Human rights in Islam, the Farewell Sermon and the Universal Declaration

What this chapter is for

A human right is something every person is owed simply for being human: to stay alive, to keep what they have earned, to be treated fairly by a judge, to believe what their heart accepts. The modern world wrote its list of these rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Islam had set out its own fourteen centuries earlier, in the Quran and in the life of the Holy Prophet ﷺ, and he summed many of them up at his last hajj in 10 AH. This chapter teaches where rights come from in Islam, what each major right is and the evidence for it, how the Holy Prophet’s ﷺ state kept them, what the Muslim states have declared in our own time, and how Islam’s scheme compares with the Universal Declaration. By the end you should be able to argue either side of a comparison honestly and to show how Pakistan’s Constitution protects the same rights today.

The chapter is long, so here is the way through it. It begins with the modern idea and the Islamic foundation, including the five things the Shari’ah exists to protect. Then it takes the rights one group at a time: life and property, belief, equality and justice, livelihood and the weak, and the rights of those outside the community. Then come the Farewell Sermon, the Holy Prophet’s ﷺ state and the Muslim declarations. It ends with the comparison with the Universal Declaration, Pakistan, and what all this asks of an officer.

Human rights in Islam have been set five times in the papers from CE-2016 to CE-2026: in CE-2020, CE-2021, CE-2022, CE-2023 and CE-2026. Two of those questions were on the Farewell Sermon and one asked for a comparison with the Universal Declaration.¹

Before you start

The words you need

The documents

The story in plain words

1. Every person is owed some things simply for being human.
2. In Islam these rights are a gift of Allah, who honoured every child of Hazrat Adam (AS), so no ruler can take them away.
3. Each right in Islam is also somebody’s duty.
4. Islamic law exists to protect five things: religion, life, mind, family line and property.
5. The Quran and the Holy Prophet ﷺ protected life, property, honour, privacy, belief, fair trial and the needy.
6. At his last hajj he declared life and property sacred and ended blood revenge.
7. In 1948 the United Nations wrote its own list. The Muslim states wrote theirs in 1990 and revised it in 2020.
8. Pakistan’s Constitution guarantees Fundamental Rights, and Pakistan has joined seven major UN treaties.

1. What human rights are

Start with the modern definition, because the examiner will expect you to know it. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says that “Human rights are rights we have simply because we exist as human beings - they are not granted by any state. These universal rights are inherent to us all, regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status.” They range “from the most fundamental - the right to life - to those that make life worth living, such as the rights to food, education, work, health, and liberty.”³ Two ideas sit inside that definition. Rights are universal, so they belong to everyone. They are also not granted by the state, which only recognises them.

The modern list was written after the Second World War. The UN says the Declaration “was the result of the experience of the Second World War”, when world leaders vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict.⁵ The UN’s Commission on Human Rights, with 18 members of many backgrounds, did the work. Eleanor Roosevelt of the United States chaired the drafting committee, René Cassin of France wrote the first draft, and Charles Malik of Lebanon was the committee’s rapporteur, the member who wrote its reports. Hansa Mehta of India is credited with changing “All men are born free and equal” to “All human beings are born free and equal” in Article 1.⁵

The whole text was written “in less than two years”. The General Assembly adopted it in Paris on 10 December 1948, by resolution 217 A (III), “with eight nations abstaining from the vote but none dissenting”.⁵ It has thirty articles. It is a declaration, not a treaty, so it binds no state by itself. Its force came later, through “more than seventy human rights treaties” that it inspired and that states join one by one.⁴

Pakistan was a year old in 1948 and took part in the debate. The article on freedom of religion, numbered 19 in the draft and 18 in the final text, worried several delegations because it included the freedom to change one’s religion. Pakistan’s foreign minister, Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, told the Assembly on 10 December 1948 that “the Moslem religion had unequivocally proclaimed the right to freedom of conscience and had declared itself against any kind of compulsion in matters of faith or religious practices”. His delegation “would therefore vote for article 19, and would accept no limitation on its provisions”.⁹ Keep this in mind for the comparison later in the chapter. The question of belief divides Muslim scholars and the Declaration more than any other, and Pakistan has stood on both sides of it.

2. Where rights come from in Islam

The Islamic answer to “who gives a person their rights?” is short. Allah gives them. No king, parliament or general created a person’s life or dignity, so none of them may take it away. This is why the Islamic idea agrees with the OHCHR that rights are “not granted by any state”, though for a different reason. In the modern view rights belong to a person because they are human. In Islam they belong to a person because their Creator gave them, and the state is bound by them because Allah is above the state.

The verse that grounds this is 17:70. “And We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what We have created, with [definite] preference.”² Notice that it speaks of all the children of Hazrat Adam (AS), not of Muslims only. Mufti Muhammad Shafi explains the honour. Allah gave human beings a balanced form and “distinct reason and intelligence”, and above all the reason through which they “recognize their Creator and Master, find out what He likes and dislikes”.¹⁹ Maulana Maududi draws the other half of the lesson. Every power man has on earth is “from God and is by way of a special favour”, so it would be “ignorance and folly” for man to bow before anyone but God.²⁹ Dignity, then, is a gift that makes a person answerable to Allah and to no one else.

