Community is first in Islam, says expert

JAKARTA (JP): Islam puts the community, and consequently the state, before the individual, leading Moslem thinker Munawir Sjadzali said yesterday.

"From my understanding of Islam, the religion recognizes that individuals have rights, but when it comes to community and state affairs, the rights of the community as a unit, or the state, must take precedence," said Munawir, chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights and former religious affairs minister.

Munawir spoke about Islam and human rights at the graduation ceremony of the Jakarta Muhammadiyah University, Antara reported.

In his paper, he said there were differences between human rights concepts in the West, which underlines the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, and in the Islamic world.

The UN declaration is founded on the belief that individuals are born with natural rights that cannot be taken away, he said.

This belief crystallizes the intellectual thinking of Western political philosophers such as John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson.

"The obligations of individuals are given in order to protect their natural rights," he said.

The UN declaration is also colored by the principle that a community and a state is established chiefly to secure and protect the rights of the individual members or citizens.

In Islam, an individual is born with obligations, Munawir said. If later the individual is granted rights, this is because the individual cannot meet those obligations without rights.

"Therefore, according to Islam, individual rights are not natural. They are given," he said, citing a Koranic verse which states that man and other beings were created solely to dedicate themselves to Allah.

Munawir said Islam has a history of strong tolerance towards people of other faiths, such as in the early years of Islam in Medina, Saudi Arabia, when Moslems coexisted peacefully with Jews and non-believers.

The harmony was based on what was then known as the Medina Charter. But the Jewish betrayal of that charter later sowed the seeds of enmity between Moslems and Jews.

This eroded the spirit of tolerance among Moslems, and began the shift towards a more exclusive community.

This is why even in today's modern age, there are still many Islamic intellectuals who feel that in an Islamic state, only Moslems should enjoy full political rights, Munawir said. (emb)