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Despite the obvious significance of, and the sustained preoccupation of all legal and philosophical traditions with freedom, there is little agreement on its precise meaning. To a reader of constitutional law, freedom means something different from what it might mean to a philosopher or a mystic. Whereas the philosophically-oriented Mu'tazilah and the Ash'ariyyah were preoccupied with the freedom of the human will versus predestination and determinism (al-jabr wa'l-ikhtiyar), to the Sufi and mystic, freedom primarily means freedom from the desires of the self, which releases one from dependence on the material world, and is freedom from everything except God and devotion to Him. More than any other factor, it is the animal desires of the animal nature in man that render him unfree. The struggle with those desires, and this final victory over them, makes man free. Ultimately, freedom from desires is a facet of human perfection, something that raises man to the level of the angels and outlasts his physical life.
The jurist and the reader of political science are mainly concerned with the struggle between authority and freedom. Freedom in this context has primarily meant the ability of the individual to lead a life of security, free from the tyranny of oppressive governments and rulers. To the reader of fundamental rights and liberties, it is the struggle between authority and freedom that gives freedom much of its meaning. This is a focal theme of many a modern Constitution, and the emphasis that is given to it is typical of the era of constitutionalism and government under the rule of law. But even here, there has, over time, been a considerable adjustment of the notion of the relationship of individual liberty to the authority of the state. Individual freedom was initially conceived as a limiting factor on government power, and was seen necessary for limiting the power of various organs of government in order to protect individual liberties. But that perception of bipolarity seems to have given way to a vision which sees it as the duty of the state to be an active participant in the protection of liberties. The initial view of conflicting interests is thus changing to one of the essential unity of interests. The Declaration of the Rights of Man issued by the leaders of the French Revolution of 1789, which was later attached to the French Constitution of 1791, declared freedom to be the right of the individual to do what he wishes, provided that this does not cause harm to others, and that any limits imposed on freedom are not valid unless validated by the law. It was similarly declared that freedom and equality were the natural rights of all human beings.
We are also concerned here with the close relationship between equality and freedom. To achieve objectivity and balance in understanding the basic notions of equality and freedom is often a question of accommodation and compromise between them. The compromise here is essentially between individual and communal interests. The individual is naturally inclined towards freedom, but his untrammeled desire for freedom is prone to lead to inequality, and the concern here how to limit the individual freedom in order to secure some of the valid objectives of equality. In this sense, the history of human rights has been one of 'continuous struggle for compromise between freedom and equality, between individual rights and considerations of social justice'. It need not be overemphasised that a hungry man can make little use of his freedom. Considerations of social justice thus affect the substance of freedom in individual cases. Whereas liberalism puts freedom before equality, socialism and its allied doctrines have emphasised equality to a greater extent than freedom. Freedom has undoubtedly been and will remain the most important of all the rights of man. Yet without equality, freedom is likely to become a privilege of the few, and can easily be turned into an instrument of abuse.