The Quran adds that all people are one family. “O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women” (4:1). “O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allāh is the most righteous of you” (49:13).² Ibn Kathir explains that all people “are the descendants of `Adam and Hawwa’ and share this honor equally”.²⁶ Maududi says the verse was revealed to cure “the prejudices due to race, color, language, country, and nationality”, which make people draw “small circles” around those born like themselves, on “the basis of accidental birth and not on rational and moral grounds”.³⁰ If all share one father and one mother, no race, tribe or colour can claim a higher right.

Islam speaks of rights and duties in one word, and this is the feature that most clearly sets it apart. Haqq means both what a person is owed and what a person owes. Every right of one person is a duty on someone else, as Figure 1 shows in six pairs.

Take the poor as an example. The needy have a right in the wealth of the rich, and the rich have a duty to pay it (51:19). Mufti Shafi says the righteous “do not deem it a favour” when they help the poor. They understand that the poor have “a ‘right’ in the wealth Allah has blessed them with, and fulfilling one’s right is not a favour; it is rather a duty”.²⁴ A system built this way does not wait for the weak to demand their rights. It tells the strong what they owe.

3. The five things the Shari’ah protects

Muslim scholars asked what the many rulings of Islamic law are for. Their answer is called the maqasid al-Shari’ah, the higher objectives of the law, which the chapter on the concept of Islam taught in full. Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, the country’s official fatwa authority, explains that “the Shari’ah generally has come to the benefits of the individual and the community, and so, its laws are designed so as to protect these benefits”.⁶ Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505 AH) put the objectives in one sentence. “The Shari’ah’s purposes of the creation are five: to preserve their religion, their souls, their mind, their offsprings and their money.”⁶ Dar al-Ifta names Abu Ishaq ash-Shatibi (d. 790 AH) as a leading figure in setting them out, in his book al-Muwafaqat.⁶

For this chapter the five matter because each one is a family of rights. Protecting religion means a right to believe and worship. Protecting life means a right to stay alive and safe, and Dar al-Ifta adds that Islam guards not only against killing but secures “food, marriage, shelter, drinks and clothing”.⁶ Protecting the mind means a right to learn and think, which is why intoxicants that disable it are forbidden (5:90). Protecting the family line means a right to marry and to a good name, which is why adultery and false accusation of it are punished. Protecting property means a right to own and earn, which is why theft, fraud and bribery are forbidden (2:188).²

Read Figure 2 row by row. Each forbidden act in Islamic law is forbidden because it attacks one of the five, so the law’s prohibitions turn out to be the other face of its rights. The last column shows the same goods in Pakistan’s Constitution today, which the section on Pakistan explains. Dar al-Ifta adds a point worth using in an answer. Scholars generally agree that preserving these necessities is “the objective behind any revealed law, not just the Islamic law”.⁶ So the maqasid are a bridge as well as a list. They let a Muslim show a non-Muslim, in shared terms, why Islam’s rules serve human welfare.

The maqasid also answer a common charge. Some people say rights are a foreign idea added to Islam in modern times. The maqasid show the opposite, that rights are the purpose of the law itself. When a Muslim asks whether a custom is acceptable, the question is whether it protects or harms these five. A custom that kills, starves, humiliates or robs a person fails that test, whatever its defenders call it.

4. Life, property, honour and the home

The first right is life, because every other right needs it. “Whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely” (5:32). “And do not kill the soul [i.e., person] which Allāh has forbidden, except by right” (17:33).² “Except by right” means by law, through a court, and for the gravest crimes only. It never means private revenge. Islam also protects the life of the child before it can speak for itself. “And do not kill your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you” (17:31).²

Property comes next. “And do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly or send it [in bribery] to the rulers in order that [they might aid] you [to] consume a portion of the wealth of the people in sin” (2:188). “Do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly but only [in lawful] business by mutual consent” (4:29).²

Look at who 2:188 names. It is not only the thief but the ruler who takes a bribe to hand over someone else’s land. In Islam property is protected against the state as well as against criminals. An orphan’s property, which no one is there to defend, is guarded by a warning. “Those who devour the property of orphans unjustly are only consuming into their bellies fire” (4:10).²

Honour is a person’s good name, and the Quran protects it as firmly as property. “O you who have believed, let not a people ridicule [another] people; perhaps they may be better than them; nor let women ridicule [other] women; perhaps they may be better than them. And do not insult one another” (49:11). The next verse goes further. “Avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other” (49:12).² Mufti Shafi explains that a suspicion of guilt “based on partial evidence, and not confirmed by out-and-out evidence” may not be acted upon.²¹ A person is protected from being condemned on rumour, which is exactly what a police report or a gossiping office often does.

The home is the last circle of this group. “O you who have believed, do not enter houses other than your own houses until you ascertain welcome and greet their inhabitants… And if it is said to you, “Go back,” then go back” (24:27-28).² The ban on spying in 49:12 guards privacy too. Mufti Shafi explains tajassus, spying, as “looking into the affairs of people which they have kept hidden”, and concludes that “one may take into account what is presented in evidence, but it is not permitted to search for faults that are not overt”.²¹ Put simply, a judge may act on evidence brought before him, but no one may go hunting through a person’s private life to find something against them.

5. Belief and conscience

The most quoted verse on rights in Islam is short. “There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become distinct from the wrong” (2:256).² Ibn Kathir explains the reason. Islam’s proofs “are plain and clear”, so “there is no need to force anyone to embrace Islam”, and a person whose heart is sealed “will not benefit from being forced”.

