IT is a popular belief in the West, owing to their deficient knowledge of the Quran and the Traditions of the Prophet (PBUH), that Islam supports values and structures that are incompatible with the principles of human rights. In fact, Islam established the sanctity of human rights and advocated their promotion and enforcement, about 1400 years before the United Nations embodied them in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

If we consider human rights as a yardstick for evaluating civilizations, we would come to the conclusion that the world was not very civilized before the advent of Islam. Though there were great civilizations before Islam, they are held high in regard mainly because of their contributions in the fields of arts and sciences — none of them did anything to place human rights in a permanent manner. Advancement in human rights, if there were any, would derive their legality from a particular ruler whoever is in place and his successor would not be bound to extend them: human rights granted by a ruler could be taken away by another if deemed necessary or expedient.

It was in the 16th and 17th centuries that the western political thinkers and jurists educated the masses about the notions of civil liberties and fundamental rights. This awareness prompted the people to strive for their rights resulting in a bitter series of tussles between the rulers and the subjects. Privileges were stubbornly withheld by the rulers, whereas, the subjects fought vehemently for them. Revolutions took place, and with each revolution the people won a new concession. In this way, through the ordeal of bloodshed and struggle, a growing body of rights developed.

Islam, on the contrary, took a significantly different course. First of all, as God Himself had conferred them, the people did not have to violently snatch these rights from some ruler. Secondly, being the rights ordained by God, human rights cannot be abolished or abrogated by any man or group of men. Every Muslim ruler or government must recognize and enforce them as they are part and parcel of the Islamic faith. If one omits to do so, or denies them, or practically violates them while paying lip-service to them, the verdict of the Quran in such a case is clear and unequivocal: “...And whoever judges not by what Allah has revealed, those are the disbelievers.” (5:44). “...And whoever judges not by what Allah has revealed, those are the transgressors.” (5:47) Some of the rights that Islam declares all human beings should possess are:

Right to life: The Quran upholds the sanctity of human life and accords full protection to it. All forms of manslaughter are regarded as heinous crimes. It is said in the Quran: “...Whoever kills a person, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he had killed all humanity...” (5:32). “...And kill not the soul which Allah has made sacred except in the course of justice...” (6:152).

Right to equality: Islam disregards discrimination between persons on the basis of colour, race, nationality, nobility of birth, wealth, political status, gender, etc. Superiority of a person is determined only on the basis of piety, righteousness, and moral excellence. In his farewell sermon, the Prophet declared: “Righteous actions are the only mark of distinction and not wealth, birth, or status in life.”

Similarly, the Quran proclaims: “O mankind, We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into tribes and families that you may know each other. Surely the noblest of you with Allah is the (one who is the) most righteous of you. Surely Allah is Knowing, Aware.” (49:13)

Right to justice: Immense stress has been laid by the Quran on the right to seek justice and the duty to perform justice: “...When you judge between people, you judge with justice...” (4:58) “O you who believe, be maintainers of justice...” (4:135) “O you who believe... let not hatred of a people incite you not to act equitably. Be just; that is nearer to observance of duty...”(5:8)

Right to respect: Islam declares that each person, irrespective of his faith, race, gender, or wealth, is worthy of respect. The right to honour and self-respect is inviolable. The Quran says: “And those who malign believing men and believing women undeservedly, they bear the guilt of slander and manifest sin.” (33:58)

“O you who believe, let not a folk deride a folk, perchance they may be better than they (are); nor let women (deride) women, perchance they may be better than they (are); neither defame one another, nor insult one another by nick names. Bad is the name of lewdness after faith... Neither backbite one another...” (49:11,12)

Right to privacy: An individual’s right to domestic and personal privacy has been clearly recognised by the Quran: “O you who believe, enter not houses other than your own houses, until you have asked permission... This is better for you that you may be mindful.” (24:27) “O you who believe, avoid most of suspicion... and spy not...” (49:12)

Right to freedom of religion: In an Islamic state every citizen is free to profess and practise any religion that he has adopted. Individuals and government have been strictly forbidden to interfere in the religious affairs of non-Muslim citizens. It is said in the Quran: “There is no compulsion in religion...” (2:256). “And if thy Lord had pleased, all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them. Wilt thou then force men till they are believers?” (10:99) “And say: the truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe, and let him who please disbelieve...” (18:29)

