Rights and freedoms
Family: How Islam changed over time · 24 entries
Entries on this theme
Concept
Justice and grace (adl wal-fadl)
Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy distinguishes justice, a duty, from grace, which is recommended. He holds that recovering rights by lawful means follows from justice, that grace does not come from weakness, and he also takes up the occupation of land and holy places.Bayt al-mal (public treasury)
Causes of ownership
Economic freedom in Islam
Equality in Islam
Muhammad al-Khidr Husayn holds that people are created alike in nature, then differ in social life, and that Islam set obligations on a basis of equal standing: no noble is privileged over a commoner, no ruler over the people, and piety does not change limits or rights (pp. 58-59). He argues from the brotherhood of believers, and from the Caliph Abu Bakr's principle that the strong is weak until right is taken from him and the weak is strong until he is given his right (pp. 60-61). He notes that a judge does not rule for himself and that Umar referred a dispute to a man of the people (p. 61). This is the author's reading of the texts and reports he cites. Muhyi al-Din Afifi Ahmad holds that people share one origin and so are equal in rights, duties and reward, and that colour, sex and language give no ground for distinction (pp. 113-114). He cites a hadith against wronging a covenanted non-Muslim (p. 114).Freedom in Islam
Muhammad al-Khidr Husayn starts from the lexical sense of freedom as release and manumission, then from its purpose: a community living in security, where each person knows his rights and duties and is neither wronged nor deprived (pp. 44-45). He describes freedom as a mean between excess and deprivation, resting on four qualities: knowing one's rights and duties, a noble soul that refrains from aggression, submission to fair law, and a dignity that refuses wrong (pp. 45-46). Education is the base, so government must refine morals and enlighten minds first (pp. 46-47). He rejects reading freedom as following desire or force, and sets consultation and equality as its two pillars (pp. 47-48). This is the author's reading, offered as an Islamic account of freedom.Freedom of honour in Islam
Muhammad al-Khidr Husayn holds that a person naturally wants his honour kept free from attack, and that the law treats honour as sacred as blood and flesh, so no one may spread another's hidden faults (pp. 84-85). He allows an exception where preventing harm requires it, such as disclosing a man's fault in sincere counsel to someone about to marry into his family or deal with him (pp. 85-86). He also excludes a person who has openly displayed his own wrongdoing, whose case is not backbiting in the same sense (p. 85). He links a strong will for guarding one's honour to a high aim, and a weak will to decline (p. 84).Freedom of property in Islam
Muhammad al-Khidr Husayn treats freedom of property under four heads: acquiring wealth, its middle course, enjoying it, and aggression against it (p. 62). He holds that the law urges work for a living by any lawful trade that harms no one, and that commerce is blamed only when it distracts from duties (pp. 62-63). He counts crafts and trades among communal obligations and divides people into four classes by their roles: rulers, those who spread knowledge, traders, and craftsmen and farmers (p. 64). He then begins to set out how property passes by contract (p. 65).Rights and duties (huquq wal-wajibat)
Rights and duties as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents them: the loss of rights blocks success, duties are discharged before claims are made, and rights are considered according to one's roles in life.Trusteeship of wealth (istikhlaf)
Mal (property)
Nationalisation (tamim)
Restricted ownership
Restricting permissible acts
Security of life in Islam
Muhammad al-Khidr Husayn treats the sanctity of life as part of freedom. He likens the community to one body, so that shedding one person's blood is like opening a vein, and retaliation (qisas) is like a physician's lancet that stops corrupt blood from spreading to the other limbs (p. 91). He says qisas stops people shedding blood and saves the life of someone who might otherwise be killed in a feud, and that the rules were built on caution so that wrongdoers find no pretext to waste blood (pp. 91-92). He reports that the Companions agreed to execute a group for one killing, and that Umar executed seven men of Sana'a for one (p. 92). For deliberate killing the blood money is taken from the killer's property, and for accidental killing the kin bear it as relief for the victims' family, not as punishment for another's fault (p. 93).Siyasa shar'iyya (governance by the public interest)
Economic functions of the state
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