Ibn Kathir also reports why the verse came down. Some women of the Ansar, before Islam, had vowed to raise a child as a Jew if it lived. When the Jewish tribe of Banu an-Nadir was sent out of Madinah, some of these children were being raised among them, and the Ansar said, “We will not abandon our children.” Allah answered them with this verse. Even a parent’s love did not allow force in matters of faith.²⁷

Mufti Shafi explains why force is impossible as well as forbidden. “Faith is not related to outward physical response; it relates to the heart.” He reports that when Hazrat ‘Umar (RA) invited an old Christian woman to Islam and she declined, he “did not force her to come into the fold of Islam”, and recited this very verse.²² Maududi adds that the din here is the whole system of Islam, “belief, morals and practical conduct”, and these “cannot be imposed by compulsion”.³¹ The same teaching runs through the Quran. “Would you compel the people in order that they become believers?” (10:99). “For you is your religion, and for me is my religion” (109:6). “So whoever wills - let him believe; and whoever wills - let him disbelieve” (18:29).²

The Cairo Declaration of 1990 put this into modern words. Its Article 10 says: “It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism.”⁷ Notice the second half. It forbids buying a conversion with food or money as well as forcing it. Belief must be free in both directions. A missionary who exploits poverty and a ruler who threatens a minority both break it.

There is one hard question here, and an honest answer names it. No compulsion protects the person who has not accepted Islam. Classical Islamic law treats leaving Islam after accepting it as a grave matter. This is the point where Islamic law and the Universal Declaration differ most sharply, and the comparison later in the chapter returns to it.

6. Equality and justice

Islam’s teaching on equality begins with 49:13, which you have already met. Mufti Shafi calls it “an all-comprehensive and all-pervading principle of human equality”. It “has firmly laid the axe at the false and foolish notions of superiority, born of racial arrogance or national conceit”. No one may take pride “on the basis of pigment of his skin, the amount of wealth he possesses or by his rank or by his social status, descent or pedigree”, but only by moral uprightness.²⁰ The only rank the verse allows is righteousness, and only Allah can see it, so no human being can use it to claim a right over another.

Justice is equality made into law. “Indeed, Allāh commands you to render trusts to whom they are due and when you judge between people to judge with justice” (4:58). “Be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allāh, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor” (4:135). “Do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just” (5:8).² Mufti Shafi says those who judge must treat all parties as equal, whether “Muslims or non-Muslims, friends or enemies”, of any country, colour or language.²³ Ibn Kathir reports that Ibn ‘Abbas said 4:58 “is for the righteous and wicked”, a command that covers everyone.²⁸

The Holy Prophet ﷺ applied this in his own city. When a woman of the noble clan of Banu Makhzum stole, Quraysh wanted her spared the punishment, and sent Hazrat Usamah ibn Zayd (RA), whom he loved, to plead for her. He answered: “What destroyed the nations preceding you, was that if a noble amongst them stole, they would forgive him, and if a poor person amongst them stole, they would inflict Allah’s Legal punishment on him. By Allah, if Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad stole, I would cut off her hand.”³⁶ A law that bends for the powerful is not law at all. He named his own daughter so that no one could think the rule was for others.

A fair trial also needs a rule of proof. “If the people were given according to their claims, they would claim the lives of persons and their properties, but the oath must be taken by the defendant.”³⁷ A claim alone convicts no one. The one who claims must back the claim, and the accused can clear himself by an oath, so he is never made to prove his innocence. The Quran adds a rule for news. “If there comes to you a disobedient one with information, investigate, lest you harm a people out of ignorance” (49:6).² The Cairo Declaration states the modern form. A defendant “is innocent until his guilt is proven in a fair trial in which he shall be given all the guarantees of defence” (Article 19).⁷

Justice also means no one is left alone with an oppressor. “A Muslim is a brother of another Muslim, so he should not oppress him, nor should he hand him over to an oppressor.”³⁸ Speaking up is part of the same duty. “And let there be [arising] from you a nation inviting to [all that is] good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong” (3:104). The believers are those “whose affair is [determined by] consultation among themselves” (42:38).² In Islam, to speak against a wrong and to be consulted in public affairs are duties as well as freedoms.

7. Livelihood, workers and the weak

A right to life means little to a person who cannot eat. So Islam gives the poor a claim on the wealth of the rich. “And from their properties was [given] the right of the [needy] petitioner and the deprived” (51:19).² Mufti Shafi notes that the verse covers those who ask and also those who are too proud to ask, and the righteous “make it their responsibility to find out” who they are.²⁴ Zakat, taught in its own chapter, turns this right into a system with a fixed rate and named recipients.

The worker has a right to fair and prompt pay. “Give the worker his wages before his sweat dries.”³⁹ The hadith is short, but its rule is strict. Delay is itself a wrong, because a daily worker lives on what he is paid today. The same duty binds a government office that keeps a contractor or a clerk waiting for months.

