SOCIAL JUSTICE IN ISLAM

    

With the advent of Islam, all such ideas based on an inherent inequality lost ground. In different ways, and with great persistence Islam presented to the world the concept that, in spite of outward differences, all human beings are equal. All are entitled to equal social status and equal rights. No one is inferior or superior. Here are two references from the Qur'an and Hadith respectively.

Men, we have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you might get to know one another. The noblest of you in Allah's sight is the most righteous of you. Allah is wise and all knowing (49:13).

According to this verse of the Qur'an, the differences of color and race found among human beings is for the purpose, not of discrimination, but of identification. Men in essence are equal. What really distinguishes one man from another is character. His superiority can therefore bespoken of only in terms of the degree to which a man is honorable. The truly honorable man is one who is God--fearing and who recognizes and fulfils the rights of God and his fellow men.
On the occasion of the final pilgrimage, the Prophet delivered his last sermon while sitting oh his camel. One of the things he said is recorded in these words:

'O people, listen carefully, your Lord is one Lord, there is no doubt about it. Your ancestor, is one ancestor, there is no doubt about it. Listen well to my words: no Arab has any superiority over a non--Arab, and no non—Arab is superior to an Arab. No black is superior to a brown or red, and no red superior to any black. If there is any superiority in anyone it is due to his God--fearing qualities(piety). Have I conveyed the message?' the Prophet asked the people. The people answered from all corners, 'Indeed so! God be witness.' Then the Prophet said: 'Let him that is present tell it unto him that is absent.'(Al-Jamili Ahkam al-Qur'an, 16:342)

This declaration was made by the Prophet in the final year of his life at a time when the whole of Arabia had been conquered. As such, it wasnot the declaration of a reformer, but of a ruler of the time. His definition of human equality was not just listened to as a theory, but was immediately put into practice--nay, enforced in society.

In his declaration, the Prophet told the people that just as there is one Creator of this world so all the human beings in this world were born of one man and woman. All human beings were thus equal, being each other's brothers and sisters. They might differ in respect of appearance, but as to honor, status and the right to legal justice, there was no difference between them.

So far as human status is concerned, Islam clearly states that if people have been placed on different rungs of the social ladder, this is not a matter of having been favored with or deprived of social distinction but of their being under divine trial. God has created man in this world in order to test him. Worldly goods and position (or the lack of them) are used by God as instruments of this test. They are like examination papers set by the Almighty. Opulence and penury are both intended to be states in which man is tested. He should, therefore, stop suffering from inferiority or superiority complexes, and should consider instead whether he is going to pass or fail this test.