The Right to Life, Security, Privacy and Ownership in Islam

A person's right to life, personal security, privacy, and ownership
are the most basic of all the fundamental rights and liberties and are
of concern to all legal systems and traditions. To address them side by
side with one another, as is attempted in the present volume, is
reflective of their natural priority and significance. These rights are
simultaneously the most vulnerable to aggression and abuse.

The right to life is the basic right from which all the others
derive. The discussion of this fundamental right includes: the sanctity
of life from the Islamic perspective, murder, unintentional killing, the
death penalty and compensations for victims. This chapter also includes
discussions of abortion, suicide, and euthanasia.

The second of the rights discussed is the right to security and this
includes: the security against unlawful arrest, the right to fair
treatment, the right to counsel, freedom from aggression and torture.

The third right is that of privacy and is mainly concerned with the
privacy of one's home, confidential correspondence, and immunity against
invasion of privacy in the forms of interception of correspondence,
eavesdropping and other such violations.

Finally, the discussion of the right of ownership includes the four
aspects of ownership in Islam, legitimate and illegitimate means of
acquisition of ownership, and the restrictions that the Sharia imposes on the exercise of this right including taxation, inheritance and bequests.