The weakest people of Arabia were slaves, and Islam began to lift them. Righteousness includes giving wealth “for freeing slaves” (2:177), and “the freeing of a slave” is named as a steep path worth climbing (90:13).² When Hazrat Abu Dharr (RA) insulted his slave by abusing the man’s mother, the Holy Prophet ﷺ rebuked him: “Your slaves are your brothers and Allah has put them under your command. So whoever has a brother under his command should feed him of what he eats and dress him of what he wears. Do not ask them (slaves) to do things beyond their capacity (power) and if you do so, then help them.”⁴⁰ Prisoners have a right to food too. The righteous “give food in spite of love for it to the needy, the orphan, and the captive” (76:8).²

The Cairo Declaration later wrote this in modern terms. Its Article 11 says “Human beings are born free, and no one has the right to enslave, humiliate, oppress or exploit them.”⁷ Pakistan’s Constitution says the same in Article 11. “Slavery is non-existent and forbidden”, and all forms of forced labour are prohibited.¹⁷ The line from 90:13 to Article 11 is a straight one.

8. Non-Muslims, refugees and learning

A right that holds only for one’s own people is a privilege, not a human right. Islam protects the non-Muslim who lives under a treaty or under Muslim rule. “Whoever killed a person having a treaty with the Muslims, shall not smell the smell of Paradise though its smell is perceived from a distance of forty years.”⁴¹ “Allāh does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes - from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them” (60:8).² The life, property and worship of such a person are sacred. The Holy Prophet ﷺ warned anyone who “wrongs a contracting man, or diminishes his right, or forces him to work beyond his capacity, or takes from him anything without his consent”, that “I shall plead for him on the Day of Judgment”, on the side of the one who was wronged.⁴² The chapter on tolerance and coexistence studies these rights in full.

The person who asks for shelter has a right too. “And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the words of Allāh [i.e., the Qur’ān]. Then deliver him to his place of safety” (9:6).² The verse speaks of an enemy idolater, not a friend, and still tells the Muslims to protect him and take him to safety. The Muslims had been refugees themselves, when the Holy Prophet ﷺ sent his persecuted Companions to the Christian king of Abyssinia.¹⁸ The Cairo Declaration states the right in Article 12. A person who is persecuted “is entitled to seek asylum in another country”, and the country of refuge “shall ensure his protection until he reaches safety”, unless he seeks asylum for an act the Shari’ah regards as a crime.⁷

Learning is the last right in this group, and the Quran began with it. The first verses revealed were a command to read. “Recite in the name of your Lord who created… Recite, and your Lord is the most Generous - Who taught by the pen - Taught man that which he knew not” (96:1-5).² The Cairo Declaration says “the quest for knowledge is an obligation, and the provision of education is a duty for society and the State” (Article 9).⁷ Here again the right and the duty are one. The state owes the schools, and each person owes the effort to learn.

Women share every right in this chapter. They also have rights of their own, such as a dowry, a share of inheritance, maintenance, consent in marriage and the right to seek a divorce. The next chapter studies them in full, and the one after it the dignity that man and woman share.

9. The Farewell Sermon

In 10 AH the Holy Prophet ﷺ performed his only hajj. On the Day of ‘Arafah, at the bottom of the valley, he addressed a vast crowd of pilgrims, and on the Day of Sacrifice he spoke again at Mina. These addresses are known together as the Farewell Sermon, because he died a few months later. The chapter on hajj sets out the sermon line by line beside the rites. Here we read it for one purpose, as a statement of rights.

At ‘Arafah he began with life and property. “Verily your blood, your property are as sacred and inviolable as the sacredness of this day of yours, in this month of yours, in this town of yours.”³³ At Mina he asked the people which day, month and town it was, and then repeated that “your blood and your properties are sacred to one another like the sanctity of this day of yours, in this month of yours, in this town of yours, till the day you meet your Lord.” He told those present to pass it on to those absent, and warned: “Do not renegade (as) disbelievers after me by striking the necks (cutting the throats) of one another.”³⁴ The comparison was one every Arab understood. Even the worst tribes respected the sacred day, month and town. He made every person’s life and property as untouchable as those.

Next he ended the old order. “Behold! Everything pertaining to the Days of Ignorance is under my feet completely abolished. Abolished are also the blood-revenges of the Days of Ignorance.” He began with his own family’s claim, the blood of a young relative killed by Hudhail. He then abolished usury, again starting with his own uncle ‘Abbas.³³ By giving up his own family’s claims first, he showed that the new law bound the lawgiver’s house before anyone else’s.

Then he turned to women. “Fear Allah concerning women! Verily you have taken them on the security of Allah.” He named rights on both sides, and said of wives that “Their rights upon you are that you should provide them with food and clothing in a fitting manner.” He ended by leaving “the Book of Allah” as the guide, and asked Allah three times to bear witness that he had conveyed the message.³³

The sermon’s teaching on equality was given two years earlier, on the day Makkah was conquered, and the Farewell Sermon stands on it. “O you people! Verily Allah has removed the slogans of Jahiliyyah from you, and its reverence of its forefathers. So, now there are two types of men: A man who is righteous, has Taqwa and honorable before Allah, and a wicked man, who is miserable and insignificant to Allah. People are children of Adam and Allah created Adam from the dust.” He then recited 49:13.³⁵ Mufti Shafi reports the scene that day. When the Holy Prophet ﷺ asked Hazrat Bilal (RA) to call the adhan in the Sacred Mosque, Hazrat Harith ibn Hisham (RA) sneered that Hazrat Muhammad ﷺ could find no one better “than this black crow”.²⁰ The verse on equality was revealed on that occasion, and Hazrat Bilal’s (RA) call to prayer stood.

