Right To Life
Given the centrality of the Qur'an to the lives of the majority of the more than one billion Muslims of the world, the critical question is: What, if anything, does the Qur'an say about human rights? I believe that the Qur'an is the Magna Carta of human rights and that a large part of its concern is to free human beings from the bondage of traditionalism, authoritarianism (religious, political, economic, or any other), tribalism, racism, sexism, slavery or anything else that prohibits or inhibits human beings from actualizing the Qur'anic vision of human destiny embodied in the classic proclamation: "Towards Allah is thy limit" (Surah 53: An-Najm: 42).
offer an account of the Qur'an's affirmation of fundamental rights which all human beings ought to possess, because they are so deeply rooted in our humanness that their denial or violation is tantamount to a negation or degradation of that which makes us human. From the perspective of the Qur'an, these rights came into existence when we did; they were created, as we were, by God in order that our human potential could be actualized. These rights not only provide us with an opportunity to develop all our inner resources, but they also hold before us a vision of what God would like us to be: what God wants us to strive for and live for and die for. Rights created or given by God cannot be abolished by any temporal ruler or human agency. Eternal and immutable, they ought to be exercised since everything that God does is for "a just purpose."
RIGHT TO LIFE.
The Qur'an upholds the sanctity and absolute value of human life and states in Surah 6: Al-An'am: 151: do not take any human being's lifeľ(the life) which God has declared to be sacred -- otherwise than in (the pursuit of) justice: this has He enjoined upon you so that you might use your reason.
In Surah 5: Al-Ma'idah: 32, the Qur'an points out that, in essence, the life of each individual is comparable to that of an entire community and, therefore, should be treated with the utmost care: "We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone slew a person unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land it would be as if he slew the whole people: And if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people."
