A glance at the `Treatise on Rights' will quickly show that...

A glance at the `Treatise on Rights' will quickly show that the word `rights' might better have been translated as duties, obligations, or responsibilities, since the treatise is not directly concerned with the rights of the individual, but rather with the rights of others which the individual must observe.

Nevertheless, I think it is important to preserve the term `rights', if only to show that in considering human rights primarily in terms of responsibilities, Islam diverges profoundly from most modern Western views, though it has deep kinships with other religious traditions of East and West. Islam views the individual in his total context, which means that it considers first his relationship with God, then his relationship with God's creatures.

What is important for the individual in his relationship with God is that he attain to salvation, or in other words, that he follow God's guidance, which is based upon mercy and directed toward his own best interest. In short, Islam devalues the individual's perspective, since human beings on their own can see no further than their immediate interests during life.

But this devaluation of individualism is not a devaluation of the individual; on the contrary, it raises him to the ultimate pinnacle of importance, since everything is directed toward his happiness in the next world. Islam merely recognizes the ignorance of human beings and their inability to perceive their own ultimate good without divine guidance.

Then it sets about to undermine and destroy individual ignorance, a process which involves deflating the ego and eliminating all self-centred desires. As a result, the human self or soul ( nafs ) has few `rights', but many duties and responsibilities. Or rather, the soul has only one true right - the right to salvation. The individual's right to salvation follows naturally upon God's right, which is to be worshiped without any partner (i.e., tawhid ).

The way to salvation is to obey God, and hence it is the soul's right to be employed in obedience toward Him. By His very nature since `His mercy precedes His wrath' - God displays compassion and guidance, and through obedience the servant opens himself up to the full range of this compassion. In other words, partaking of God's mercy and compassion depends upon following His guidance, and following His guidance means following the Shari'a as revealed through the Qur'an and the sunna .