THE RIGHTS OF THE SELF

The fact is that man is more cruel and unjust to himself than to any other being. On the face of it, it may seem very astonishing. How can a man be unjust to himself particularly when we find that he loves himself most! How can he be his own enemy. It looks to be quite unintelligible. However, deeper reflection would show that it contains a large grain of truth.

The greatest weakness of man is that when he feels an overpowering desire, he, instead of resisting it, succumbs to it, and in its gratification, knowingly, causes great harm to himself. There is a man who takes to drinking: he becomes mad after it and carries it on at the cost of money, health, reputation and everything that he has. Another person is so fond of eating that in his eating, he spoils his health and endangers his life. Another person becomes a slave of his sexual appetites and ruins himself in over indulgence.

Still another gets enamoured of spiritual elevations: he suppresses his genuine desires, refuses to fulfill his physical needs and requirements, controls his appetite, does away with clothes, leaves the home and retires into mountains and jungles. He believes that the world is not meant for him and abhors it in all its forms and manifestations. These are a few of the instances of man’s tendency to go to the extremes and get lost in any one field. One comes across a number of such instances of maladjustment and dis-equilibrium in one’s everyday life and there is no need to multiply them here.

Islam stands for human welfare and its avowed objective is to establish poise and balance in life. That is why the Shari’ah clearly declares that your own self also has certain rights upon you. A fundamental principle of it is “there are rights upon you of your own person”.

The Shari’ah forbids the use of all those things which are injurious to man’s physical, mental or moral existence. It forbids the consumption of blood, intoxicating drugs, flesh of pig, beasts of prey, poisonous and unclean animals and the carcass; for all these have undesirable effects upon the physical, moral, intellectual and spiritual life of man. While forbidding these things, Islam enjoins upon man the use of all clean, healthy and useful things, and asks him not to deprive his body of clean food, for man’s body too has a right upon him.

The law of Islam forbids nudity and orders man to use decent and dignified dress. It exhorts him to work for a livelihood and strongly disapproves of one’s remaining idle and workless. The spirit of the Shari’ah is that man should use for his comfort and welfare the powers Allah has bestowed upon him and the resources that He has spread in the earth and the heavens. Islam does not believe in the suppression of even the sexual desires. It enjoins man to control and regulate it and seek its fulfillment in marriage. It forbids him to resort to self-persecution and total self-denial and permits him, nay, bids him, to enjoy the rightful comforts and pleasures or life and remain pious and steadfast in the midst of life and its problems. To seek spiritual elevation, moral purity, nearness to Allah, and salvation in the life to come, it is not necessary to abandon this world. Instead, the trial of man lies in this world and he should remain in its midst and follow the way of Allah here. The road to success lies in following the Divine Law in the midst of life’s complexities, and not outside it.

Islam totally forbids suicide and impresses upon man that life belongs to Allah. It is like a trust which Allah has bestowed upon you for a certain period of time so that you may make the best of it. It is not meant to be spoiled and destroyed in a frivolous way.

This is how Islam instills in the mind of man that his own person, his own self, possesses certain rights and it is his obligation to discharge them as best as he can, in the ways that have been suggested by the Shari’ah. This is how he can be true to his own self.

THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS
On the one hand, the Shari’ah has enjoined man to fulfil his personal rights and be just to his own self and on the other hand, it has asked him to seek their fulfillment in such a way that the rights of other people are not violated. The Shari’ah has tried to strike a balance in the rights of man and the rights of the society so that no conflict may arise between the two and all must cooperate in establishing the law sent by Allah.

Islam has strongly forbidden the telling of a lie in every form and shape, for it sullies the liar, causes harm to other people and becomes a source of menace to society.

It has totally forbidden theft, robbery, bribery, forgery, cheating, interest, and usury, for whatever man gains by these means is really obtained by causing loss and injury to others. Backbiting, tale-bearing, slandering and calumniation have been forbidden. Gambling, lottery, speculation, and all games of chance have been prohibited for in all of them one gains at the cost of thousands of other losing people.

All those forms of exploitative commerce have been prohibited in which one party alone is to be the loser. Monopoly, hoarding, black marketing, holding of land from cultivation, and all other forms of individual and social aggrandizement have been prohibited.

Murder, blood spilling, spreading of mischief, disorder and destruction have been made crimes, for no one has a right to take away the life or property of other people merely for his personal gain or gratification. Adultery, fornication and unnatural sexual indulgence have been strictly prohibited for they not only vitiate the morality and impair the health of the perpetrator of these crimes, but also spread corruption and immorality in society, cause veneral diseases, ruin public health, degenerate the health and morals of the coming generations, upset the relations between man and man and cut under the very fabric of cultural and social structure of the community. Islam wants to eliminate and root out such abominable crimes.

All these limits and restrictions have been imposed by the law of Islam to prevent man from encroaching upon the rights of others. Islam does not want man to become so selfish and self-centered that for the attainment of a few charms of the mind and body, he unashamedly assails the rights of others and violates all sanctions of morality. Nor does it allow him to crucify the interests of others for the attainment of his own personal rights.

The law of Islam so regulates life of human welfare and cultural advancement, some negative restrictions alone are not sufficient. In a really peaceful and prosperous society, people not only should positively cooperate with each other and establish such mutual relations and social institutions that contribute towards the welfare of all and the establishment of an ideal human society. The Shari’ah has guided us in this respect as well.

Family is the first cradle of man. It is there that the primary character-traits of man are set. As such it is not only the cradle of man but also the cradle of civilization. Therefore, let us, first of all, consider the injunctions of the Shari’ah relating to the family. A family consists of the husband, the wife, and their children. The Islamic injunctions about the family are very explicit. It assigns to man the responsibility of earning and providing the necessities of his wife and children and to protect them from all the vicissitudes of life. To the woman it assigns the duty of managing the household, training and bringing up children in the best possible way, and of providing to her husband and children the greatest possible comfort and contentment. The duty of the children is to respect and obey their parents, and, when they are grown up, to serve them and provide for their needs. To make the household a well-managed and well-disciplined institution, Islam has adopted the following two measures:

(a) The husband has been given the position of the head of the family. No institution can work smoothly unless there is a chief administrator in it. You cannot think of a school without a headmaster or a city without an administrator. If there is nobody to control an institution, nothing but chaos would result. If everybody in the family goes his own way, nothing but confusion would prevail.

If the husband goes one way and the wife the other, the future of the children would be ruined. There must be someone as the head of the family so that discipline may be maintained therein and the family becomes an ideal institution of society. Islam gives this position to the husband and in this way makes the family a well-disciplined primary unit of civilization; a model for the society as a whole.

(b) This head of the family has further been burdened with some responsibilities. It is his duty to earn the living and carry on all those tasks which are performed outside the household. It has freed woman from all the extra household activities and assigned them all on the shoulders of the husband. She has been relieved from the outdoor duties of the house, so that she might devote herself fully to the indoor duties and put all her energies in the maintenance of the household and in the rearing of the children - the future guardians of the nation.

The women have been ordered to remain in their houses and discharge the responsibilities assigned to them. Islam does not want to tax them doubly: to rear the children and maintain the household, and to earn a living and do the outdoor jobs also. That would be evidently sheer injustice. Islam, therefore, effects a functional distribution between the sexes.

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