So why is the Farewell Sermon called a charter of human rights, as CE-2020 put it? In a few sentences it made life and property inviolable, ended private revenge and put killing under law, abolished usury, which exploits the needy, and commanded fair treatment of women. It did this before a crowd from across Arabia and told every listener to carry it on. It is not a legal code with articles, and a good answer says so. It is a declaration of principles, made in the name of Allah, which later law was built on. Thirteen centuries later the Universal Declaration would open with the same idea, that all human beings are “born free and equal in dignity and rights”.⁴

10. Rights in the Prophet’s state

The Holy Prophet’s ﷺ first act of government in Madinah was a written guarantee of rights. The Charter of Madinah of 622 CE told the Jews of the city that they would “profess their religion, and the Muslims theirs”, that each would pay its own expenses, that “the wronged party shall be aided”, and that disputes would go to Allah and His Messenger.¹⁸ A city of several faiths and tribes was given one law, and each group kept its religion. The chapter on the Holy Prophet ﷺ as a diplomat studies the Charter clause by clause.

The trust of public office was taught at the conquest of Makkah. Mufti Shafi reports that 4:58 came down when the Holy Prophet ﷺ returned the key of the Ka’bah to Hazrat ‘Uthman ibn Talhah (RA), its keeper. His uncle Hazrat ‘Abbas (RA) and his cousin Hazrat ‘Ali (RA) had both asked for it, since they already held other offices of the House. He passed over their request and returned the key to its trustee.²³ Mufti Shafi draws a rule for every government from this. Those in power “must appoint only those to the offices of the government who prove to be the best of the lot in terms of their ability to perform the required job and in terms of their trustworthiness and honesty. In this matter, no back-doors should be opened”. Without such appointments, a just system “is just not possible”.²³

Maududi reads the same verse as a warning drawn from history. A people decays when it hands “positions of trust” to “incompetent, mean, immoral, dishonest and corrupt people”, and the Muslims are told “to entrust positions of responsibility only to those who are capable of shouldering the burdens”.³² Read together, the two scholars make appointment by merit a right of the people, not a favour from the ruler. A job given through a back door wrongs every person who would have been served by a better officer.

Rights held even in war. When the Holy Prophet ﷺ sent out a commander, he told him: “do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children.”⁴³ The chapter on the Holy Prophet ﷺ as a military strategist sets out these laws of war. Here they matter as proof that the rights of the enemy’s weak survive even a battle.

11. The Muslim declarations

In the late twentieth century Muslims began to write their own declarations, partly to show that Islam had its own complete scheme of rights. The first full one came from a private body, not from states. The Islamic Council of Europe adopted the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights on 19 September 1981, dated in Paris on 21 Dhul Qa’dah 1401.¹³ Its foreword says that “God, and God alone, is the Law Giver and the Source of all human rights”, so “no ruler, government, assembly or authority can curtail or violate in any way the human rights conferred by God”.¹³

The 1981 declaration has twenty-three articles. Its Article V says no person may be found guilty “except after proof of his guilt before an independent judicial tribunal”, and that responsibility for a crime “cannot be vicariously extended to other members of his family or group”. Article IX gives every persecuted person “the right to seek refuge and asylum”, whatever their race, religion or colour. Article X lets minorities choose to be governed in their civil and personal matters “by Islamic Law, or by their own laws”. Its second Explanatory Note states the Islamic principle you met in the section on where rights come from: “Each one of the Human Rights enunciated in this declaration carries a corresponding duty.”¹³

The states followed in 1990. The member states of the OIC adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, dated “Cairo, 14 Muharram 1411H”, 5 August 1990.⁷ Its first article begins: “All human beings form one family whose members are united by submission to God and descent from Adam. All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations.”⁷ It goes on to rights you have met in this chapter. They include life (Article 2), the woman’s equal “human dignity” with “her own civil entity and financial independence” (Article 6), freedom from slavery (Article 11), asylum (Article 12), security for “his religion, his dependents, his honour and his property” (Article 18), and equality before the law “without distinction between the ruler and the ruled” (Article 19).⁷

Some Cairo articles reach further than a reader expects. Article 3 forbids killing “old men, women and children” in war, orders that prisoners be “fed, sheltered and clothed”, and forbids felling trees or damaging crops. Article 22 gives everyone the right to “express his opinion freely”, but only “in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah”. Article 23 says “authority is a trust”, which is 4:58 in modern words.⁷ Its last two articles set the frame for all the rest. “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah” (Article 24), and “The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration” (Article 25).⁷

Muslim states and scholars have since read the two documents side by side. In February 2020 the OIC’s Secretary-General announced that the OIC would adopt the Cairo Declaration “after it is revised in accordance with international human-rights standards”.¹¹ Teachers of law at the University of the Punjab argue the same way, that human rights are best advanced “by creating harmony between both instruments”.¹² That is a useful line for an answer, because it places the two declarations together rather than against each other.

