I recently had the opportunity to watch The Sound of Freedom, which is a small budget yet incredibly well done movie that is based on the true story of Tim Ballard, who quit his government job so as to rescue kidnapped and trafficked children abroad.
For those who may be seeking a good film to watch, I highly recommend watching The Sound of Freedom not only because it is such an important movie for numerous reasons, but also because it is so incredibly well made on such a small production budget.
While dealing with and addressing a very difficult subject, The Sound of Freedom does its job profoundly skillfully and near perfectly balanced, avoiding any type of graphic scenes whatsoever yet clearly communicating the context of events that even those like myself who have a very low tolerance for graphic depictions of violence of any kind can sit through the film.
While so much of modern art and entertainment serves little to no meaningful purpose, and often is subversive and detrimental to human health and happiness, The Sound of Freedom is a rare production in the current climate and helps to provide meaning while serving the purpose of awakening human hearts from the dream of heedlessness in the temporal world—dunya.
In this post, I extract and discuss three key principles from faith, religion and spirituality related to the movie that we can be mindful of and seek to awaken to so as to increasingly live lives of meaning and purpose while seeking to earn the divine pleasure of our Lord and Creator.
THREE KEY PRINCIPLES IN ISLAM
#1: Preservation of Fitrah
One of the primary goals of religion is the protection and preservation of fitrah, which essentially means the natural state, condition and disposition of that which God has created. Fitrah also implies the original state of goodness, excellence and innocence of all created beings, and Islam not only seeks to protect and preserve the fitrah of human beings, but also to guide us back to it through spiritual growth, learning and development.
When we are more fully in our natural state of fitrah, we are happier, more connected, more free and our hearts are intrinsically rightly guided, leading to good and positive choices and actions that ultimately lead us home to Paradise and the Divine Presence of God.
When we have significantly lost and become estranged from our fitrah, we increasingly experience sadness, depression and despondency, and lose our ability to make right and righteous choices, progressively leading downwards into increasing experiences of suffering.
The Sound of Freedom helps us become aware of the beauty of the fitrah with which Allah Almighty creates each child, and of the importance to protect and preserve this both within ourselves to the best of our abilities, while advocating for a culture and society that also seeks the protection and preservation of innocence, light, beauty and excellence rather than its exploitation and corruption.
2) Protection of Orphans
The Holy Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ vehemently advocate for the protection of orphans and their rights, for orphans have lost and lack the love, protection support of one or both parents. Consequently, they lead far more difficult lives than others and are in a very real way alone in the world, often having to carry the burden of deep emotional wounds and scars while trying to survive.
There is perhaps none worse than he or she who not only makes a child an orphan by robbing them of their parents, but then goes on to harm and hurt such innocents in the worst of possible ways. There is perhaps nothing more displeasing to God that the intentional causing of suffering for the innocent, the young and the helpless, and such are promised Hell in the world beyond, [4:10].
The abuse of the innocent is not something we as believers should or can close our eyes to. To the contrary, we must consciously embrace our role and responsibility in the world as vicegerents of Allah Almighty, and actively fulfill our mandate by seeking to “enjoin good and prevent evil,” [3:110].
3) Conscious and Intentional Vicegerency
The Prophet ﷺ taught that the Ummah, or that nation and community of human beings from his time until the Day of Judgement, are as one body, and that when one part of the body is in pain, the entire body feels it. Such is life in the world, which is not Paradise, and that requires vigilance, fortitude, strength and courage.
We must remember that we have been created and established as deputies of the Divine, and so have responsibility that extends far beyond just ourselves. As vicegerents of Allah Almighty, we must continuously seek to do good in the world by seeking to create a society based in the culture of consciousness that is conducive to awakening hearts to natural beauty and divine purpose, and that seeks to avoid the myriad of pitfalls to which Satan and our own lower selves continuously pull us towards.
The Sound of Freedom
If you have not yet done so, I recommend taking the time to watch The Sound of Freedom in lieu of far less meaningful and purposeful modern productions. Films such as The Sound of Freedom help awaken and develop empathy and strength in us, and remind us of our purpose on earth as servants, deputies and emissaries of God.
The Sound of Freedom in particular reminds us of the necessity of seeking to protect and preserve fitrah, both ours and others, and in advocating for the rights of the innocent that they may live in God’s mercy, peace, light and beauty.
To your divine and eternal success.
