Islam Commands People to Behave Justly

Islamic morality commands believers to behave justly and morally in making a decision, speaking, or working--in short, in every area of their lives. God's commandments in the Qur'an and the sunnah of our Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) describe that understanding of justice in great detail. With their warnings, all the Messengers revealed to us in the Qur'an brought peace and justice to all the communities where they were sent. The prophets helped lift cruelty and despotism from the shoulders of the community of the faithful. As God has revealed in one verse (10:47):

Every nation has a Messenger, and when their Messenger comes, everything is decided between them justly. They are not wronged.

A most important feature of Islamic understanding of justice is that it commands justice at all times, even if one is dealing with a person who is near and dear. As God commands in another verse (4:135):

You who believe! Be upholders of justice, bearing witness for God alone, even against yourselves or your parents and relatives. Whether they are rich or poor, God is well able to look after them. Do not follow your own desires and deviate from the truth. If you twist or turn away, God is aware of what you do.

That verse clearly states that to a believer, the wealth or social status of whomever one deals with is of no importance. What is important is fairness—no one should be treated unjustly--and to scrupulously implement the holy verses of God. In another verse (5:8), it is commanded:

You who believe! Show integrity for the sake of God, bearing witness with justice. Do not let hatred for a people incite you into not being just. Be just. That is closer to heedfulness. Heed God. God is aware of what you do.

In that verse, God orders the faithful to act justly always, even with their own enemies. No Muslim can make a spontaneous decision, based on the fact that the person he's dealing with has once harmed him or left him in a difficult situation. Even when he is a personal enemy, if the other side is genuinely in the wrong, any Muslim has the duty to respond with good will and to display the morality God has commanded.
To believers, God has issued the following commandment (60:8): "God does not forbid you from being good to those who have not fought you in the religion or driven you from your homes, or from being just towards them. God loves those who are just." Here, He informs Muslims how their relationships with other people should be. These verses are the very foundation of a believer's attitude towards others, formed not by the nature of the people he is dealing with, but by God's revelations in the Qur'an. That is why Muslims with pure hearts always support what is right. Their determination on this matter is revealed in these terms (Qur'an, 7:181): "Among those We have created, there is a community who guide by the Truth and act justly according to it."
Other verses in the Qur'an on the subject of justice read:

God commands you to return to their owners the things you hold on trust and, when you judge between people, to judge with justice. How excellent is what God exhorts you to do! God is All-Hearing, All-Seeing. (4:58)

Say: "My Lord has commanded justice. Stand and face Him in every mosque and call on Him, making your religion sincerely His. As He originated you, so you will return." (7:29)

God commands justice and doing good and giving to relatives. And He forbids indecency and doing wrong and tyranny. He warns you so that hopefully, you will pay heed. (16:90)

All over the world, people are subjected to cruel treatment because of their race, language or skin color. Yet according to the view of justice as set out in the Qur'an, a person's ethnicity, race or gender are of no importance, because Islam maintains that all people are equal. Our Prophet's (may God bless him and grant him peace) words, "All of you belong to one ancestry of Adam, and Adam was created out of clay,"14 stress that there is no difference between people. Skin color, social status and wealth confer no superiority on anyone.
According to the Qur'an, one reason why different tribes, peoples, and nations were created is so that they "might come to know one another." All are servants of God and must come to learn one another's different cultures, languages, customs and abilities. One intent behind the existence of different nations and races is cultural wealth, not war and conflict. All true believers know that only godliness --in other words, the fear of God and faith in Him--can impart superiority. As God has revealed in the Qur'an (49:13):
Mankind! We created you from a male and female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you might come to know each other. The noblest among you in God's sight is that one of you who best performs his duty. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware.
Elsewhere (30:22), He has revealed that:

Among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and earth and the variety of your languages and colors. There are certainly Signs in that for every being.

History offers many examples of the faithful behaving with complete justice towards other peoples, helping Islam grow with unbelievable speed over a wide area, taking in North Africa, the whole Middle East and even the Iberian Peninsula. By means of these conquests, the civility and tolerance of Islamic morality was spread to many races, nations, communities and individuals, bringing together millions in a bond of mutual tolerance, the likes of which had never been seen before. The renowned researcher Joel Augustus Rogers has examined the various races and the relationship between the black race and other countries. In his book Sex and Race, he describes Islam's influence on the world in these terms:
One reason why Islam was able to survive so brightly for centuries is the almost complete absence in this religion of value-judgements based on race and class, the disregarding of the colour of an individual's skin or his social class and the fact that promotion to the highest levels of a community is based on ability alone… Islam established the greatest and at the same time the freest racial melting-pot in history, and the mixing of these races took place within the body of the most extensive empire the world has ever seen. At the height of its power the Islamic Empire stretched from Spain and central France in the West to India, China and the Pacific Ocean in the East, including Central Asia. The rulers of these extensive territories were of various colours. The colour of peoples' skins was even less important for Muslims than the colours of the flowers in a garden is to the flowers themselves.15
Professor Hamilton Alexander Rossken Gibb is one of the world's foremost experts on Islam. In his book Whither Islam?, he describes the Islamic view of other races:
No other society has such a record of success uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavors so many and so various races of mankind… Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of East and West is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition.16
Islamic morality aims at a society built on brotherhood and peace, freedom and security. That is why all communities that come into contact with Islam have given up their oppressive, cruel and aggressive ways and have, instead, built peaceful and civilized societies. (For further details, see Justice and Tolerance in the Qur'an by Harun Yahya.) In their works, many Western historians have documented Islam's deep and positive affects on communities that came into contact with it. In The Making of Humanity, Professor Robert Briffault discusses the relationship between Western society and Islam:
The ideas that inspired the French Revolution and the Declaration of Rights, that guided the framing of the American Constitution and inflamed that struggle for independence in the Latin American countries [and elsewhere] were not inventions of the West. They find their ultimate inspiration and source in the Holy Quran.17
These extracts indicate how, down through the centuries, Islamic morality has taught people about peace, tolerance and justice. Nowadays, nearly everyone is seeking just such a model, and there is no reason why such a culture should not come about once again. All that is needed is people's desire to live by the morality of the Qur'an, starting with themselves and later, making efforts to convey it to others. When everyone, from the highest ranks to the very lowest, begins to implement the morality commanded in the Qur'an, they will become just, compassionate, tolerant, full of love, respectful and forgiving. That, in turn, will bring peace to all of society.