Right to protest against oppression and injustice: Every citizen of the Islamic state has the right to resist and protest against oppression and injustice. There are numerous Traditions of the Prophet in this regard: “Abu Sayeed reported that the Messenger of Allah said, ‘The best jihad is that of one who says a true word before a tyrant’.” (Ibn Majah, Tirmizi, Abu Daud). “Abu Sayeed reported that the Messenger of Allah said, ‘Whoever from among you comes across a certain undesirable thing, must stop it by his hands. If it is not possible for him, he must stop it by his tongue. And if this also is not possible, he must condemn it in his heart — and this is the weakest position of belief’.” (Muslim)

Right to education: The pursuit of knowledge is considered a task of great importance in Islam. It is pointed out in the Quran: “...Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Are those who know equal with those who know not? But only men of understanding will pay heed.” (39:9)

Following are some traditions of the Prophet that describe the significance of education:

“Anas reported that the Messenger of Allah said, ‘Search for knowledge is compulsory upon every Muslim man and woman’.” (Ibn Majah). “Anas reported that the Messenger of Allah said, ‘Whoever goes out in search of knowledge, is in the path of Allah till he returns’.” (Tirmizi).

Right to earn: Islam grants an individual the right to do any lawful work and to pursue any lawful profession for earning his livelihood. The rewards of labour belong to the one who has made the effort. The Quran decrees: “...For men is the benefit of what they earn. And for women is the benefit of what they earn...” (4:32)

The right to earn also implies the right to get a job if one has no employment or occupation. The following Tradition of the Prophet is evident of it: “A man came to the Messenger of Allah and requested for alms. The Prophet said, ‘Have you got anything in your house?’ He replied, ‘Yes, I have a woollen carpet... and a cup...’ The Prophet said, ‘Come to me with both these things.’ The man did so. The Prophet took them and asked the people around him, ‘Who will buy these two?’... A man said, ‘I will take them both for two silver coins.’

The Prophet gave the things to that man and took the coins. He then turned to the man, who had come for help, gave him the coins, and said, ‘Buy food for your family with one of them and buy an axe with the other, then come to me with the axe.’ The man did so. The Prophet fixed a handle to it and said, ‘Go, cut wood and sell it. Come to me after fifteen days.’ When the man came to the Prophet after the prescribed time, he had earned ten silver coins... The Messenger of Allah said to him, ‘This is better for you...’” (Abu Daud)

Following this precedent set by the Prophet, the Islamic state is responsible to provide employment to its citizens if they have none.

Islam has conferred and acknowledged other human rights also. Their details and illustrations can be seen in the Quran, the Traditions, and the teachings of the pious caliphs and other Muslim jurists.

THE plight of two 12-year-old girls, one described as Christian and the other as Muslim, has again highlighted the large-scale abuse of women’s rights in Pakistan caused by a single evil practice — child marriage.

When Asiya was recovered from the clutches of her husband in a village near Lahore, she bore quite a few marks of brutality, including broken bones. She had also been given electric shocks. The husband did not deny beating the girl or subjecting her to other forms of violence. He justified his bestiality on two grounds. First, the girl had run away from her husband’s house more than once and therefore she deserved to be whipped. Secondly, her father had condoned the girl’s thrashing and had washed his hands off her, and had allowed her master to do with her as he pleased.

Countless women, girls and adults both, have undergone the ordeal suffered by Asiya. She is fortunate that the police recognized their duty to rescue her from a house of terror because generally they do not interfere in cases of wife-bashing. There have been instances when the judiciary too has declined relief to a woman battered by her husband. Some time ago a 13-year-old girl, who had been mercilessly beaten by her much older husband, sought relief from the Lahore High Court. The court declined to intervene because it could not proceed against the girl’s legally wedded spouse.

Women who go to the police to complain of violence by their husbands are usually told to make up with their tormenters. Three reasons are given for this advice. First, it is argued that the husband has a right to apply physical force to compel the wife to obey him and that it is always wayward or rebellious women who invite punishment.

Secondly, the complainant is warned that litigation takes long to bear fruit and that women generally do not have the resources to wait that long for justice. And, thirdly, the woman is told to take into consideration the tribulations she will face after losing her husband’s protection, especially when the doors of parental dwelling have already been closed on her.

