Preservation Of Life A Comparative Study Between The Islamic Sharī‘Ah And The Human Rights Charter

Abstract

All human beings are born with legitimate rights; which no one should be deprived of. All the laws be it divine law, or man-made law aim to secure those rights for the sake of the stability, security, and prosperity of the human kind. One of the most important rights is the preservation of life, thus it is important to secure this right with all means and live in a peaceful world. The desire of power, greediness, tyranny, politics, corruption, injustice, and being far from God, has deprived human beings from their inherent right of preserving their lives. The researcher proposes an insight into the effectiveness of the Islamic law in comparison to the Human Rights Charter in the matter of the preservation of life. The objective of the research is to shed light on the comprehensiveness of the Islamic Sharī‘ah in the matter of preservation of life. Secondary data was the basis of this study. The data was collected from books, academic journals, previous dissertations, classical books of Fiqh, and Human rights articles. The main purpose of this thesis is to study how the Islamic law and the Human Rights Charter tackle the problem of protecting the life of humans on this earth. The right to life is the cornerstone of many laws, be it divine or human, and since time immemorial, people and nations have tried to find ways of protecting human life for the sake of its continuation. This research has compared between the Islamic Sharī‘ah and the Human Rights Charter in the matter of the right to life, and has taken in its stride some of the topics that fall under the protection of life, like abortion, suicide, euthanasia, armed conflict, murder, and the death penalty. And due to the fact that the Human Rights Charter is man-made, the study shows that it has gone through many amendments to the extent that some of the laws that were intended to protect life have been reversed completely to suit local laws of each country, and has even gone further to abolish the death penalty, which was in the past a deterrent to these criminal acts. Consequently, the Islamic Sharī‘ah with its strict implementation of its laws, has remained the last resort for the world to adopt in order to save, protect and preserve the life of human beings from the scourge of wars, destruction, and other criminal acts that put the life of man in jeopardy. Key words: Preservation – life – comparative – Islamic Sharī‘ah – Human Rights Charter