The Comprehensiveness of Islamic Law when Compared to the human rights Paradigm
Islamic Law, though, is obviously very different from the documents that form today’s international human rights.


Article 16 of the UDHR states the following:
Article 16
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 23 of the ICCPR is virtually the same.


Article 10 of the ICESCR reads as follows:
Article 10
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize that:
1. The widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the naturaland fundamental group unit of society, particularly for its establishment and while it is responsible forthe care and education of dependent children. Marriage must be entered into with the free consent ofthe intending spouses.

2. Special protection should be accorded to mothers during a reasonable period before and afterchildbirth. During such period working mothers should be accorded paid leave or leave with adequatesocial security benefits.

3. Special measures of protection and assistance should be taken on behalf of all children and young persons without any discrimination for reasons of parentage or other conditions. Children and youngpersons should be protected from economic and social exploitation. Their employment in work harmfulto their morals or health or dangerous to life or likely to hamper their normal development should bepunishable by law. States should also set age limits below which the paid employment of child labourshould be prohibited and punishable by law.

Such “international laws” are meant to be vague. But then do they truly bestow rights on people? What is a family constituted of? Can it start with two men, two women or perhaps even more? The human rights documents are completely silent about these issues. They simply have some vague, general statements about equality and then they allow the courts to decide the remainder of the issues. Hence, in some places one can find two women and a child (born of one of them and a third man) making up a family. Sometimes the sperm donor is even known and involved. On occasion, one of the parties may regret what they have done and demand more rights than what the others are willing to give. When these things occur, and they do occur often, the only resort is to go to the courts. Who suffers via this entire process? It is the family itself, especially the children.

Islamic Law places a great emphasis on the role of the family and therefore provides a great deal of guidance concerning the family. It speaks about the “virtues” of marriage, what qualities to look for in a spouse, the components of a family, the rights, obligations and expectations of all of the members of the family and so on. Of course, such topics would not be expected from secular lawbooks or international documents related to general topics like human rights. The point here is simply to demonstrate that within Islam there is support for many of the same concepts as found in the human rights documents. However, the nature of Islam being so different, Islam goes much further than those documents in giving an entire structure and support system that truly allows those “rights” to develop and prosper.

Islamic Law is a comprehensive system that takes into consideration all of the various aspects of life with enough detail to guide humans and enough flexibility to make it compatible for all times and places. The human rights advocates who attempt to eradicate the influence of Islamic Law are actually only going to leave Muslims with a great vacuum. They cannot provide Muslims with a complete and consistent system that will meet society’s goals while neither going to the extreme of granting too many rights nor the extreme of prohibiting matters that do not need to be prohibited.