the second by the Prophet Muhammad and the third, though less radical,resulted from the American Revolution. Her study highlights the dangersof unbalanced distribution of power, for she argues that vesting total controland authority in a single leader or small group of people is highly dangerous asthe word and opinion of that authority can very easily become Law, suppressing,and even persecuting, all those with different views. Furthermore, sheasserts that this state of affairs is nowhere more apparent nor more dangerousthan in the societies whose leader(s) claim to speak for or act in accordancewith “the will of God.”The example of Abraham is used to reflect a society where superstition andthe capricious will of its gods dominated all areas of life. It is a type of control ...