"Fortunately, historians are now beginning to recognise the historic role of Islam as a liberating force for peoples oppressed by the burdens of unjust social systems"
About this Quote
The key phrase is "liberating force", paired with a carefully chosen villain: not people, but "unjust social systems". That abstraction matters. It sidesteps naming empires, castes, colonial administrations, or local elites, while still indicting them. It also positions Islam as a practical engine of emancipation - a framework that can dissolve inherited hierarchies and redistribute dignity. The word "burdens" suggests that oppression is not just violent but normalized, built into daily life.
Contextually, this reads like mid-20th-century rhetoric shaped by decolonization and the Cold War competition over moral authority. If Western modernity claimed freedom as its brand, this sentence argues that Islam has its own liberation genealogy, one that predates and complicates Western self-mythology. The subtext is strategic: a call for intellectual respectability and political relevance, insisting that Islam belongs not on the defensive, but in the archive of movements that changed who gets to count as fully human.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Khan, Aly. (2026, January 16). Fortunately, historians are now beginning to recognise the historic role of Islam as a liberating force for peoples oppressed by the burdens of unjust social systems. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/fortunately-historians-are-now-beginning-to-138280/
Chicago Style
Khan, Aly. "Fortunately, historians are now beginning to recognise the historic role of Islam as a liberating force for peoples oppressed by the burdens of unjust social systems." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/fortunately-historians-are-now-beginning-to-138280/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Fortunately, historians are now beginning to recognise the historic role of Islam as a liberating force for peoples oppressed by the burdens of unjust social systems." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/fortunately-historians-are-now-beginning-to-138280/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.


