Napoleon’s Flotilla
Decolonizing the Concept of Freedom in the Muslim World
Introduction
Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign (1798–1801) marked a defining encounter between modern Europe and the Ottoman Middle East. Among its most symbolic elements was the presence of one of the first printing presses brought to the region, carried aboard Napoleon’s flagship L’Orient alongside approximately 35,000 soldiers. The press functioned both as a tool of knowledge and an instrument of power, quickly used to issue Arabic proclamations presenting the French as liberators and bearers of civilization.
This episode raises a broader question: how might the intellectual history of the region have developed had such technologies been introduced through education and scholarly exchange rather than military conquest? Although Napoleon’s expedition included over one hundred scientists and artists whose work produced the Description de l’Égypte, knowledge transfer remained subordinate to imperial objectives, and local populations were not integrated as equal participants in its production.
Nevertheless, ideas often exceed the intentions of those who transmit them. The French expedition contributed, directly and indirectly, to new scientific and administrative practices in the region, while later European Orientalists played a role in preserving and publishing Arabic manuscripts, despite interpretive biases shaped by their own intellectual frameworks.
At the same time, colonial expansion significantly reshaped Islamic religious thought. Military occupation and political domination generated intellectual and theological responses that reconfigured authority, identity, and conceptions of freedom. Many modern Islamic movements emerged within this colonial context and gradually developed more rigid interpretive frameworks as part of broader reform and resistance projects.
This essay argues that the contraction of freedom in contemporary Islamic discourse cannot be understood without reference both to the classical Islamic legal tradition and to the colonial transformations that reshaped it. It does not suggest that pre-modern Muslim societies were liberal in a modern sense, but rather that classical Islamic jurisprudence articulated a broader conception of intellectual and legal freedom than is commonly acknowledged today, later narrowed through colonial intervention, authoritarian state formation, and modern ideological movements.
The discussion proceeds in two parts: first, an examination of freedom in classical Islamic legal theory based on primary sources; and second, an analysis of how colonial modernity contributed to the emergence of contemporary Islamic discourses with significantly different understandings of freedom.
Classical Islamic Conceptions of Freedom
To evaluate the contemporary crisis of freedom in many Muslim societies, it is necessary to distinguish between classical Islamic legal thought and the ideological constructions of the modern period. This discussion relies exclusively on primary sources from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries. Rather than asking whether historical Muslim societies fully embodied these ideals, the focus here is on how freedom was conceptualized within the classical juristic tradition itself.
Freedom as Theological Foundation
At its foundation, freedom in Islamic legal thought is first a theological concept rather than a political one. Human freedom originates not in the state or social contract, but in God’s creation of human beings as morally responsible agents. Its purpose is the liberation of the human being from servitude to power, wealth, desire, and the ego, and it begins with the ability to seek truth without coercion.
In North Africa, children and elderly women in rural communities still memorize a didactic verse by the 16th-century Mālikī jurist Ibn ʿĀshir of Fez:
“The first duty of the morally responsible person
is to reflect upon the universe and seek the truth.”
This formulation condenses centuries of earlier theological and legal reflection. Within classical legal theory, moral accountability presupposes investigation and conviction; a person is not bound by beliefs not reached through reflection and understanding.
The Qur’an consistently frames faith as a matter of free choice rather than coercion, affirming that “there is no compulsion in religion” (2:256) and repeatedly stressing individual accountability before God (18:29; 10:99; 109:6).
In this framework, freedom is understood as moral agency grounded in accountability rather than unrestricted autonomy.
Knowledge as Freedom
The pursuit of knowledge was itself a form of freedom. The Qur’an begins with the command “Read,” and Prophetic traditions encourage learning for both men and women. Islamic civilization incorporated Greek philosophy, Persian science, and Indian mathematics into its intellectual tradition. Jurists such as Ibn Juzayy in al-Qawānīn al-Fiqhiyya explicitly classified disciplines such as medicine and mathematics as communal obligations (farḍ kifāya) on account of their social benefit. The ʿulamāʾ thus integrated scientific inquiry into the moral and legal structure of society.