The OIC asked its Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission, set up in 2011, to revise the declaration. The revised text was adopted on 28 November 2020 at the 47th session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Niamey, Niger.⁸ Resolution 63/47-POL named it “the Cairo Declaration of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Human Rights”, and the OIC’s French text carries the same title, while the Commission calls it the “OIC Declaration on Human Rights”, the shorter name this chapter uses.¹⁰⁸ Where Cairo had made the Shari’ah “the only source of reference” for reading every article (Article 25), the new Article 24 has two clauses. Its clause (a) gives everyone the rights of the declaration “without prejudice to the principles of Islamic Shari’ah and the law”, and its clause (b) says: “Nothing in this declaration may be interpreted or amended in such a way as to undermine the rights and freedoms safeguarded by the internal legislations of Member States, and their obligations under international and regional human rights instruments.”¹⁰⁸ On religion, its Article 18 copies the words of the ICCPR: “No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his/her freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.”⁸

An examiner who asks about the 2020 revision wants both halves. The OIC’s language moved much closer to the UN treaties, yet Article 24(a) still keeps “the principles of Islamic Shari’ah” and Article 24(b) protects the rights each member state guarantees in its own laws, so Pakistan reads human rights through its Constitution as before. A good answer shows both the change and what stayed. Figure 3 puts all these documents on one line with Pakistan’s treaties.

12. Islam and the Universal Declaration compared

The comparison is where most marks are won or lost, so take it in three steps. First see where the two agree, then where they differ, then what a fair judgement looks like.

The agreement is wide. Both hold that every person has dignity. The Universal Declaration says all are “born free and equal in dignity and rights” (Article 1), and the Quran says “We have certainly honored the children of Adam” (17:70). Both reject pride of race and colour. The Universal Declaration forbids distinction by “race, colour, sex, language, religion” (Article 2), and 49:13 makes righteousness the only rank.

Both protect life, property, privacy and a fair trial. Both give the worker and the needy a claim (Articles 22 and 23, and 51:19 with Ibn Majah 2443). Both even speak of duties. Article 29(1) says “Everyone has duties to the community”.⁴² Figure 4 puts these shared rights in the overlap.

The first difference is the source. The Universal Declaration grounds rights in human nature itself. People are “endowed with reason and conscience” (Article 1).⁴ Islam grounds them in Allah’s grant to the children of Hazrat Adam (AS) (17:70). Both agree that the state does not create rights, but they disagree on who does.

This matters in practice. A right resting on human agreement can, in principle, be narrowed by a new agreement. A right that Allah gave cannot be withdrawn by a vote, which is the point the 1981 declaration made in its foreword.

The second difference is the limits. No system gives unlimited rights. The Universal Declaration allows limits “determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society” (Article 29(2)).⁴ In Islam the limits are set by the Shari’ah, as Articles 24 and 25 of the Cairo Declaration stated.⁷ So the dispute is not whether rights have limits. It is over who draws them, an elected parliament or the revealed law.

The third difference is religion and marriage, and it is the sharpest. The Universal Declaration’s Article 18 includes the “freedom to change his religion or belief”. Its Article 16 gives men and women the right to marry “without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion”.⁴ Islamic law restricts marriage across faiths. A Muslim man may marry a Christian or Jewish woman (5:5), but Mufti Shafi explains that 2:221 forbids a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man and a Muslim man to marry an idolater.²⁵

Even the Cairo Declaration is careful here. Its Article 5 says no restriction “stemming from race, colour or nationality” shall prevent marriage. It leaves out religion, the third word in Article 16.⁷ As the section on belief said, classical law also treats leaving Islam as a grave matter. An honest answer names these points rather than hiding them.

The last difference is emphasis. The Universal Declaration is mainly a list of claims a person can make, with duties in one article. Islamic teaching puts duties first, to Allah, to parents, to neighbours, to the poor and to the worker. Where each person does their duty, everyone’s rights are met without anyone having to demand them. This is the point of haqq, and it is the strongest thing Islam adds to the modern scheme.

A fair judgement, then, has three parts. The Universal Declaration was a great achievement of 1948, and most of its rights were already in the Quran and the Sunnah. Islam gives those rights a firmer foundation and joins each to a duty. The real weakness in the Muslim world is not the teaching but its practice, since many Muslim states fall short of both their faith and the treaties they have signed. The strongest case for human rights in Islam is a Muslim state that actually keeps them.

13. Human rights in Pakistan

Pakistan’s Constitution of 1973 lists its Fundamental Rights in Chapter 1 of Part II, Articles 8 to 28. Article 8 makes them stronger than ordinary law. Any law “in so far as it is inconsistent with the rights conferred by this Chapter, shall, to the extent of such inconsistency, be void.”¹⁷ Article 9 says “No person shall be deprived of life or liberty save in accordance with law.” Article 10 requires that an arrested person be told the grounds, be allowed to consult a lawyer, and be produced before a magistrate within twenty-four hours. Article 10A, added by the Eighteenth Amendment in 2010, gives the right to “a fair trial and due process”.¹⁷

The other rights follow the same pattern. Article 14 says “The dignity of man and, subject to law, the privacy of home, shall be inviolable”, and “No person shall be subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting evidence.” Article 20 gives every citizen the right “to profess, practise and propagate his religion”, subject to law, public order and morality. Article 22 says no student shall be made to receive religious instruction of a religion other than his own. Article 25 says “All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law”, and Article 25A gives free and compulsory education to children from five to sixteen. Article 9A, added by the Twenty-sixth Amendment in 2024, gives every person the right to “a clean, healthy and sustainable environment”.¹⁷ Figure 5 groups all of them.

