Human Rights in Islam

[Introduction]

Throughout history, the philosophy of human rights has been to ensure human dignity, irrespective of race, religion, creed, caste and color. Theories, codes and behaviors have been established to ensure this basic principle. However, as Thomas Hobbles wrote, “human beings are fallible.” Hence, such theories and laws were not always practical and were often full of contradictions. People try to trace the genesis of human rights back to ancient to Greece and Rome where natural law governed the institutions, but these rights are not in due order process of law. The Magna Carta (1215) of England is seen as a remarkable achievement, but it has its own defects. It has been established through case law, that members of Judaism and Sikhism are fully protected; under the Race relation act, but no such protection exists for members of other faiths[^1]: More recently, the Bill of Rights of the United States was written but it too has shortcomings. The U.S. considers itself to be a righteous nation but it is prejudiced toward other nations and minority races. Despite the so-called established laws of Human rights, there is much discrimination in United States on the basis of color, caste and creed.

Going back through history, the concept of human rights in Islam and its practical applications to human beings is totally neglected. However, Islam, with its divine dependence upon the prophet Mohammad (SAW) contains a message of human rights as its basic law and injects the values of interest which fully normalize the claims and demands and needs in every society for which laws and provisions were made for the interest of individual human beings.