Is Islam a religion of freedom and equality?
In Islam, there are ruling values and ruled values...absolute values and restricted ones. Among the absolute ruling values: truth and justice. Islam cannot legislate anything that contains falsehood or injustice ever. Allah the Almighty said: (Allah is He who has sent down the Book in truth and the Balance)...the Balance to achieve justice. He said: (And We have sent down to them the Book and the Balance that people may stand firm by justice), i.e., by justice. On the other hand: freedom and equality are two governed values restricted by truth and justice. Meaning that Islam calls for freedom when it is truth and justice. And in some cases, the absence of freedom is truth and justice, and equality becomes injustice and falsehood. If we understand that, it should not bother us to ask: How can Islam have restrictions while it is a religion of freedom? Nor should we "defend" in defense of someone who feels resentment towards something from his religion! Depriving the enemy of his freedom in this case is truth and justice, and even more than justice: a favor in dealing with an enemy who was eager to exterminate them or turn them away from their religion. It is also futile to strive to prove that Islam equates men and women in everything, as this equality is false and unjust for both men and women alike. And the false claim that Islam equates "citizens" in everything, including the right to hold the position of judge or general governance. When a "fashionable" value trend emerges in the West, such as the fashion of freedom and the fashion of equality, it is a psychological defeat to follow this fashion and try to force Islam to wear it against its will! They have their own value systems in which they stumble and change according to experiences and whims, and their leaders deceive their peoples with them, contradict them according to their interests, and deny them outside their borders while raising them as slogans with empty content! And we have our values from the Wise, All-Knowing. Even if the values they call for were applied truly, they would end up destroying these values themselves! Because they came severed from revelation with its wisdom and knowledge. Freedom in practicing vice and promoting it ends with suffocating the virtuous and poisoning their atmosphere, and producing distorted psyches that seize the freedom of the weak peoples. Equality between the people of truth and the people of falsehood ends with the rise of the falsehood-bearers due to their numbers, suppressing the rights of the people of truth, and the alleged equality vanishes. In conclusion: Islam is the religion of truth and justice. As for freedom and equality, they are demands of Islam to the extent that they are governed by truth and justice. And Allah the Almighty knows best.