Islam and Human Rights — Page 110
Isl am and Hum an R ights 110 into a country. Thus the operation of the article is circumscribed by the immigration laws of different States and their regulations concerning passports, visas, and entry and exit permits. In today’s conditions that is perhaps unavoidable but it is none-the-less regrettable. The world seems at the moment to be held firmly to the pattern of a conglomeration of nat ional States, with all the divisive, disruptive, disturbing and dangerous policies, tendencies and consequences thereby generated and maintained in a state of intensive ferment. The dangers and threats inherent in this pattern are being realized and appraised more and more widely, and movements towards closer relations, regional and continental, are developing. In the meantime one must, one supposes, reconcile oneself to the prevailing pattern and make the best of it. The primary function of religion is to create and strengthen faith in a Beneficent Creator and in the hierarchy of values within the purview of religion, where the moral and the spiritual must take precedence over the rest, though Islam seeks to bring about beneficent adjustment in all spheres of life. Islam, while taking note of the diversity of tongues and colours and describing them as Signs from which