This intellectual openness is further reflected in the integration of religious and empirical knowledge among leading ʿulamāʾ. Al-Māzarī, a major Mālikī commentator, was also a practicing physician, while Ibn Rushd (Averroes) combined juridical authority with philosophical work. Such figures illustrate how legal, medical, and philosophical sciences coexisted within a unified intellectual tradition.
Travelers, geographers, historians, physicians, and philosophers documented societies across Africa, Asia, and Europe with remarkable openness, giving rise to the genre of adab al-riḥla (travel literature). Even disciplines later considered controversial—such as astrology, alchemy, and magical sciences—were preserved in manuscript traditions rather than systematically excluded.
Custom and Legal Pluralism
Another defining feature of classical Islamic jurisprudence is its attentiveness to reality (al-wāqiʿ) and local custom (ʿurf), later expressed through doctrines such as the Ḥanafī principle of ʿumūm al-balwā (widespread, unavoidable hardship) and the Mālikī principle of al-ʿamal al-quṭrī (regional judicial practice), both aimed at legal facilitation. Across different madhhabs (schools of law), custom was recognized as a valid source of law so long as it did not contradict explicit revelation.
The Qur’an itself commands adherence to what is commonly recognized as good (7:199). Consequently, Islamic law developed distinct regional expressions—from Medina and Kūfa to Córdoba, Fez, Oran, and Timbuktu—where local languages, commercial practices, and social norms shaped legal interpretation. This flexibility enabled Islamic law to adapt across diverse societies without erasing cultural identities.
Public Welfare and the Development of Legal Reasoning
Closely related to custom is the principle of public welfare (maṣlaḥa), a cornerstone of Islamic legal theory. As al-Shāṭibī states, “God’s law serves people’s welfare and well-being” (al-Muwāfaqāt, 1:318). Since neither the Qur’an nor the Prophetic traditions could anticipate every future circumstance, Ibn Rushd clarifies in Bidāyat al-Mujtahid that jurists (fuqahāʾ) and legal theorists (uṣūlīyūn) developed ijtihād, particularly through qiyās, as early as the 8th century within Sunni legal theory, where independent reasoning first took systematic form.
Epistemic and Intellectual Pluralism in the Scholarly Tradition
Epistemologically, because fiqh regulates the practical implications of ʿaqīdah, classical Islamic tradition accommodated a significant degree of intellectual plurality. Institutions such as al-Azhar, al-Qarawiyyīn, and al-Zaytūna taught multiple theological schools—including Ashʿarism, Māturīdism, Atharism, Muʿtazilism, and Shīʿī thought—encouraging debate rather than uniformity.
Medieval biographical and philosophical literature preserves accounts of ʿulamāʾ who described experiences of doubt and intellectual struggle. Thinkers such as al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Rushd, and al-Ghazālī engaged deeply with questions of reason, revelation, and free will.
Jurists and biographers such as al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, al-Dhahabī, and Ibn Ḥajar included ʿulamāʾ from diverse orientations in their tarājim (biographical dictionaries), while works of adab such as Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī’s Kitāb al-Aghānī preserve a wide cultural and intellectual diversity. Despite occasional political suppression, disagreement remained structurally embedded in the scholarly tradition.
Applications of Classical Legal Principles in Economic and Family Law
Economic freedom was similarly well established. Individuals—male or female, Muslim or non-Muslim—possessed independent legal personality in property and commercial matters. Women could own, inherit, buy, sell, and manage wealth independently.
Taxation remained comparatively limited, consisting primarily of zakāt for Muslims and jizya for certain non-Muslim adult males, while women, children, monks, the elderly, and the disabled were generally exempt.