The police view unfortunately does not conflict with the social attitude towards women that are victims of domestic violence. For several decades, especially since General Ziaul Haq decided to reverse women’s march towards freedom and equality with men, the Pakistani male has been allowed the right to use violence not only against his wife but also against any female member of the family.

This privilege is now upheld by a larger proportion of the male population than was the case a few decades ago. Religion is used to convince women to accept getting clubbed by their husbands as a duty. Many of them see no wrong in getting roughed up by their husbands or other male members of the family.

The part attributed to Asiya’s father in this story is quite common in Pakistan. Most families, especially economically weak ones, try to pack their daughters/wards off in marriage as early as they can. Every now and then the media picks up a story about a little girl being sold for a paltry amount. One has seen a declaratory deed duly written on a stamp paper by a professional petition writer whereby a man sold his daughter in marriage against a small payment.

Sale of girls under the pretext of marriage is not confined to any particular faith or sect. People belonging to different religions have been guilty of buying and selling brides. The authorities know it, the politicians know it and so do the media persons. All of them seem to have surrendered to a most evil practice because they think nothing can be done about it. Asiya’s story will also be forgotten within a few weeks and the matter will disappear from the public radar till another Asiya story finds its way to the front pages.

In the second case the Lahore High Court ruled that a girl, who was below the marriage age, as prescribed in the Child Marriage Restraint Act, but had attained puberty, had a right to take a husband without the consent of her parents. The issue had arisen when the father of 12 and a half years old Zeenat lodged an FIR under the Zina Ordinance to the effect that she had been abducted by a neighbour and that they had been living together in sin. This story was denied by Zeenat, by now pregnant, and she firmly chose to stay with her husband.

There can be no argument against the court’s decision to save the girl’s marriage and the future of her child, and to frustrate her unreasonable father’s bid to join the crowd that has been abusing the provisions of the Zina Ordinance. However, by virtually striking down the minimum age for girls’ marriage the decision has raised two issues which need to be examined dispassionately.

First, the court followed a strict interpretation of the law which says that a girl can be given away in marriage on attaining the age of 16 or puberty, whichever is earlier. It also dealt a blow to the argument about the wali’s consent being essential for a woman’s marriage by declaring that a girl who is considered fit to marry also has the right to choose her life-partner. In the process the evil that child marriage is apparently got overlooked. The question now is whether courts should have nothing to do with social evils that come to their notice and which somehow enjoy legal sanction.

Countless examples can be given of references by the judiciary, both before and after independence, to the need for changing laws that conflict with basic rights or principles of natural justice. However, Pakistani courts are generally wary of taking exception to any provision of law that is defended on the grounds of belief. The difficulties the judiciary faces in questioning practices presented as religious injunctions cannot be ignored, but the reluctance to demand satisfaction on the authenticity of the religious argument involved cannot be appreciated. The least the judiciary can do is to call for an authoritative review of the legal formulation.

The second issue is whether Pakistan has decided to abandon the struggle our society has made for decades to abolish child marriage. It is worth recalling that one of the Quaid-i-Azam’s most notable contributions to law-making in the subcontinent was his success in 1929 in extending the scope of the Sarda Bill, whose mover had sought to create restrictions only on marriages of small Hindu girls, to Muslim girls as well.

He was opposed by almost the entire body of Muslim clergy, except for Maulana Shibli Nomani. It was as a rejoinder to them that he had declared that he was answerable only to the voters in his constituency and not to clerics, and that if these voters were so backward as to disapprove of restraints on child marriage he would ask them to elect someone else in his place.

In the course of his speech on the Bill, the Quaid said that he did not pretend to be an alim or an authority on theology but that during the 30 years of his fairly active practice he had always understood that “marriage law had nothing to do with religion as such; that marriage was a contract according to Muhammadan Law, pure and simple.” He also asked “whether there is any text which makes it obligatory on Musalmans that they should get their daughters married before the age of 14,” and added, “there is no text.”

The defenders of child marriage often argue that girl-brides have the right to wriggle out of an unwanted marriage when they attain puberty and before the marriage is consummated. This protection had some meaning when small girl-brides stayed at parental homes for long periods after the marriage rites had been performed. There is no protection for a girl who is handed over to her husband at the age of ten or 12 and her husband does not wait for her to reach puberty before consummating a relationship which his victim cannot even comprehend.

