Customer Reviews

Islam and the Discovery of Freedom

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This book is a very interesting excerpt from Lane's book "The Discovery of Freedom". The original book is available free of charge at www.mises.org. It really is not about Islam at all, but about the threat that increasing government control presents to our God-given right to freedom. The original work is about 280 pages long, not 80. She states that in all recorded history there have been only three real attempts at human freedom from government control - Abraham and the early Hebrew nation, along with the advent of Christianity (but not the state Catholic church of Europe), the early practice of Islam, which also traces its roots to Abraham thru his older son Ishmael, and the American colonists, who were well grounded in the Bible themselves. In all three cases, the belief was that man is free due to his being created in the image of God, as expressed in the Old Testament book of Genesis. In all three cases, humans have managed to rise above mere subsistence and make drastic improvements in standards of living. She wrote the book in 1943, when Hitler posed a very real threat to our freedom, but most of what she says is timeless, esp now as our own government grows bigger by the minute. I found her assessment of public schools to be especially interesting. Please read the original - this work was really not intended to be a defense of Islam.

George Leef, president of Patrick Henry Associates in Michigan, is book review editor of The Freeman.

Mention 'Islam' to most Americans and they think of Saddam Hussein or the Ayatollah Khomeini. It is popularly linked to violence and terrorism, which is unfortunate. Far from being synonymous with intolerance and bloodshed, Islam has a history of peace and respect for individual rights. One famous exponent of freedom who knew that was Rose Wilder Lane.

Her original book, The Discovery of Freedom, contains an abundance of information on the golden era of Islamic civilization, particularly the role that free markets played in that remarkably progressive and virtually stateless society. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, president of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, an Islamic free-market think tank, has in Islam and the Discovery of Freedom taken Rose Wilder Lane's original text and added scholarly commentary.

For the most part, he documents points she makes, but occasionally corrects her writing. By placing his commentary in footnotes, Ahmad is able to strengthen Lane's argument that Islamic civilization flourished because of its emphasis on freedom and the rights of the individual without detracting from her beautiful writing style.

In an era in which many people expect government to do everything from caring for toddlers to building highways, it is astounding to learn how little government did in the ancient Islamic world. Schools, hospitals, and even roads were built by private foundations.

Islamic universities were especially interesting. They were not established or funded by the state; there were no accreditation boards or required curriculum; no degrees were given. They were simply places where those with knowledge could sell it to those who desired it. Lane writes, 'Men who knew (or thought they knew) something, and wanted to teach it, opened a school to sell their knowledge. Success depended upon the demand for the knowledge they had.' She contrasts the Islamic approach to education with the European, writing disparagingly of the 'European belief that minds acquire knowledge, not by actively seeking to know, but by passively being taught whatever Authority decides that they should know.' If you have ever wondered what a true free market in education would be like, this book provides some clues.

Free of the authoritarianism that prevailed in Europe's Dark Ages, Muslims advanced the sciences and applied new technologies. They developed the vital mathematical concepts of zero and spherical trigonometry, and put them to work in architecture and navigation. While Europeans were blaming disease on demons, the Muslims of the tenth century, notes Lane, 'were using the entire American medical pharmacopeia of today.' Ahmad documents the fact that ninth-century Baghdad had 60 drugstores. No Food and Drug Administration stood in the way of medical progress. Surgeons unlicensed by any government performed effective operations with local anesthesia.

One point of disagreement between Lane and Ahmad is over the existence of Islamic law. Lane writes that 'the weakness that eventually ended the Saracens' civilization' was that 'there was no civil law.' She continues that 'The only safeguards of property seem to have been possession of the property, individual honesty, and public opinion.' Ahmad disagrees, arguing that there was an elaborate civil jurisprudence and that one of the few things the government did was to enforce property rights. He blames the eventual decline of Islamic civilization on the stagnation of the law.

Lane also argues that the West was exposed to the ideas of liberty that would in time lead to its ascendancy through contacts with Muslim traders and scholars. She notes that Spanish Catholics, while welcoming the Catholic kings of the reconquista, nonetheless would not give up the liberty they had enjoyed under Islamic rule (which was tolerant of religious differences). They demanded and got documents guaranteeing their freedoms. Ahmad adds that Magna Carta, to which Westerners trace the beginnings of the idea of limited government, resulted from pressure by English nobles who had returned from the Crusades, where they had learned that the Muslim leader Saladin was bound by the law the same as any other citizen.

This book is not, however, a 'warts and all' portrait of Islam, which was quite indifferent to the enslavement of Africans and Europeans and placed non-Muslims on a lower legal plane. For discussion of the dark side of this civilization, one must look elsewhere.

Still, this is a highly readable, well-produced book that has much to say to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It should awaken the world's Muslims to the great principles of freedom that are a vital part of their heritage and from which their modern leaders have strayed. For non-Muslims, it is a reminder of the universal value of liberty and markets unfettered by government meddling. When human minds and energies are free, people will prosper and progress. That is the message of this intriguing book.

This is an excellent, easily-read book, very hard to put down. Rose Wilder Lane explores the little known secrets of Muslim impact on world history. Unlike much of the media spin of modern times, she has really delved into history and avoided simplistic answers. She unearths for us how the Muslim and Western civilizations have always been interacting (in Spain and the Crusades) and borrowing from each other more than the West would like to admit. Imad ad Dean Ahmad's commentary further supplements and corrects any ambiguities or errors in the text, so you find his additions to be a good complement to Ms. Lane's work. The end effect, she believes, had the descendants of Muslim Spaniards leading the discovery of the New World. From Columbus, to Ponce de Leon, De Soto, and Magellan, some of the great names of history in settling the Americas were Spaniards. Why were they so ahead of their English and French counterparts (100 years ahead)? If a great American libertarian and thinker like Rose Wilder Lane can arrive at some of these truths, it is very hopeful that this is the new type of discourse that can help us understand how we have actually benefited from and depended on other cultures and faiths in the past.

Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of pioneers on the U.S. frontier, was not afraid to journey beyond the cultural traditions that she knew best and make clear-minded connections with other traditions far older and more structured than her own. What resulted was a deeply satisfying demonstration of what links humans in all times and places - love of learning, discipline, and belief in the power of human freedom.

A Muslim has taken some of her words and then used a few of them to support his religion. I do not recommend this book to anyone! Read the complete book by Rose Wilder Lane elsewhere! This is NOT her book.

Rose Wilder Lane excludes the thought of many great libertarians. For example, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Imad-ad-Ahmad excludes the entire corpus of western thought from Rose Wilder Lane. This book is shamefully disorganized and concentrates on Lane's praise of Arab civilization. Certainly, it was more tolerant and advanced than the dark ages. The book does not present a specifically libertarian tradition in its entirety. Just some very controversial views about the Quran. Having done this, this is little more than a narowly Islamic diatribe with some reference to Rose Wilder Lane. I cannot recommend this book. Itr is nothing more than a tribute to Lane and a narrow and unconvincing theological diatribe. You would be far better off reading a free Libertarian pamphlet than paying money for this book. It is worth very little

A brief and concise eye opener of the history of Islamic expansion, influence and its relationship to the recent times. A very good book for policy makers, televangelists, ordinary people with extraordinary hatred for Islam and Moslems. The book also helps the new and young generation of Americans who have been under the influences of the biassed media.