Liberty as a Qur’anic Value – Religion & Liberty Daily

How can a true and just God command coercion? That is the burning question that lies at the heart of Muslim consciousness and that a new book proposes to address. The explicit tension between what we’d like to think is the answer and what we fear is the answer makes many, especially those raised culturally Muslim, hesitant even to ask such a legitimate question aloud. It sits beside another unsettling anxiety, that of wondering if faith compelled is faith at all.

The Qur’an responds in a concise sentence: “There is no compulsion in religion.” What follows immediately in Q 2:256, qad tabayyana al-rushd min al-ghayy (“Truth stands out clear from error”), confirms this fundamental principle as it carries the logical weight of the argument. Revelation drew the line between the path of guidance and the path of misguidance. It falls entirely to the individual to decide which path to follow. After all, it is absurd to speak of accountability in the absence of freedom.

Against this backdrop, No Compulsion in Religion—No Exceptions, a volume of essays by Muslim scholars edited by Mustafa Akyol, takes that foundational verse as its title, its thesis, and its challenge—a verse, it should be noted, that some early medieval exegetes had considered annulled. Yet, as Akyol states in the introduction, “this magnanimous maxim … should be applied, in other words, in all respects, and with no exceptions.” The phrase “no exceptions” is the reform that the book proposes to bring and that might ignite controversies, because the exceptions are precisely what a portion of the tradition accumulated.

The collection examines the various ways that states have implemented religious enforcement as instruments of compulsion rather than an expression and concretization of freely embraced religious principles. The questions tackled range from apostasy and blasphemy laws to morality policing, coerced observance, and restrictions on women. The contributors interrogate the theological and political grounds in the Islamic sources and its practical results in the modern world.

The principle of noncoercion is tested across a remarkable spectrum: Mustafa Akyol’s chapter on a militant purifying movement in the 17th-century Ottoman Empire, Abdullah Saeed on the criminalization of apostasy, Husnul Amin on blasphemy laws in Pakistan and beyond, Mohamed Lamallam on Ramadan laws, Mohamad Machine-Chian on how compulsion made Iran less religious, Asma Afsaruddin on women, and a closing conversation with the legal scholar Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naʿim on separating Sharia law from the state. The Qur’anic maxim is a categorical negation that covers all aspects of religious thought and practices.

The book’s urgency comes from lived realities that are shaping Muslim faith, fate, and thought. Across the Muslim world, coercive laws continue to emerge in the name of defending religion. Freedom of conscience collapses the moment that the frontline of religion becomes apostasy punishments in several majority-Muslim states, blasphemy laws in Pakistan, morality policing in Iran, and gender restrictions in Afghanistan.

Building on this tension, the volume argues against grounding any concept of coercion in Islamic teaching and addresses a diverse audience. It speaks to Muslims uncertain about what to think and who to follow, but also to Western critics of Islam. It also challenges those who manufactured a binary opposition between Islam and reason, Islam and freedom, Islam and progress, and Islam and the West. Akyol explains why the translation “No compulsion [in accepting] religion” restricts the original Qur’anic claim. The construction lā ikrāha is a categorical negation that parallels the same emphatic form as the shahada (the Islamic oath and creed). The new bracketed language introduced in some circulating translations transmit a specific understanding of the verse that could easily restrict the universal statement. What travels as translation is, in fact, an exegetical verdict.

Q 2:256 does not stand alone and is far from a unique instance in the Qur’an addressing religious liberty. It falls within a constellation of verses that transmit the same breath of freedom—for example, “Had your Lord willed, all the people on earth would have believed. So can you [Prophet] compel people to believe?” (10:99), and “Let whoever wills believe, and whoever wills disbelieve” (18:29). These verses could be neutralized only by declaring them abrogated.

In the spirit of liberty that the book defends, it gives voice to the strongest arguments put forth by those who defend coercion before exposing the fragility of their position. The majority opinion of classical jurists that justify harsh punishments for specific religious deviations stems from such widely transmitted reports as “whoever changes his religion, kill him,” an atomistic view that disregards the textual context and facilitates a restrictive interpretation that contradicts the spirit of the scripture as a whole. It also neglects to highlight the argument that apostasy in the early community was entangled with political treason.

On how Iran became “Less Religious,” Machine-Chian shows how the Iran that Khomeini was dreaming of resulted in decades of state‑enforced explicit religiosity, mandatory hijab, bans on alcohol, and morality policing. The result was a more pious society that masked a less religious one, or as Machine-Chian puts it, an “Islamification [that] coincided with a steady de-Islamification.” The Iranian case stands as a cautionary tale, because the Khomeini “reforms” internally eroded the faith it sought to preserve.

The research group GAMAAN’s 2020 survey unveils a hidden discrepancy between official identification and lived belief. Officially, 90% of Iranians registered as Muslims. In the confidential survey, only 40% identified as such, while 47% described themselves as nonreligious. The niyyah, pure intention, disappears to leave place for “resentment and hypocrisy.” In reality, the only binding principle should be one’s own convictions and belief, not a fear generated from basic survival instinct.

