Human Rights,The West and Islam--By Maulana Maodoodi

The Western Approach
The people in the west have the habbit 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 in to existence six hundered 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 contains the principels of Trial by jury ,habeas carpus,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 concious of all these concepts which are know being attributed to them . As far as my knowledge goes the westerners had no concept of human rights and civics rights before the seventeenth century. Even after the seventeenth century the philoshphers 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 proclamationsand constitutions of France and America. After this there appeared a refrence to the basic human rights in the constitutions of diiferent 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 .

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 means 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 then 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 or they like philosphical concepts which have no sanctions behind them.

The character 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 guranteed by God or make amendments and changes in them ,or practically violate them while paying lip-service to them ,the verdict of the Holy Qura'n 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 ase 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 they 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 authorties  who claim to be Muslims and yet violate the rights sanctioned by God belong to one of these two categories,either they have the disbelievers or the wrong-doers and mischief-makers.The Rights which have been sanctioned by God are permanent ,perpetual and eternal.