Many of these repeat the Quran’s rights almost word for word. Dignity and the privacy of home in Article 14 echo 17:70 and 24:27. Equality in Article 25 echoes 49:13, and religion in Articles 20 and 22 echoes 2:256. A right on paper still needs a court, and the Constitution provides two routes. Under Article 199 any aggrieved person may ask a High Court for an order to enforce a Fundamental Right. Since the Twenty-seventh Amendment of 2025, Article 175E(3) also lets the Federal Constitutional Court make such an order where “a question of public importance with reference to the enforcement of any of the Fundamental Rights” is involved, but only “if an application is filed by a person in that Court”.¹⁷

Pakistan has also joined the world’s treaties. The UN’s treaty database records that it has ratified seven core human rights treaties, listed below. It has not joined the conventions on migrant workers and on enforced disappearance.¹⁴

Many states objected. Canada, for one, said that a reservation which refers in general to national law or to the Sharia is one “with a general, indeterminate scope”, so other states cannot know how much of the treaty Pakistan has accepted.¹⁵ Pakistan listened. In two communications received on 20 September 2011, it told the UN Secretary-General what it was changing.¹⁵ It withdrew the reservations to Articles 6, 7, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 40. So the Sharia clause on life, cruel punishment, religion and speech is gone, and Pakistan now accepts the Human Rights Committee’s review of its reports.¹⁵

Two narrower reservations remain. Article 3, the equal right of men and women, “shall be so applied as to be in conformity with Personal Law of the citizens and Qanoon-e-Shahadat”, the law of evidence. Article 25, the right to take part in public affairs, “shall be subject to the principle laid down in Article 41 (2) and Article 91 (3) of the Constitution of Pakistan”.¹⁵ Those two Articles require the President to be “a Muslim” and the Prime Minister to be one of the National Assembly’s “Muslim members”.¹⁷ The episode is a good example to use in an answer. It shows a Muslim state, in public and in writing, narrowing its reservations to the few points its own Constitution and family law require.

At home, the National Commission for Human Rights has worked since 2015. Its head office is in Islamabad and it has regional offices in Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi.¹⁶ It hears complaints and reports on violations. The gap between text and practice is real, but the text is law, and a citizen can take it to court.

14. What it asks of an officer

An officer holds rights in trust, as 4:58 says, and here Islam and the Constitution point the same way. In arrest and custody, tell the person why they are held, let them see a lawyer, and bring them before a magistrate within twenty-four hours (Article 10). Torture to get a confession is forbidden by Article 14(2) and by the dignity of 17:70. A confession beaten out of a person proves nothing and wrongs the one who gives it.

Do not act on rumour (49:6, 49:12), and do not search a home without lawful authority (24:27). Serve the rich and the poor, the Muslim and the non-Muslim alike, because 4:135 and 5:8 make no exception for a friend or an enemy. Pay staff and contractors on time, since the worker’s wage is due before his sweat dries. Above all, appoint by merit and honesty, with “no back-doors”, as Mufti Shafi says on 4:58.²³ Each of these is a right of the public, and each is the officer’s duty.

15. What people get wrong about human rights in Islam

“Human rights are a Western idea.” The idea that each person is owed life, property, dignity and justice is in the Quran (17:70, 5:32, 2:188, 49:12) and was declared by the Holy Prophet ﷺ in 10 AH. The modern documents are recent, but the idea is not.

“Islam and the UDHR are the same.” They agree on most rights, but they differ on the source of rights, on who sets their limits, and on changing religion and marrying across faiths. Saying either “identical” or “opposite” loses marks.

“Rights in Islam are only for Muslims.” 17:70 honours all the children of Hazrat Adam (AS), 60:8 commands justice to non-Muslims, and Bukhari 3166 protects the life of a non-Muslim under treaty.

“The Cairo Declaration is the final word.” It was revised in 2020. Its revision says it may not be read to undermine Pakistan’s or any member’s treaty obligations, and scholars still debate how far the revision changed the substance.

“The Farewell Sermon is a full legal code.” It is a declaration of principles, not a code with articles. Its force comes from what it declared and from the law later built on it.

“Pakistan’s rights are only on paper.” Article 8 voids any law against them, Article 199 lets any aggrieved person go to a High Court, and Article 175E(3) lets the Federal Constitutional Court act on an application. The National Commission for Human Rights hears complaints.

16. What the examiners have asked

Human rights have been set five times in the papers from CE-2016 to CE-2026.¹ The syllabus names them together with the status of women, so two of these questions also asked about women.

• CE-2020, Q.4. “The last Sermon of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is the basic document for awakening of conscious of mankind for human rights”. Discuss.
• CE-2021, Q.3. “Islam provides better rights to men and women than all other religions. Explore with arguments.”
• CE-2022, Q.2. “Explain the concept of Human Rights in Islamic thought in specification of “Status of Women in Islam”.”
• CE-2023, Q.8(i). “Human rights in the light of the Sermon of Farewell Pilgrimage.” (a short note)
• CE-2026, Q.2. “Provide a comparative and critical analysis of the human rights granted by Islam with those enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).”

17. Facts to take into the examination hall

18. What loses marks on this subject

A list of verses with no right named beside each one loses marks. Say which right each verse protects and what it forbids.

Praise with no comparison loses marks on any question about the UDHR. Quote Articles 1, 2, 3, 16, 18 and 29 by number.

Hiding the differences loses marks on a “critical analysis”. Name where the two disagree: the source of rights, the limits, religion and marriage. An examiner trusts a candidate who does.