Moral agency is one of the conditions for the validity of a deed to be accepted by Allah from a believer, and rituals performed under threat of punishment are spiritually meaningless. As Lamallam notes in his chapter on Ramadan laws, fasting as a religious practice is “for God, not society.” While the intent behind such laws was to unite the umma, the Muslim community, and preserve Islam, the execution was poor, and the results proved disastrous as the exact opposite of what was hoped for happened: Religious observance became not the goal but the means to assert control. The gatekeepers of reform aggressively dismiss intellectual initiatives that would bring a new interpretative lens to scripture and, as with the case of Egyptian scholar Abu Zayd that Saeed discusses, would push courts to “labeling [their] ideas heretical and accusing [them] of transgressing Islamic boundaries.”

Methodologically, the book takes a diachronic approach to the tradition, (re)building the models that have been tested, analyzing their effects, reaching conclusions of what should be done if we were to learn from past mistakes, and seeking to build a bright future for a dignified human being that thrives within religion. In short, it goes back to fundamentals. This volume lets tradition speak on its own terms: It relies heavily on scripture and hadiths, while remaining critical of certain versions of hadiths, insisting that they should enlighten the Qur’anic spirit, not contradict it. It also refers back to the Prophet’s practice, instead of relying solely on transmitted reports that were compiled significantly later than the Qur’an. The contributors ask any blind believer in coercion the pressing question, Why would the Messenger of God say one thing but do the opposite? “Whoever changes his religion, kill him,” yet as Saeed observes, “there is no reported case of any apostate being executed under Prophet Muhammad’s command merely for leaving Islam.”

Verses like “You are not there to control them” (Q 88:22), “If you hear people denying and ridiculing God’s revelation, do not sit with them unless they start to talk of other things” (Q4:140), and “You have your religion and I have mine” (Q 109:6) remind readers of the diplomatic register that the Qur’an privileged regarding opposing perspectives, as coercion cannot produce virtue. The Prophet’s role was to convey but never to compel. The misuse of the command al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar, commanding right and forbidding wrong, stems from an atomistic reading that loses the book’s overall vision.

The importance of maintaining a diverse and vibrant practice of exegesis is at the core teaching of every essay of the present volume, as the imposition of certain interpretations in favor of others can only limit the reach of a religion and chain the intellectual potential of its scholars and community. This exegetical vision is what the religious scholar al-Nabulsi (1641–1731) wanted, where everyone “had the right to preach their doctrines but not to enforce them.” Therefore, it is essential to focus on the how in service of the why (maqāṣid al-sharīʿa) because the end does not justify the means—it never did. As Saeed notes and Amin explains, “The stories of the prophets … indicate that persecuting others for perceived blasphemy was the hallmark of oppressive disbelievers. Muslims, therefore, should be cautious not to act in like fashion.” The Qur’anic narratives illustrate how tyranny begins when alternative perspectives are denied.

The closing conversation with An‑Naʿim is one of the book’s highlights. Separating the modern state from Sharia does not secularize Islam because the believers are still able to voice their beliefs in their political views. It protects the religion’s integrity as it ensures that following one’s faith starts with exercising one’s free will. For many Muslims, the idea of separating religion from state power may sound daunting, perhaps even like betrayal. Nevertheless, an environment that guarantees everyone’s equal right to peacefully choose and practice their faith can cultivate a better understanding of religion and a more thorough and sincere practice. Reverence for God’s will should always exceed the fear of the state/ruler.

Afsaruddin’s chapter reweights the different roles and rights of women in the Islamic tradition and in scripture, as well as its evolution. One of the areas that could have been explored more is the discussion of inheritance law. The gesture toward “some exceptions” leaves the reader eager to know whether and when women inherit equally or more than men. The complex structure of Qur’anic inheritance rules includes multiple branches where women’s shares exceed men’s, so a fuller treatment would have strengthened her argument that gender restrictions are products of interpretation rather than revelation.

Instead of looking for a reconciliation with “Western values” by force, taken together the volume offers a new understanding of the religion’s own values. It distinguishes Islam from the culturally specific ways in which it was practiced; makes one aware of the stakes of interpretation and the extent to which ideas become concrete in real life; and finally renews the demand to think and rethink: What does it mean to live Islam under new circumstances? How can Muslims of a different era live their faith and remain in conversation with the scripture without being alienated? Does God speak to a certain people only and not to others?

To the last question, the answer is a definitive No, and it is the mission of every Muslim to reflect on such a message. The book is an invitation to ijtihād, critical thinking and reinterpretation, all while successfully being an example of it. Is liberty a Western import into the Islamic world, or does it lie at the very core of the Islamic message? The verses of scripture are there to answer. After all, seeking and striving have always been inseparable from faith.