Quite often girls from poor families are given in marriage to rich old men and the parents rationalize such marriages by asserting that the girls will enjoy better life than they could ever hope for at parental homes. The argument is quite facetious because a well-fed slave is a slave nonetheless and promise of some comfort is no compensation for a minor girl’s sexual exploitation or the denial to her of possibilities of development into a useful member of society.

An important issue in this debate is the assumption that the girl’s attainment of puberty also means her mental maturity. After all, a woman is not merely a vehicle for sex and procreation.

A girl who starts performing the functions of a wife at the age of ten or 12 is denied all possibilities of mental growth. She cannot understand the duties and rights of a wife, to say nothing of her responsibilities as a mother and as a member of society. That is why societies that allow child marriages are denounced for planning under-developed generations.

That Pakistani society should be called upon to discuss in the 21st century the pros and cons of child marriage offers a measure of the social and intellectual regression that the nation has suffered. Nevertheless, the urgency of addressing the issue is manifest.

Even if it is difficult to reconstruct religious thought, to borrow an essential phrase from Iqbal, the possibilities of protecting the rights, including the right to development, of girls married off at a tender age under the rule of puberty must be seriously explored.

IN France, if not in Britain, the word “Timisoara” has become a byword for media manipulation. A massacre was reported in a Romanian town in 1989, setting off a series of events that led to the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu. First reports spoke of 3,000 to 4,000 dead; the numbers climbed swiftly through 12,000 to 70,000. Only when regime change had been accomplished was the real number of dead in the clashes established at less than 200.

Other alleged massacres in the recent past have also turned out not to have been what had been claimed. Four years in, the prosecution in the Milosevic trial has still not proved that there was a massacre at Racak in Kosovo in January 1999 — one of the main pretexts for Nato’s attack on Yugoslavia. Against such a background, there has been too little scepticism about reports from Uzbekistan, which seem to be following a well-worn propaganda formula.

What happened in Andijan on Friday is still unclear. The Uzbek government claims there was a violent provocation by Islamic activists. Western commentators have blamed the Uzbek authorities out of hand. They have also repeated claims that people have been boiled alive — claims unsubstantiated by the two medical teams, from Canada and the United States, that conducted the autopsies on the alleged victims.

The twist this time is that President Karimov of Uzbekistan is presented as a pro-US tyrant rather than a Soviet-era throwback — so anti-war left and liberal commentators have been co-opted into baying for his blood. Yet their support for the latest “people power” movement to shake a former Soviet republic is naive. They seem not to have noticed that Uzbekistan is home to precisely the same network of US-funded non-governmental organizations, human rights activists and media outlets that helped to engineer pro-US “revolutions” in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

Take the source of last Friday’s atrocity reports from Andijan: one “opposition journalist” from the website ferghana.ru, which seems to be a shop window for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. IWPR, which has since provided the bulk of reports in the western press, is overwhelmingly funded by western governments and private foundations close to them: the US state department, USAid, the National Endowment for Democracy, the US Institute for Peace, George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, the British Foreign Office, the European commission, the OSCE, Unesco, and other European governments, among others.

People who reason that the US supports President Karimov, and will therefore turn a blind eye to his alleged excesses, do not understand the thrust of current American policy, which is to try to support and control all sides in any political equation. As in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan under former President Akayev, Uzbekistan is home to scores of western-backed NGOs that agitate politically for the opposition. For instance, Freedom House — a notorious CIA front and the main architect of the orange revolution in Ukraine — has an office in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.

Ostensible US support for a president like Islam Karimov, moreover, gives the Americans the very proximity to a regime that they need in order to buy off turncoats within the power structure when the time comes for regime change; to believe that the current unrest in Uzbekistan will lead to anything other than the consolidation of American power in this strategically crucial region near China’s border is to fail to understand how much US foreign policy under the neocons owes to the theory of permanent revolution.

In the Soviet Union, even loyal party cadres lived under the constant threat of purge, and this kept them on their toes. Moreover, as in Romania, an excessive focus on a particular person, usually the head of state, causes the appearance of regime change to mask the reality of continued control over the system as a whole.

US dialectical reasoning is such that its “human rights activists” are happy to indulge Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the Islamist organization accused of being behind violence in the Ferghana valley. This alliance should come as no surprise to those who recall that the US supported the Mujahideen against the Soviets in 1979, or those who have noted the neocons’ friendliness to the rebels in Chechnya today.

