Approaching Freedom

One of the key problems of publications in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies is running the risk of producing an academic discourse that is somewhat disconnected from reality. This paper analyses freedom-related publications from the IslamicInfo and Index Islamicus databases to highlight this concern. Here, it is suggested that important ideas and moments of freedom movements in the modern history of Arabs and Muslims have been overlooked by Western publications. While the Saudi Arabian database IslamicInfo (1931–2024) indexed writings that emphasized freedom as a desired then appropriated right, Index Islamicus (1930–2024) presents a century of research in which Arab-Muslim societies were denied freedom as a reality, a dynamic, or an aspiration. The publications indexed in the two databases are compared and examined in relation to the significant political shifts that have occurred in the Arab world.