Islam and Human Rights — Page 115
Articles 13-15 115 Allah will you deny? “Have they not travelled in the earth that they might observe the end of those who were before them? They were more numerous than these, and mightier in power and in the traces that they left behind them in the earth. But all that they earned was of no avail to them. “When their Messengers came to them with manifest Signs they exulted in the knowledge which they possessed, but that at which they mocked encompassed them” (40:82-83). The purposes of travel and movement which the Quran stresses are wider and more comprehensive than those that underlie Article 13; those that are aimed at by the article are included among those emphasized by the Quran. While, however, the Quran proceeds on the assumption that it is open to all God’s creatures to move freely in the earth and to sojourn therein at choice, the article confines and limits the right to be exercised “within the borders of each State”. It is worthy of note that prior to 1914 the right to freedom of movement was much wider and less restricted than it is today. It is an irony that so long as the means of travel were restricted, travel itself was freer; when the means were improved and travel became faster, man’s free dom to avail himself of these facilities was subjected