Although it is banned in Germany, Russia and many central Asian states for its alleged links to terrorism and anti-Semitism, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which strongly denies any involvement in violence, operates out of head offices in South Kensington, London. This may be why its role is never mentioned when Jack Straw denounces Tashkent.

Islam Karimov was bounced into accepting a US base in 2001 because, like many heads of state, he felt unable to resist remorseless American pressure. But since 2002 he has started to move closer to China, America’s biggest rival, and with Russia, the key to understanding the US’s overall geopolitical strategy.

Washington is unforgiving towards people who think loyalty is a two-way street, and the Uzbek president is about to learn the lesson learned by Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Eduard Shevardnadze and scores of others: that it is better to be an enemy of the Americans than their friend. If you are their enemy, they might try to buy you; but if you are their friend they will definitely sell you. — Dawn/Guardian Service

IT’S a sign of the times that well-known economist Fred Bergsten, an avowed free-trader, thinks the United States should threaten to impose a 50 per cent surcharge on imports from China. He’s not alone.

In April the Senate voted 67 to 33 for a proposal from Democrat Charles Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to adopt a 27.5 per cent surcharge. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, created by Congress in 2000, also urges a surcharge. The point of these proposals is not actually to impose the duties. It is to persuade — intimidate , really — China to raise the value of its currency, the yuan, by 25 per cent or more.

Can this be serious? Well, yes. The blame for today’s unsustainable pattern of global trade — expanding US deficits and Asian surpluses — lies heavily in Asia. Led by China, the region depends on export-led economic growth.

This siphons jobs and production from the United States and, particularly in textiles and apparel, from poor countries in Africa and Latin America. They can’t compete with China’s cheap labour and cheap currency. Bergsten fears a protectionist backlash. His plan aims to preempt that by forcing China to revalue. He notes the irony: “You’ve got to threaten protectionism to avoid protectionism.”

In theory, trade flows ought to change. A higher currency would make Chinese exports more expensive on world markets. It would also make US exports cheaper in China. Beyond that, a higher yuan would allow other Asian countries to revalue their currencies.

These nations “are terrified to revalue their currencies [alone] because they’ll become even less competitive” against China, says Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute. If all Asian countries moved together, there’s a chance that today’s huge trade imbalances would narrow. US exports to Asia would strengthen and US imports would slacken.

Let’s admit that the gambit could backfire. A US import surcharge, if ever invoked, could roil US relations with all of Asia. There would be fierce challenges to its legality under international trade law; proponents say it’s a permissible response to China’s “currency manipulation.”

Facing a humiliating capitulation to the United States, China might retaliate. Would it cancel commitments to buy 60 new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft? Cooperation on other matters — notably North Korea’s nuclear weapons — would surely suffer. Still, there are dangers in not acting, because the underlying problems will only worsen with time.

“Out here in Asia,” economist Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley recently wrote, “they have only one question for me: How’s the American consumer?” Little wonder. China is now the hub of a regional economy that depends on US shoppers. In 2004 the American trade deficit with China alone was $162 billion; in 2003 it was $124 billion. In 2004 exports were 35 percent of China’s gross domestic product, up from 20 percent in 1999, reports Roach.

To be sure, there have been huge benefits. Asians get jobs; Americans get cheap consumer goods. But the dangers increasingly overshadow the gains. When Americans buy more abroad than they sell, they go deeper into debt. In practice, American consumers have borrowed more and more.

China and other Asian countries foster this by investing the surplus dollars earned from exports in US Treasury bonds and other dollar securities. This recycles the money into the United States. It helps hold down US interest rates, encourages American consumers to borrow and (simultaneously) keeps Asian currencies from rising. If dollars were sold for Asian currencies, the dollar would drop and Asian currencies would increase.

This can’t continue indefinitely. Here are two ways it might unravel. First, Americans may recoil from rising debt burdens. People may grow uneasy with their monthly payments. Lenders may decline to make riskier loans. At year-end 2004, household debt (including mortgages) was 121 per cent of annual disposable income, reports the Federal Reserve.

Four years earlier, it was 103 per cent of disposable income. Second, the continuing loss of factories to China may reduce employment growth and fan job insecurity. These developments could threaten the recovery or incite protectionism — if not today, then someday. —Dawn/Washington Post Service