Epistemic Slavery: Challenging Dominant Narratives and the Struggle for Intellectual Freedom

A deep dive into epistemic slavery, where freedom itself is redefined by the colonizer.

We aren’t aware of ourselves, that’s why we are unknowingly happily submitting ourselves to many gods. There’s a novel named Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence that describes the life of a subjugated wife in such words:

“He would seem to leave her absolute liberty. Never would he utter a command, never would he say You must! You shall not! I do not allow it! Never! He would always seem to leave her entirely mistress of her choice. And all the time he would subtly have stolen all choice from her she could only choose as he willed.”

This is the situation of the “Brown Sahib” as Ziauddin coined this label, stating that they are intellectually colonized — where they believe everything that’s against Western culture should be rejected. The whole reaffirmation of indigenous tradition must take place if we want to fit into this world.

The Brown Sahib is stuck in a Barzakh of the modern world — or, using a modern term, in the world of Schrödinger’s cat — where he loses his demeanor of modernity and is unable to connect with his own tradition.

The Violence of “Progress”

Our weltanschauung has been violently changed — though we can’t even say ‘violently’, as the West hasn’t perceived this change as violent, but as a “progressive” move by the indigenous people in order to be successful in the modern/post-modern world.

With this progressive step, the native’s sciences were replaced with the invader’s instruments. The metaphysical aspect of Muslims was brutally criticized by colonizers and orientalists because it didn’t align with their modern analytical science — in which reason is the king of all Truth. If one uses metaphysics, he’s considered an outcast and a delusional maniac whose claims are dismissed as subjective speculation, having no place in the modern “objective” world.

Many rejected metaphysics entirely, and some claimed it was “esoteric” knowledge that should be left out of discussion.

The Shift to Positivism

The Muslims who once thrived in the metaphysical ocean of truth — unlocking many doors of Reality and helping society understand the nature of the universe — changed into “positivist” maniacs who now try to dissect reality and Islam through secular tools and sciences.

This shift disturbed the actual worldview of Muslims and caused a negligence of transcendental instruments — as Hasan Spiker explains in his book The Metacritique of Kant, everyone is involved in metaphysics whether they know it or not.

Islam cannot be fully understood through Science. Doing so only raises more doubts and speculations, which cause weak Muslims to drift away from tradition.

Taha Abderrahmane on Radical Extermination

Taha Abderrahmane discusses the atrocities committed against Falasteenis. He explains how the “Absolute Evil” — mainly the oppressor — is not dangerous merely because it is committing genocide, but because it is moving toward the radical extermination of the natives:

• The extermination of fitrah (innate nature)
• The Original Freedom given by his Lord
• The Covenantary (between his Lord and him)

The destruction of these aspects leads to despair and the snatching away of one’s right to live — eventually erasing memories of the past.

As Prof. Wael Hallaq argues:

“… who no longer can imagine their own past outside the purview of modern historical narrative.”

Hallaq shared in one of his interviews that he questioned his students: Name me a freedom other than Western freedom. No one was able to answer.

It’s because “the Western freedom killed it.” The political freedom the natives had was vanished by the invasions of the West.

Rewriting Civilizations

Historical narratives were one of the biggest tools for remodeling the natives. Orientalists like William Jones — whose expertise was in literature — became pivotal not only because they linguistically shifted worldviews but also because they restructured Islamic law through their study of Islamic and Hindu history.

Prof. Hallaq holds the view that:

“You cannot colonize a whole civilization through music, literature, art, and media. The main perpetrators — capitalism, science, and their offshoots — have alone proven sufficient for colonizing the great majority of the world by the end of the nineteenth century.”

Sure, the media and its offshoots help change perspectives — as Alija Izetbegovic argues, the media inserts its own opinions into our minds and makes us feel like “the imposed ideas are our own” — but again, that’s not the root issue.

Distorting Sacred Knowledge

Orientalists penetrated the complexities of Islamic sciences, misinterpreted and distorted the meanings of the Qur’an and Ahadith, and raised doubts among lay Muslims.

This doubt, in turn, broke their relationship with their own tradition — paving the way to replace it with Western science and philosophies, now falsely marked as symbols of progress.

As Taha Abderrahmane describes the condition of Palestinians, he points to the three corruptions that Zionists push into the fitrah of Palestinians:

• Corruption of Memory
• Corruption of Realization
• Corruption of Orientation

Freedom Reduced to a Choice Between Executioners

This leads to the destruction of Original Freedom, given by the Lord — a freedom abolished, leaving one no real choice.

“The Other has no choice except to love, work, and live in a framework designed by his own executioner.”

It is like offering a condemned man the choice between being executed by gun or by public hanging.

Prof. Hallaq also discusses the “dissenting author”: Even if the author criticizes the system, they do so within the framework and paradigm created by the West. Their criticism does not disturb the system — it only improves it.

This is why figures like Edward Said were heavily promoted by the very colonizers and invaders he critiqued.

The Logic of Subjugation

This whole extermination leads to the rejection of:

• Values
• Principles
• The Covenant
• Fitrah
• The very Self

The colonized is forced to willfully submit to otherworldly gods.

As Prof. Hallaq wrote:

“We have to see this subjugation as logic — not as tactics.”

Once we see the pattern, we see the bigger picture.

Weapons and military weren’t the main tools of colonization. Because one can be free in a prison — but when one’s Self is replaced, they will be trapped in a cage even if the hunter is long dead.

Final Words: Iqbal’s Eagle

As Iqbal Lahori wrote:

“Bred and seduced by a vulture / The eagle does lose its culture”