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obligation of believers to see that a deceased person’s body is handled with due solemnity’. In this,
as in certain other areas, the Islamic conception of rights goes beyond what is contained in the
various international declarations and conventions. But it is not just in its comprehensiveness that
Islam surpasses the various international human rights declarations and conventions. Islam is more
than human rights. The Quran, for instance, is also concerned about human responsibilities, human
relationships and human roles.
4Rs
The Quran lays out, in different places and in different ways, our responsibility to self, family,
relatives, the community, the state and even the natural environment. Similarly, the Quran makes
us aware of our relationship to the universe, to plants, to animals, to the community, to family, to
self. It also seeks to instil in us a profound consciousness of our role as male or female, husband or
wife, father or mother, child or adult. Rights, responsibilities, relationships and roles in the Quran
are closely intertwined. For instance, if one values one’s role as a parent one would also become
aware of the rights one enjoys, the responsibilities one bears, the relationships one sustains. As a
parent one has certain rights over one’s child; at the same time one has to fulfil certain
responsibilities. In order to exercise one’s rights and responsibilities, one has to actively maintain
a loving relationship with one’s child. It is this relationship which, in turn, defines one’s role, that
endows one’s role with yqmeaning and purpose.Mainstream Western society has, by and large,
moved away from this integrated view of rights, responsibilities, relationships and roles. This does
not mean that Americans and Europeans are not conscious of their responsibilities or are not keen
on certain relationships within the family or are not playing certain roles within society. What it
does suggest is that the intricate balance between rights and responsibilities, rights and
relationships, rights and roles has been eroded by an obsession with rights. 1R (rights) has become
overwhelmingly dominant to the detriment of the other 3Rs (responsibilities, relationships and
roles). Harmony is possible only when one is faithful to all the 4Rs — which is what the Quran
tries to achieve.It is because of the preponderance of 1R that a pervasive `rights culture’ has
emerged in the West with disastrous consequences for humanity. One can argue that the inability
to understand that responsibility must sometimes precede right was one of the underlying causes
of the environmental crisis in the West. For most of the twentieth century, the Western concept of
development was based on the premise that man, armed with science and technology, had the right
to exploit unhindered nature and the environment for the gratification of his desires. Though this
rapacious attitude towards the natural environment has begun to change, Western man is still not
fully conscious of the profound nexus between rights and responsibilities.The inability to
comprehend this nexus explains, in part, the misapplication of freedom in the political and social
spheres. Freedom of expression in Western society, for instance, is often perceived and pursued as
an absolute right — with very little regard for the principle of responsibility that is inherent in the
exercise of that right. That freedom is both a right and a responsibility is an idea that is deeply
embedded in Islamic philosophy and indeed in most other religious philosophies. In fact, in the
Quran, it is the responsibility of the human being — and not just his right — to enjoin what is
right and forbid what is wrong. What is a right in Western political thought becomes a
responsibility in Islamic political thought because of its moral content and character. When a right
is exercised as a responsibility, the moral implications for the well-being of society are
enormous.The importance of maintaining this intimate, intricate link between right and
responsibility is underscored by the grim tragedies unfolding in yet another sphere of social and
human relationships. The AIDS phenomenon is tangible evidence of what can happen when the
insistence on the exercise of one’s sexual rights is not accompanied by a deep sense of sexual
responsibility. It reveals the extent to which relationships between the sexes, and within each sex,
have been debased and defiled. Indeed, the crisis within the Western family — a crisis which has
reached frightening proportions in recent decades — is a manifestation of the decline of certain
norms which for so long had sustained gender roles and relationships and maintained the