Hawzah News Agency - The term 'right' is not found in the Qur'an with the modern sense of the 'rights of man', 'consumer rights', and even 'animal rights', that pepper the newspapers of our cities. The sense of 'right' in Islamic sources, the Qur'an and ahadith, is of what is due to one or is befitting because of the harmonious hierarchical order of the universe. This is the sense of 'right' in which it is God's right that He be feared, and this is also the sense of 'right' employed in the essay attributed to Imam 'Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-'Abidin ('a), Risalah al-Huquq (The Treatise on Rights):

The greatest of God's rights against you is the right which He has made incumbent upon you for Himself and which is the root of all rights, then those which He has made incumbent upon you in yourself, from your crown to your foot, in keeping with the diversity of your organs. He has given your tongue a right against you, your hearing a right against you, your sight a right against you, your hand a right against you, your leg a right against you, your stomach a right against you, and your private part a right against you. These are the seven organs through which acts take place.

Then He gave your acts rights against you: ...

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