Human Relations - Introductory Remarks

While Islam presents itself as the only way of life for people to achieve salvation in the after-life, it also teaches its followers to live up to high standards in conduct with other human beings, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, race, language or culture. The Holy Quran is highly critical of Christian beliefs in Trinity and regarding Jesus (peace be on him) as a deity. The Holy Book is also very critical of the Jews for not accepting Jesus and Muhammad (peace be on them) as messengers of God. At the same time, however, it asks Muslims to establish a social association special only to Christians and Jews. Examples of such association are permission of marrying chaste women among them and giving explicit permission to eat their food.

The verses in the Holy Quran forbid Muslims to insult anything that is viewed as a deity by any religion, regardless of whether it is a person, a stone, a stick or a tree. The verse 2:256 of the Quran says:

Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things.

Islam wants its adherents to be just to every human being.

	"Do not let your hatred of a people incite you to aggression." (The Quran 5:2).
	"And do not let ill-will towards any folk incite you so that you swerve from dealing justly. Be just; that is nearest to heedfulness" (The Quran 5:8).

Muslims are asked to be truthful, trustworthy, humble, kind and generous. They are asked to repel evil with goodness, control their anger, and be forgiving. Some of the sayings of the Prophet are:

"To remove something harmful from the road, is charity."

"Charity erases sins just as water extinguishes fire."

"He is not a perfect believer, who goes to bed full and knows that his neighbor is hungry."

"Show mercy to people on earth so that Allâh will have mercy on you in heaven."

RIGHTS OF ENEMIES AT WAR

After dealing with the rights of the citizens of an Islamic State, I would like to briefly discuss the rights which Islam has conferred on its enemies. In the days when Islam came into focus the world was completely unaware of the concept of humane and decent rules of war. The West became conscious of this concept for the first time through the works of the seventeenth century thinker, Grotius. But the actual codification of the 'international law' in war began in the middle of the nineteenth century. Prior to this no concept of civilized behaviour in war was found in the West. All forms of barbarity and savagery were perpetrated in war, and the rights of those at war were not even recognized, let alone respected. The laws which were framed in this field during the nineteenth century or over the following period up to the present day, cannot be called 'laws' in the real sense of the word. They are only in the nature of conventions and agreements and calling them 'international law' is actually a kind of misnomer, because no nation regards them binding when they are at war, unless, of course, when the adversaries also agree to abide by them. In other words, these civilized laws imply that if our enemies respect them then we shall also abide by them, and if they ignore these human conventions and take recourse to barbaric and cruel ways of waging war, then we shall also adopt the same or similar techniques. It is obvious that such a course which depends on mutual acceptance and agreement cannot be called 'law'. And this is the reason why the provisions of this so-called 'international law' have been flouted and ignored in every way, and every time they have been revised, additions or deletions have been made in them.