Universal versus Islamic Human Rights: A Philosophical Study

Abstract

Human rights are those rights which applied to every single person simply because he/she is human being. It applies to everyone; everywhere without exception i.e. equal to everyone regardless race, culture, gender, age, color, social orientation etc. But, it is unfortunate that every human right is not a legal right. It depends upon the will of the state to convert into legal right. Islam declared about human rights in 6^th century, while UNO issue universal declaration in 1948. The UNO charter basically classifies human rights in three dimensions. 1. Classical, political and civil liberty rights, 2. Economic, cultural and social human rights, 3.Rights of groups. The holy Qur’an declares that all human beings are progeny of Adam. Therefore, all humans, irrespective of their gender and color, are declared essentially equal. The key terms used by the holy Qur’an is huquq al- Allah and huquq al-‘ibad, the rights due towards the Creator and the Sustainer and the rights of Allah’s servants, i.e., human beings. The researcher makes an effort to understand the philosophy of human rights in Islam and UNO. The paper also attempts to summarize some of basic human rights given by the Qur’an and UNO. The paper especially focuses on a comparison of human rights between Islamic declaration and universal declaration and shortcomings in universal declaration thereafter.

Keywords: Human rights, Islamic view, Universal declaration