The weak among you are powerful in my eyes, as long as I do not get them their due, Allah willing.
The powerful among you are weak in my eyes, as long as I do not take away from them what is due to others, Allah willing.

-From Abu Bakr's first speech to the Ummah after becoming Khilafah

You will often find us protesting when the term "human rights" pops up in conversations about Islam and politics. Indeed, we will often talk about these "rights" as if they were bad for mankind. Does this mean that supporters of the Khilafah, if they ever attained power (In sha' Allah!), would create an Islamic State with a fuehrer at the helm and a torture-cellar on every block?

Certainly not! When we say that we are against "human rights," we mean that we are against all the attached kafir baggage: the "right" to turn your back on Allah, the "right" to do zina with anyone and anything, the "right" to abortion-on-demand, the "right" of large corporations to extort riba from the poor and overcharge them for medicines, or the "right" to sleep in the street if you lose your job. What we are for is Islam, and only Islam, which provides for government responsible to both Allah and Mankind, seeing to it that every citizen, rich or poor, gives whatever the Shari'ah requires, and in turn, gets whatever is due him or her.

We believe that any Muslim or Muslimah concerned about the Rights of Man is mainly concerned about protecting the weak, whether Muslim or otherwise, from the oppression of the strong. To them, we say that Abu Bakr (RAAH), first Khalifah of the Prophet, made this issue top priority from day one, committed his government to it, and asked the Muslims of Madinah-our own version of the "Founding Fathers"-to help. Thanks to a thorough grounding in Islam, Abu Bakr, in two short sentences, succeeded in summing up just about everything worthwhile about "human rights" and how government should preserve them. How different this is from the proceedings of UN commissions that regurgitate declarations of "human rights" that get longer and longer each year, while mankind itself sinks deeper into slavery!

From time to time, in sha' Allah, we plan to present short pieces on "Living Ideas" in Islamic Politics, with the intention of teaching, perhaps inspiring our readers. The sources will be the Prophet (SAAW), his Companions (RAAHum), and other Muslims who have dedicated themselves to the study of Islamic politics.

Building a decent society, one where Muslims and non-Muslims both will want to raise their children, will require the application of Islamic ideas only, and not those of other intellectual traditions.