Analysis of the Obstacles to Political Freedom Based on Quranic Teachings with an Emphasis on Verses 63-73 of Surah Taha

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Quranic Culture and Teachings, Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy, Qom, Iran

Abstract

This research aims to explain and analyze the obstacles to political freedom based on the teachings of the Holy Quran. The main issue of the article is that in the Quranic system, political freedom is not understood merely as liberation from external constraints; rather,
it acquires meaning in deep connection with monotheism (tawḥīd), servitude to God (ʿubūdiyya), and the existential orientation of the human being. Therefore, the research seeks to clarify what factors hinder the realization of political freedom from the Quran's perspective and how these obstacles prevent human beings from attaining true freedom. The central question of this research is: what are the obstacles to political freedom in the Quran? The article is founded on the premise that if political freedom in Quranic thought has a specific meaning, levels, and ultimate goal, then its obstacles must also be identified and analyzed at various levels. Therefore, the main objective of the research is to extract and classify the internal and external obstacles to political freedom and to explain their relationship to the concept of divine lordship (rubūbiyya) and the rejection of domination by anyone other than God. The research method in this article is descriptive-analytical with an intra-religious approach. The data and evidence of the research have been collected and analyzed based on the verses of the Holy Quran, a conceptual reading of Quranic teachings, and an analysis of the relationship between fundamental concepts such as freedom, ṭāghūt (false deities or tyrannical forces), arrogance (istikbār), servitude to God, and divine lordship. In this method, the author, relying on the religious text and its semantic contents, analyzes the conceptual structure of political freedom and extracts its obstacles from within the epistemological system of the Quran. The findings of the article indicate that freedom in the Quran has three levels or three ultimate goals: initial freedom, intermediate freedom, and ultimate freedom. These stages demonstrate that freedom in the Quranic perspective is not a single-layered, merely political matter, but rather a gradual and transcendent process that begins with initial forms of liberation and leads to complete, divine freedom. Within this framework, the obstacles to political freedom can be identified in two main categories: internal obstacles and external obstacles. Among the internal obstacles are following false assumptions, instinctual tendencies, and carnal desires, which prevent a person from recognizing the truth and making free choices. At the external level, factors such as ṭāghūt (tyrannical or false authorities), arrogance, opposition to reason, avoidance of certainty, pseudo-consciousness, and incomplete or false understandings of the criteria of freedom have been identified as obstacles to the realization of political freedom. The article shows that these obstacles not only undermine a person's intellectual and political independence but also keep them trapped in cycles of domination and dependency. The final conclusion of the research is that accepting the lordship of anyone other than God is the most fundamental obstacle to true and political freedom in the Quran. In other words, whenever a person or a society departs from the sphere of monotheism (tawhid) and divine servitude and accepts the domination of ṭāghūt (tyrannical forces), arrogance, or carnal desires, the possibility of realizing genuine political freedom is also weakened. Therefore, from the Quran's perspective, political freedom is not defined by the negation of all constraints, but rather by liberation from non-divine domination and conscious commitment to the truth of monotheism. By highlighting this point, the article demonstrates that political freedom
in Quranic teachings is not merely a legal or social matter, but an epistemic, moral, and existential reality whose realization depends on removing internal and external obstacles and moving toward divine lordship.

Keywords

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