Page 47 - Demo

30Islam, Democracy and Human Rights in Contemporary Indonesiaearth, and recently the issues remain topical in many events inthe field of social, political and economic matters, at the nationaland international level. Muslims as an integral part of thepopulation in the entire world pays special attention and showsparticular interest on this global issue of human rights. As amember of society inheriting rich and civilized tradition,Muslims cannot fall silent in response to important issuesunfolding in any given time and period. Islamic teaching,widely well known to all of us, is dynamic. It always encouragesits followers to invent, innovate and find new and forwardlooking solutions for the sake of progress of mankind. Since itsexistence, Islam has contributed significantly to a greatercivilization of mankind until today. Along with it, itscontribution to respect the human dignity is well recognizable. It is unassumingly to say that Islam is a religion of humanity.When we take a step in order to comprehend Islam fromthe perspective of human rights, we are confronted with anacademic query, whether the teaching of Islam provides suchlearning method. To respond to such query, in general, we cansay we cast no doubt that Islam, essentially, is a teaching whichscope is exclusive and comprehensive drawing from theessentials of al-Qur%u2019an. Al-Qur%u2019an, the compilation of theinfallible divine words of Allah revealed to Prophet MohammadSAW, serves as across-the-board guidance for direction,elucidation of such direction in making a distinction betweenthe rights and the wrongs. The teaching of Islam handed downby Prophet Mohammad SAW encompasses all aspects of thelife of human being, albeit for specific matters he confers themin general terms, which is open for further thoughts,contemplation and consideration to be formulated into concepts