In family law, classical jurisprudence presents a broader legal discourse than is often reflected in contemporary Islamist readings. Jurists recognized a woman’s right to seek judicial dissolution of marriage under multiple conditions, and many legal manuals state that domestic service is not among her enforceable obligations. Women could therefore seek legal remedy before judges in cases of mistreatment.
The extensive nawāzil literature on both economic and family fiqh remains largely unedited and understudied, while contemporary discourse is increasingly shaped by online Islamist fatwas. Women also participated in the production of legal knowledge. The Ḥanafī jurist ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Samarqandī records that fatwas issued by his circle bore the signatures of his daughter, Fāṭimah al-Samarqandiyyah, alongside those of her father and later her husband, al-Kāsānī, illustrating the recognized scholarly authority of women in the classical legal tradition (Mīzān al-Uṣūl, 1:20).
Religious Plurality, Protection of the Other, and Contextual Jurisprudence
Religious diversity was formally recognized through the institution of dhimma, a covenant ensuring protection for non-Muslim communities under Muslim rule. Despite variations in historical practice and documented instances of discrimination, the normative legal framework emphasized protection rather than persecution.
The Prophet Muhammad stated: “Whoever oppresses a covenant-holder, burdens him beyond his capacity, or takes anything from him unjustly, I shall argue against him on the Day of Judgment” (Abū Dāwūd and others; see al-ʿAjlūnī, Kashf al-Khafāʾ, 2/218). The Constitution of Medina similarly established mutual protection for Jewish tribes under the covenant. Many historical restrictions on non-Muslims reflected political or security considerations rather than immutable religious doctrine.
At the same time, the foundational legal texts of certain areas require further interdisciplinary study that goes beyond questions of context and authenticity alone, including some passages that may appear controversial in contemporary perspectives.
Classical jurists also developed a distinct subfield known as fiqh ahl al-dhimma, in which a wide range of juristic disagreement is observable. This diversity of opinion reflects the strong influence of zamān and makān (time and place) on legal reasoning and illustrates the contextual adaptability of this branch of law.
Concluding Perspective
Taken together, these sources do not depict an idealized or conflict-free past, but rather a legal tradition that conceived freedom as a divinely grounded trust shaped by moral responsibility, intellectual inquiry, public welfare, legal pluralism, and cultural diversity. It is against this framework that the restrictive understandings of freedom found in many modern Islamist movements must be evaluated. The following section argues that these movements did not emerge as direct continuations of the classical tradition, but as ideological responses to colonialism, state centralization, and the political transformations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Freedom in the Age of Modern Islamic Movements
The transition from the pre-modern to the modern period fundamentally transformed Islamic discussions of freedom. Beginning in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Muslim societies experienced military defeat, colonial occupation, economic dependency, and the rapid importation of European political institutions. In response, numerous reform movements emerged seeking to revive Islamic civilization and restore political autonomy. Among the most influential were the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula and, later, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Although these movements differed in important respects, they shared the conviction that Muslim decline resulted from religious corruption and that renewal required a return to what they saw as a puritanical, utopian form of Islam.
This reformist impulse produced profound changes in Islamic discourse. Whereas classical jurisprudence generally accommodated legal diversity and disagreement, many modern movements increasingly sought to define a single correct interpretation of Islam. Religious authority became concentrated within the movement itself, and different theological traditions, legal schools, and even established Sufi communities have been subject to demonization.
One consequence was a narrowing of the classical understanding of freedom: rather than viewing faith as the outcome of reflection and conviction, some contemporary ideologies emphasized conformity, doctrinal certainty, and strict adherence to prescribed interpretations. Freedom of interpretation was reduced, while religious identity became increasingly tied to loyalty to specific ideological programs, weakening the pluralism characteristic of classical legal thought.
