Before I discuss the human
rights in Islam I would like to explain a few points about two major approaches
to the question of human rights: the Western and Islamic. This will enable us to
study the issue in its proper perspective and avoid some of the confusion which
normally befogs such a discussion.
The Western Approach:
The people in the West have the habit of attributing every good thing to
themselves and try to prove that it is because of them that the world got this
blessing, otherwise the world was steeped in ignorance and completely unaware of
all these benefits. Now let us look at the question of human rights. It is very
loudly and vociferously claimed that the world got the concept of basic human
rights from the Magna Carta of Britain; though the Magna Carta itself came into
existence six hundred years after the advent of Islam. But the truth of the
matter is that until the seventeenth century no one even knew that the Magna
Carta contained the principles of Trial by Jury; Habeas Corpus, and the Control
of Parliament on the Right of Taxation. If the people who had drafted the Magna
Carta were living today they would have been greatly surprised if they were told
that their document also contained all these ideals and principles. They had no
such intention, nor were they conscious of all these concepts which are now
being attributed to them. As far as my knowledge goes the Westerners had no
concept of human rights and civic rights before the seventeenth century. Even
after the seventeenth century the philosophers and the thinkers on jurisprudence
though presented these ideas, the practical proof and demonstration of these
concepts can only be found at the end of the eighteenth century in the
proclamations and constitutions of America and France. After this there appeared
a reference to the basic human rights in the constitutions of different
countries. But more often the rights which were given on paper were not actually
given to the people in real life. In the middle of the present century, the
United Nations, which can now be more aptly and truly described as the Divided
Nations, made a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and passed a resolution
against genocide and framed regulations to check it. But as you all know there
is not a single resolution or regulation of the United Nations which can be
enforced. They are just an expression of a pious hope. They have no sanctions
behind them, no force, physical or moral to enforce them. Despite all the
high-sounding ambitious resolutions of the United Nations, human rights have
been violated and trampled upon at different places, and the United Nations has
been a helpless spectator. She is not in a position to exercise an effective
check on the violation of human rights. Even the heinous crime of genocide is
being perpetrated despite all proclamations of the United Nations. Right in the
neighbouring country of Pakistan, genocide of the Muslims has been taking place
for the last twenty- eight years, but the United Nations does not have the power
and strength to take any steps against India. No action has even been taken
against any country guilty of this most serious and revolting crime.
The Islamic Approach:
The second point which I would like to clarify at the very outset is that when
we speak of human rights in Islam we really mean that these rights have been
granted by God; they have not been granted by any king or by any legislative
assembly. The rights granted by the kings or the legislative assemblies, can
also be withdrawn in the same manner in which they are conferred. The same is
the case with the rights accepted and recognized by the dictators. They can
confer them when they please and withdraw them when they wish; and they can
openly violate them when they like. But since in Islam human rights have been
conferred by God, no legislative assembly in the world, or any government on
earth has the right or authority to make any amendment or change in the rights
conferred by God. No one has the right to abrogate them or withdraw them. Nor
are they the basic human rights which are conferred on paper for the sake of
show and exhibition and denied in actual life when the show is over. Nor are
they like philosophical concepts which have no sanctions behind them.
The charter and the proclamations and the resolutions of the United Nations
cannot be compared with the rights sanctioned by God; because the former is not
applicable to anybody while the latter is applicable to every believer. They are
a part and parcel of the Islamic Faith. Every Muslim or administrators who claim
themselves to be Muslims will have to accept, recognize and enforce them. If
they fail to enforce them, and start denying the rights that have been
guaranteed by God or make amendments and changes in them, or practically violate
them while paying lip-service to them, the verdict of the Holy Quran for such
governments is clear and unequivocal:
Those who do not judge by what God has sent down are the dis Believers (kafirun).
5:44 The following verse also proclaims: "They are the wrong-doers (zalimun)"
(5:45), while a third verse in the same chapter says: "They are the evil-livers
(fasiqun)" (5:47). In other words this means that if the temporal authorities
regard their own words and decisions to be right and those given by God as wrong
they are disbelievers. If on the other hand they regard God's commands as right
but wittingly reject them and enforce their own decisions against God's, then
they are the mischief-makers and the wrong-doers. Fasiq, the law-breaker,is the
one who disregards the bond of allegiance, and zalim is he who works against the
truth. Thus all those temporal authorities who claim to be Muslims and yet
violate the rights sanctioned by God belong to one of these two categories,
either they are the disbelievers or are the wrong- doers and mischief-makers.
The rights which have been sanctioned by God are permanent, perpetual and
eternal. They are not subject to any alterations or modifications, and there is
no scope for any change or abrogation.