“自由比“万物非主，唯有真主”（la ilaha illaAllah）更重要，因为没有自由，我们就无法自由地选择信仰什么。”几年前，一位叙利亚活动人士在谈到阿拉伯之春时对我这样说。当时看来，他似乎在制造一种错误的二元对立，但他其实只是想强调自由作为一种价值，相较于其他一切所占据的地位。

“Freedom is more important than la ilaha illaAllah because without freedom we are not free to believe whatever we choose.” This is what one Syrian activist told me several years ago regarding the Arab Spring. It seemed like he was setting up a false dichotomy, but he was just trying to emphasize the place of freedom as a value, as compared to everything else.

但是，自由是一个被误解的概念。根据始于十八、十九世纪欧洲经验主义者的自由主义哲学，真正自由的人，是从白板（tabula rasa）开始的人。这样的人没有任何既有的信念或承诺。他的心智没有被关于世界、关于上帝、关于自然状态的错误强加观念所污染。这个拥有自由心智的人，便能从零开始，形成他自己真实的信念。理想情况下，这些信念应当建立在严谨的科学探究之上——至少在经验主义者的心灵哲学和认识论中，他们是这样期望的。然而，即使一个人并非以科学的方式形成信念，他至少是真实地形成的，因而也是自由的。如此一来，只要这个人是从白板出发的，那么他有宗教信仰也是可以接受的；而白板实际上就相当于一个非宗教的起点。

But freedom is a misunderstood concept. The truly free person, according to liberal philosophy beginning with the European empiricists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is the person who starts off with a blank slate, i.e., the tabula rasa. This person has no prior beliefs or commitments. His mind is not contaminated with falsely imposed ideas about the world, about God, about the state of nature. This person, with his free mind, is then able to form his own authentic beliefs from scratch. Ideally, those beliefs will be formed on the basis of sound scientific investigation — that’s what the empiricists hoped for at least in their philosophy of mind and epistemology. But, even if a person does not develop beliefs scientifically, at least he does so authentically and, hence, freely. In this way, it is OK for a person to be religious so long as that person started from a blank slate, which for all intents and purposes is a starting point of non-religion.

如果你以这种方式表达，这个问题确实很有意思。假如我出生在某个宗教信仰的家庭，从第一天起就由家人教导这一信仰，并一直成长为信奉该信仰的人，这是否意味着我并非自由地为自己选择了这一信仰？我可以争辩说，成年之后，我正在做出有意识的选择，运用自己的自由意志去坚守我的信仰。但是，我又如何能够确定做出这一选择的真的是“我”，而不是那个在某个家庭中长大、作为某种“宗教灌输”产物的“我”？也许我被洗脑了，那样的话，我所谓的“选择”就算不上真正的选择了。

It is interesting when you put it like that. If I was born into a family with a certain religion and that family taught me that religion from Day 1, and I grow up professing that faith, does that mean I did not freely choose that faith for myself? I might argue that, as an adult, I am making a conscious choice and exercising my free will to commit to my particular faith. But, then, how can I know that it is really “me” making that choice and not the “me” that grew up in a certain household and is a product of a certain kind of “religious indoctrination”? Maybe I’ve been brainwashed, in which case my “choice” is not really a choice at all.

如果情况确实如此，那么在宗教家庭中长大的孩子所经历的那种灌输，在非宗教家庭中同样存在。这只是另一种形式的洗脑，即非宗教式的洗脑。如果一个孩子从小被教导不要相信某种更高的力量，也不要重视虔诚的信仰，那么他长大后决定成为无神论者并嘲讽宗教等等，这还能算是真正的自由选择吗？还是说，他同样是环境的产物？

But if that’s the case for children growing up in religious households, then the same kind of indoctrination happens in non-religious households too. It is just brainwashing of the non-religious variety. If a child is raised to not believe in a Higher Power and to not think much of faithful devotion, then if he grows up and decides to be an atheist and mock religion, etc., then was that truly a free choice? Or is he also the product of his environment?

要点在于，白板（tabula rasa）并不存在，自由主义思想家所设想的、我们可以在其上自由形成信仰的中立空白石板也不存在。没有白板。我们每个人都出生于某种既定的处境之中，在童年时被灌输某些观念和价值，并在成年后的一生中不断受其影响。唯一的问题是：这些观念和价值是否真实、公正？如果是，那么人是否从自由的立场、即一块实际上并不存在的白板出发而抵达这些观念，又有什么关系呢？如果这些观念和价值是虚假且不公正的，那么唯一的应对之道是真理与公正，而不是抽象的自由概念，而自由本身不过是启蒙运动想象的产物。无论如何，作为真理与公正之最终体现的“la ilaha illaAllah”（万物非主，唯有真主）终将胜出。

Point being that the tabula rasa does not exist and neither does the neutral blank slate liberal thinkers imagined we could freely develop our beliefs from. There is no blank slate. We all are born into a certain condition and raised to believe certain ideas and values that are imposed on us as children and then throughout our adult lives. The only question is, are those ideas and values true and just? If yes, who cares if one arrives at them from a position of freedom, i.e., a blank slate that, in reality, does not exist? And if those ideas and values are false and unjust, then the only way to counter that is with truth and justice, not with an abstract notion of freedom, which again, is a figment of the Enlightenment’s imagination. Either way, la ilaha illaAllah, as the ultimate expression of truth and justice, comes out on top.

换一种说法：世俗国家中的宗教自由，预设了一个“无宗教”的出发点。但为什么“无宗教”会成为出发点、中立的立足点？为什么非宗教的价值观会成为默认设定？有人或许会说，宗教信仰多种多样，因此世俗国家不去偏好或认可其中任何一种，而是选择不持任何立场。但这是对现实的严重误解。“无宗教”本身也是一套特定的信念。如果世俗国家选择了“无宗教”，那么它就已经偏好并认可了某一种信仰体系而非其他。这与选择某一套特定信仰而排斥其他一切的神权国家，本质上并无不同。区别在于，神权国家不会自欺欺人地认为自己是中立的。当然，最根本的区别在于，以伊斯兰为基础的神权国家维护着真理与正义，而真理与正义只能在伊斯兰中找到。

Put another way, freedom of religion in secular nations assumes a starting point of non-religion. But why is non-religion the starting point, the neutral ground? Why are non-religious values the default? One might say, well, there are a variety of religious beliefs so rather than prefer or endorse one, the secular state chooses none. But this is a gross mischaracterization of the reality. Non-religion is also a particular set of beliefs. If the secular state chooses non-religion, it has still preferred and endorsed a particular belief system over others. This is essentially no different from a theocratic state that also chooses one particular set of beliefs over all others. The difference is, the theocratic state does not delude itself into thinking it is neutral. And of course, the primary difference is that the theocratic state based on Islam is upholding truth and justice, which can only be found in Islam.