This shift also affected legal reasoning. Although classical fiqh is often associated with the so-called “closure of the gates of ijtihād,” the established legal schools preserved a methodological depth that many modern movements have struggled to match and, at times, have only partially imitated. In reaction to Islamist trends, another fragmented approach emerged that sought reform through a heavily maqāṣid-based fiqh; however, it often under-engaged the established tools of uṣūl al-fiqh and Arabic linguistics while still presenting itself as a corrective alternative to Islamist legal thought.
In parallel, various Islamist movements have discouraged democratic participation, public protest, and criticism of political authority, though their positions vary across contexts and periods. Internally, many have also centralized religious authority in charismatic leadership structures, reducing the space for independent juristic reasoning that had characterized classical legal culture.
Personal freedoms likewise became increasingly restricted. During much of the twentieth century, legal opinions associated with Salafi and Wahhabi circles prohibited or discouraged practices that earlier Muslim societies had often accepted, including certain forms of dress, artistic expression, mixed education, and women’s public participation. Some modern cultural forms—such as music, photography, television, and cinema—were sometimes prohibited through paradoxical analogical reasoning or literalist readings extended beyond earlier precedents and contexts. Whether implemented through state institutions or social pressure, these rulings significantly curtailed freedom of expression, creativity, and individual choice.
These developments should not be understood simply as theological disputes. Rather, they emerged within the broader context of colonial domination, post-colonial state formation, authoritarian governance, and rapid social transformation. External intervention and internal political repression reinforced one another, creating conditions in which highly centralized religious movements could flourish. The argument, therefore, is not that colonialism alone produced contemporary Islamist ideologies, nor that these movements are merely external imports, but that the political disruptions of the modern era fundamentally reshaped the language through which Islam has been interpreted and mobilized.
Today, various Salafi trends, alongside other active daʿwa movements, continue to exert significant influence through educational institutions, mosques, charities, satellite television, and digital media. Over time, these movements have come to occupy a dominant position in shaping much of contemporary religious life, and with the internet this discourse has been further amplified and widely disseminated, contributing to the marginalization of more traditional forms of Islamic learning. Behind slogans of “reform” or “authentic Islam,” their interpretations often frame Islam primarily through binary categories such as ḥalāl vs. ḥarām, Sunnah vs. bidʿah, and īmān vs. kufr, leaving relatively limited space for the pluralism, contextual reasoning, and intellectual diversity that characterized much of the classical tradition. As a result, public discourse often shifts away from ethical cultivation toward the regulation of identity and behavior.
The story of Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition offers an instructive symbol with which to conclude. Napoleon departed Egypt in 1799, leaving General Jean-Baptiste Kléber in command. On 14 June 1800, Kléber was assassinated in Cairo by Sulaymān al-Ḥalabī, a young Syrian associated with the Ottoman resistance. The Egyptian historian ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī, an eyewitness to the occupation, recorded the episode in remarkable detail, praising the procedural organization of the French trial while criticizing the poor Arabic used in its official documents. The colonial authorities later preserved the assassin’s skull in France as an object for the study of fanaticism, while al-Jabartī’s chronicle itself eventually entered European libraries and scholarly collections.
The French expedition introduced important scientific methods, scholarly institutions, and technologies to the region. Yet it also inaugurated a period of colonial domination whose political and psychological consequences continue to shape the modern Middle East. The printing press arrived on Napoleon’s ships, but so too did military occupation. Scientific inquiry was accompanied by conquest, and the promise of enlightenment was inseparable from the experience of subjugation.
This paradox lies at the heart of my argument. Classical Islamic legal theory conceived freedom primarily as a moral and intellectual condition grounded in human dignity, public welfare, and the diversity of social experience. Modern Islamic movements emerged within a world transformed by colonialism, state centralization, and ideological conflict, often reducing this expansive tradition to rigid systems of identity and obedience. If Muslim societies are to recover a richer conception of freedom, Islamic discourse itself must be liberated—both from the lingering burdens of colonial modernity and from the monopolization of religious authority by ideological movements that mistake uniformity for faith.