Quoting the Farewell Sermon from popular versions of unknown source is risky. Quote it from reports you can name, Muslim 1218 and Bukhari 1741, and say that Tirmidhi 3270 is the sermon at the conquest of Makkah.

Leaving out Pakistan loses easy marks. End with the Fundamental Rights, how a citizen enforces them, the treaties and the gap between law and practice.

19. A worked answer plan

The question. “Provide a comparative and critical analysis of the human rights granted by Islam with those enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).” CE-2026, Q.2, twenty marks, about thirty-five minutes.¹

Introduction. Define human rights in the OHCHR’s words. Name the UDHR of 10 December 1948, and Islam’s rights from the Quran and the Farewell Sermon of 10 AH. Then give the thesis: the two agree on most rights, differ on their source and limits, and Islam’s real test today is practice.

Body.

1. Foundations. Allah’s honour to the children of Hazrat Adam (AS) (17:70) against “endowed with reason and conscience” (UDHR Article 1).
2. Haqq as right and duty, with 51:19 and Mufti Shafi, against UDHR Article 29(1).
3. The five essentials of al-Ghazali and ash-Shatibi, and the rights they protect.
4. The agreement, in a table: dignity, equality, life, property, privacy, fair trial (Bukhari 3475, Muslim 1711a), work and welfare.
5. The Farewell Sermon as an early charter (Muslim 1218, Bukhari 1741).
6. The differences: the source, the limits (UDHR Article 29(2) against Cairo Articles 24 and 25), religion (Article 18) and marriage (Article 16 against 2:221 and Cairo Article 5).
7. The Muslim response: the 1981 declaration, Cairo 1990 and its 2020 revision with its Article 24.
8. Pakistan: Articles 8 to 28, Articles 199 and 175E(3), the seven treaties, the ICCPR reservations of 2010, what was withdrawn in 2011 and what remains on Articles 3 and 25.

Conclusion. Islam and the UDHR share most of their substance. Islam’s advantage is a foundation no vote can remove and a duty joined to every right. Its challenge is to show, in Muslim states such as Pakistan, that its rights are kept.

What to remember from this chapter

1. Human rights are owed to every person for being human, and no state grants them.
2. In Islam they are Allah’s gift to all the children of Hazrat Adam (AS) (17:70), so no ruler can take them away.
3. Haqq means both a right and a duty. Every right in Islam is someone’s duty.
4. The Shari’ah protects five essentials: religion, life, mind, family line and property. Each is a family of rights.
5. The Quran protects life, property, honour, privacy, belief, justice and the needy, each in its own verses.
6. The Holy Prophet ﷺ applied one law to noble and poor (Bukhari 3475), and no one is convicted on a claim alone (Muslim 1711a).
7. The Farewell Sermon made life and property sacred, abolished blood revenge and usury, and ordered fair treatment of women.
8. The Cairo Declaration of 1990 made all rights subject to the Shari’ah. Its 2020 revision says it may not be read to undermine treaty obligations.
9. Islam and the UDHR agree on most rights but differ on their source, their limits, and religion and marriage.
10. Pakistan’s Fundamental Rights are in Articles 8 to 28, enforced through Articles 199 and 175E(3). Pakistan has ratified seven core UN treaties, and in 2011 it withdrew most of its ICCPR reservations, keeping narrow ones on Articles 3 and 25.

Check yourself

Answer each from memory, in your own words, before you open the answer.

1. Why, in Islam, may no ruler take away a person’s rights, and which verse do you quote? (The section on where rights come from.)

2. What does the word haqq teach about rights? Give one pair from the chapter. (The section on where rights come from.)

3. Name the five essentials, and for two of them say which right each gives and which act is forbidden to guard it. (The section on the five things the Shari’ah protects.)

4. What does Mufti Shafi say about acting on suspicion and about spying, under 49:12? (The section on life, property, honour and the home.)

5. Why was 2:256 revealed, according to Ibn Kathir, and what did Hazrat ‘Umar (RA) do when an old Christian woman declined Islam? (The section on belief and conscience.)

6. What did the Holy Prophet ﷺ say when Hazrat Usamah (RA) pleaded for the woman of Banu Makhzum, and what right does it establish? (The section on equality and justice.)

7. What does 9:6 say about a person who asks for protection, and what does Article 12 of the Cairo Declaration add? (The section on non-Muslims, refugees and learning.)

8. Why is the Farewell Sermon called a charter of human rights, and what is the one thing it is not? (The section on the Farewell Sermon.)

9. What rule for appointments do Mufti Shafi and Maududi draw from 4:58? (The section on rights in the Holy Prophet’s ﷺ state.)

10. What did Articles 24 and 25 of the Cairo Declaration say, and what does Article 24 of the 2020 revision say instead? (The section on the Muslim declarations.)

11. Name the three main differences between Islam’s scheme and the UDHR, with an article number for each. (The section on the comparison.)

12. How can a citizen whose Fundamental Right has been broken go to court today? (The section on human rights in Pakistan.)

13. What reservations did Pakistan make to the ICCPR in 2010, why did other states object, and what happened in 2011? (The section on human rights in Pakistan.)

14. From an earlier chapter: which three levels did the scholars rank the purposes of the Shari’ah into? (The chapter on the concept of Islam.)

15. From an earlier chapter: how did the Farewell Sermon end blood revenge, and whose claim did the Holy Prophet ﷺ give up first? (The chapter on the Holy Prophet ﷺ as a peacemaker.)