Sebelum perbincangan mengenai hak asasi manusia dalam perspektif Islam dibincangkan, beliau menjelaskan beberapa perkara mengenai dua pendekatan utama terhadap hak asasi manusia iaitu berdasarkan kepada pendekatan Barat dan pendekatan Islam. Hal ini akan membolehkan kita mengkaji isu ini dengan perspektif yang betul dan mengelakkan sebarang kekeliruan yang umumnya mengaburi perbincangan berkenaan hal ini.
Pendekatan Barat
Orang Barat mempunyai tabiat mengaitkan segala perkata yang baik itu dengan diri mereka dan cuba membuktikan bahawa kerana merekalah dunia ini menerima keberkatan. Tanpa mereka, dunia ini akan tenggelam dalam kejahilan dan tidak akan dapat menyedari segala faedah yang terkandung dalam dunia ini.
Kini marilah kita melihat kepada persoalan hak asasi manusia pula.
Now let us look at the question of human rights. It is very loudly and vociferously claimed that the world got the concept of basic human rights from the Magna Carta of Britain; though the Magna Carta itself came into existence six hundred years after the advent of Islam. But the truth of the matter is that until the seventeenth century no one even knew that the Magna Carta contained the principles of Trial by Jury; Habeas Corpus, and the Control of Parliament on the Right of Taxation. If the people who had drafted the Magna Carta were living today they would have been greatly surprised if they were told that their document also contained all these ideals and principles. They had no such intention, nor were they conscious of all these concepts which are now being attributed to them. As far as my knowledge goes the Westerners had no concept of human rights and civic rights before the seventeenth century. Even after the seventeenth century the philosophers and the thinkers on jurisprudence though presented these ideas, the practical proof and demonstration of these concepts can only be found at the end of the eighteenth century in the proclamations and constitutions of America and France. After this there appeared a reference to the basic human rights in the constitutions of different countries. But more often the rights which were given on paper were not actually given to the people in real life. In the middle of the present century, the United Nations, which can now be more aptly and truly described as the Divided Nations, made a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and passed a resolution against genocide and framed regulations to check it. But as you all know there is not a single resolution or regulation of the United Nations which can be enforced. They are just an expression of a pious hope. They have no sanctions behind them, no force, physical or moral to enforce them. Despite all the high-sounding ambitious resolutions of the United Nations, human rights have been violated and trampled upon at different places, and the United Nations has been a helpless spectator. She is not in a position to exercise an effective check on the violation of human rights. Even the heinous crime of genocide is being perpetrated despite all proclamations of the United Nations. Right in the neighbouring country of Pakistan, genocide of the Muslims has been taking place for the last twenty- eight years, but the United Nations does not have the power and strength to take any steps against India. No action has even been taken against any country guilty of this most serious and revolting crime.
