The Meaning of Liberty ---------------------- The word "liberty" is a beautiful word. It fills the heart with feelings of happiness and pride. For liberty many nations strived and sacrificed their blood. As prince of the poets, Ahmed Shawkie, said, "And for the red liberty there is a door, everyone's hands are like hammers knocking on it." From people's admiration to liberty comes an English saying, "if everything but liberty is lost, you are still rich." Perhaps what gives liberty a noble profile is that God, blessed be His Name, when He created man, He created him free, that is, He gave him a free will that enables him to do whatever he wishes. If someone wanted to disobey God's commandments, he/she could. If someone wanted to annul the existence of God, he/she could do so, just like the atheists and the wicked people. God wants humankind to believe in Him and to obey Him with its own will, not forcibly because "there is no forcing in religion." Liberty should be balanced with care and responsibility. A person or a creature who is not free cannot be responsible or careful with his/her actions. But with liberty, people act with great care whether their acts are good or evil. A person is rewarded for good deeds and is punished for wrong or wicked doings, this happens either in heaven or on earth. A person could escape punishment on earth, but not in the other world. Punishment in the other world can only be avoided by repentance. On the other hand, the good deeds a person does by his/her own will get rewarded, if not on earth then, certainly, in heaven. There exists nothing like the so-called absolute liberty, there has to be guidelines for liberty. This is established so that nobody could misuse one's liberty against oneself or others. You are free in all what you do in a way that does not violate other people's rights and liberties. You are free to the extent not to break God's commandments, or to violate the law and the public orders that are put for the safety and security of other people. For example, it is not your right to drive a car and violate traffic laws and say "I am free to go where I want." It is also not your right to make noise and disturb others and say "I am free, I make noise as I wish." It is also not your right to cheat during an exam and say "I am free, I could use whatever sheets of papers I want," ... etc. In the same way you use your liberty without harming others or violating the law and the public order, it is your right to use your liberty without harming yourself. Your soul is not your property alone. It is also owned by God who created it, it is owned by the society who cared for you and raised you up and you have responsibility towards it. For that reason, a man's suicide is a crime that is punished by God and the law also condemns it. The same is true of someone who harms him/herself by taking drugs, smoking, drinking, and getting involved in other varieties of foul habits. Also it is not rightful for one to commit adultery and risk getting all sorts of diseases (like AIDS); it is not rightful for one to say "I am free, I do whatever I like to do with myself!" because it is not one's right to annihilate oneself. It is also not your right to deprive the society from your services as a good citizen... The guidelines that are put for liberty are for your own benefit and not for your confinement. The advantage of these guidelines is that they prevent you from harming yourself and others and from disobeying God's commandments. They also help you to be an ideal person who does not make mistakes. I will give an example on that, assimilating it to a river: A river has two banks, they do not restrict its flow but protect it. If the river had no banks it would overflow and flood its surroundings, flooding the earth and transforming it into swamps. Do you think that any river would object to having two banks to it because they restrict its freedom and says "leave me alone, I run wherever I wish?!" The same example applies to you: The two banks for you are God's commandments and the society's customs and traditions. Or the two banks are your religion and your nurture. Both are for your benefit. A child who rejects the rules and thinks of them as restraining his/her freedom, and the youth who rejects his/her parents' or his/her teachers' advice and think that parents and teachers are trying to restrict his/her freedom, is destined to languish, lose the righteous way, and become bewildered. So, is "being lost" another term for "liberty?" We dare not compare the two meanings. Is "promiscuity" another term for "liberty?!" No, without a doubt. True liberty is humans' liberation from their sins. Once a person is liberated from sin, his/her heart becomes liberated from all sinful feelings and his/her mind becomes liberated from all deviant thoughts. The person also becomes liberated from acquiescing to the devil and his partisans. He/she gets liberated from bad influences, bad company, and from defiling unions. He/she also gets liberated from all the powers that subject his/her will to their commands and lead him/her astray. This is the true liberty. If you feel that you have been enslaved from inside to a particular habit or to a sinful, commanding thought, then work hard to regain your internal liberty. Whoever gets liberated from the inside from sin and sinfulness could use the "external" liberty in a right way. For example, one who is freed from hate, cruelty, violence, and discrimination, could use his/her freedom to interact with people in a good civilized way. But if one was unjust or cruel and said "I want to use my absolute freedom when I am dealing with others as I wish." By doing so he/she will inflect harm on others and subject him/herself for critique and punishment; at the least he/she will have a bad reputation. Similarly, when a man (whose soul was not liberated from bodily desires) uses his freedom to achieve his desires, he will certainly harm himself and others --- for he has added new restraints on his soul that enslave the heart. The same is true for a woman who thinks that liberty is to wear what she wishes, and to play and flirt as she wishes. For by this wrongful freedom she tempts others to transgress and for herself to transgress as well. She has not been liberated from the inside yet, for that reason she uses her freedom in an abusive way toward herself and others. Similarly the student who ignores lessons, claiming that he/she is free to spend time as he/she wishes. He/she plays and frolics and, as a result, fails exams and destroys his/her career. Is that freedom?! How many mistakes were committed by the name of liberty! Our advice to you is the following: It is well that you live in freedom but use your liberty for your benefit and for others'. First, get liberated from the inside before using your external freedom. It is for the better to put pressure on yourself in order to reach inner freedom, for controlling oneself is a virtue. A person should not give oneself all what is "needed". It is not right to reach to a point of spoiling oneself and then lose control of oneself, and in turn losing one's true liberty. There is nothing more true and beautiful than King Solomon's saying "It is better to own yourself than owning an entire city." A person who is concerned with elevating his/her spiritual level must get involved in spiritual practices of self-control: to control the tongue so not to fall into mistakes, to control the nerves so not to revolt and lose friends in a moment of anger, to control the mind and thoughts so not to muse about harmful thoughts. One has to get involved in practices to control the senses so as not to hear what brings wrongful thoughts, and not to allow the eyes to have a sinful freedom, and so on with the rest of the senses... A person also controls his body by fasting and praying and avoiding sinful bodily desires. Is it acceptable for someone to behave as he/she wishes, without control, and without forcing oneself to do good deeds? No! One must force oneself not only to do good deeds, but to love doing these good deeds. At that point, the soul will take up the way of righteousness on her own with free will. Only then a person becomes free, unrestrained by desires, and not a slave to sin or immorality.