The Right to Life in Islam

God's Free-hold on Living

Undoubtedly, God owns the lives of all beings and creatures:

[He] who created death and life to test you [as to] which of you is best in deed - and He is the Exalted in Might, the Forgiving. (Quran, 67:2)

So every creature and specifically his "life" belong to God. There is no creature (in the world) that has the power to create life.

Imam Ali (a.s) in one of his sermons said:

"Even if all the animals of the earth, whether birds or beasts, stabled cattle or pasturing ones, of different origins and species, dull people and sagacious men -- all jointly try to create (even) a mosquito they are not able to bring it into being and do not understand what is the way to its creation. Their wits are bewildered and wandering. Their powers fall short and fail, and return disappointed and tired, knowing that they are defeated and admitting their inability to produce it, also realizing that they are too weak (even) to destroy it."[^1]

Quran emphasizes that creation of life and death is exclusively done by God:

And that it is He who causes death and gives life. ***(Quran, 53:44) ***

The evidence of God's capability in creating life is that he materialized life from nothing and from death.

And a sign for them is the dead earth. We have brought it to life and brought forth from it grain, and from it they eat. (Quran, 36:33)

The ownership of life and death, as the most complicated phenomena of life also belongs to God:

And He is the one who gave you life; then He causes you to die and then will [again] give you life. Indeed, mankind is ungrateful. (Quran, 22:66)

[^1]: Nahj al- Balaghah, Sermon 185.