Yahya - Justice and Tolerance in the Qur'an (2003)

GOD COMMANDS US TO BE JUST
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at some of the countries in the world reveals a mentality that
favours the rights of the wealthy and treats the poor as
second-class citizens. Accordingly, some wealthy people
benefit more from justice and deem it as their right to be
favoured over the poor. Furthermore, they try to make
judicial mechanisms work for their own interests. This
mentality causes great injustice in societies where people do
not live by religion; while some people struggle to survive in
misery, others enjoy the benefits of being wealthy.
However, despite this adverse situation, it is possible to
establish justice and social peace. The dominance of the
values of the Qur'an and peoples' unyielding insistence on
living by the values of the Qur'an can make this possible.
God issues the following commands in the Qur'an:
… Be upholders of justice, bearing witness for God
alone, even against yourselves or your parents and
relatives. Whether they are rich or poor, God is well
able to look after them. Do not follow your own
desires and deviate from the truth.… (Qur'an, 4:135)
In compliance with this command of God, whether a
person is wealthy or poor, he who has fear of God exercises
absolute justice, and his attitude never changes in line with
peoples' financial status. He knows that being rich or poor is
a worldly state of affairs by which God tests man. When one
dies, nothing will remain from his possessions, and only his
fear of God will be rewarded. The attitude which pleases God
is described in the Qur'an: being just, honest and righteous.
The reward for this morality is eternal gifts in the hereafter.