human rights in islam essay

Human Rights in Islam

'allamah abu al-'a'la mawdudi al tawhid journal, vol. iv no. 3 rajab-ramadhan 1407, chapter one human rights, the west and islam, the western approach:, the islamic approach:.

Those who do not judge by what God has sent down are the dis Believers (kafirun). 5:44

CHAPTER TWO BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS

Whosoever kills a human being without (any reason like) man slaughter, or corruption on earth, it is as though he had killed all mankind ... (5:32)

Do not kill a soul which Allah has made sacred except through the due process of law ... (6:151)

And in their wealth there is acknowledged right for the needy and destitute. (51:19)

The Slave Trade of Western Nations:

The position of slavery in islam:, chapter three rights of citizens in an islamic state.

You are the best community which has been brought forth for mankind. You command what is proper and forbid what is improper and you believe in God ... (3:110)

CHAPTER FOUR RIGHTS OF ENEMIES AT WAR

Law of war and peace in islam:, the rights of the non-combatants:, the rights of the combatants:, conclusion:.

This is a brief sketch of those rights which fourteen hundred years ago Islam gave to man, to those who were at war with each other and to the citizens of its state, which every believer regards as sacred as law. On the one hand, it refreshes and strengthens our faith in Islam when we realize that even in this modern age which makes such loud claims of progress and enlightenment, the world has not been able to produce juster and more equitable laws than those given 1400 years ago. On the other hand it hurts one's feelings that Muslims are in possession of such a splendid and comprehensive system of law and yet they look forward for guidance to those leaders of the West who could not have dreamed of attaining those heights of truth and justice which was achieved a long time ago. Even more painful than this is the realization that throughout the world the rulers who claim to be Muslims have made disobedience to their God and the Prophet as the basis and foundation of their government. May God have mercy on them and give them the true guidance.

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Human Rights in Islam

First of all, we want to clarify that Islam preceded all in laying down rules and regulations that aim at preserving human honour and dignity. This is clear in Allah’s words: “Verily We have honored the children of Adam. We carry them on the land and the sea, and have made provision of good things for them, and have preferred them above many of those whom We created with a marked preferment.” (Al-Isra’: 70) To shed more light on this issue, we’d like to cite for you the following: “ Basic Human Rights We have already seen that every person has certain basic human rights simply because he is a human being, whether he belongs to this country or that, whether he is a believer or unbeliever, or whether he lives in a forest or in a desert. It is the duty of every Muslim to recognize these rights. They are: 1. The Right to Life The first and foremost basic right is the right to life. The Glorious Qur’an says: “If anyone slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people.” (Al-Ma’idah: 32) The propriety of taking life in retaliation for murder or for spreading corruption can be decided only by a proper court of law. During a war only a properly established government can decide it. In any event, the Qur’an makes clear: “Do not kill a soul which Allah has made sacred except through the due process of law.” (Al-An`am: 151) Homicide is thus distinguished from destruction of life carried out in the pursuit of justice. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has declared homicide as the greatest sin after polytheism. He said, “The greatest sins are to associate something with Allah and to kill human beings.” In all these verses of the Qur’an and the hadiths of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) the word ‘soul’ ( nafs ) has been used in general terms. It does not refer only to those of one’s own tribe, race, religion or country. The injunction applies to all human beings. 2. The Right to the Safety of Life Immediately after the verse in the Qur’an which has been mentioned in connection with the right to life, Allah says: “And whoever saves a life it is as though he had saved the lives of all mankind.” (Al-Ma’idah: 32) There can be several forms of saving someone from death. If a man is ill or wounded it is one’s duty to get him medical help. If he is dying of starvation, it is one’s duty for feed him. If he is drowning, it is one’s duty to rescue him. Thus, it is regarded as one’s duty to save every human life, because it is enjoined in the Qur’an. 3. Respect for the Chastity of Women The third important element in the charter of human rights granted by Islam is a woman’s honor, which must be respected and protected at all times, regardless of her origins. A Muslim must not physically abuse her under any circumstances. All promiscuous relationships are forbidden to him. The words of the Qur’an, in this respect, are: “Do not approach (the bounds) of adultery .” (Al-Isra’: 32) Heavy punishment has been prescribed for this crime, and no mitigating circumstances are indicated. Since the violation of the chastity of a woman is forbidden in Islam, a Muslim who perpetrates this crime cannot escape punishment – whether he receives it in this world or in the Hereafter. Apart from individual lapses, it can never be found in the history of Islam that Muslims commit this crime against woman. It has never happened that after the conquest of a foreign country the Muslim army has gone about raping women, or, in their own country, the Muslim government has provided prostitutes for them. 4. The Right to a Basic Standard of Living Speaking about economic rights, the Qur’an enjoins its followers: “And in their wealth there is acknowledged right for the needy and destitute.” (Adh-Dhariyat: 19) The wording of this injunction shows that it is categorical and unqualified. Furthermore, this injunction was given in Makkah where there was no Muslim society in existence and where the Muslim came in contact mostly with non-Muslims. According to this verse, anyone who asks for help and is suffering from deprivation has a right to share in the property and wealth of a Muslim, irrespective of his origins. If one is in a position to help and a needy person asks for help or if one comes to know that he is in need, then it is one’s duty to help him. 5. The Individual’s Right to Freedom Islam has categorically forbidden the primitive practice of capturing a free human being to make him a slave or to sell him into slavery. On this point the unequivocal words of the Prophet (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) are as follows: “There are three categories of people against whom I shall myself be a plaintiff on the Day of Judgment. Of these three, one who enslaves a free man, then sells him and spends this money.” ( Al-Bukhari and Ibn Majah) This hadith does not qualify or restrict this ruling to a particular nation, race, or religion. The Position of Slavery in Islam Islam tried to solve the problem of the slaves that were already in Arabia by encouraging people to set them free. Muslims were told that freeing slaves would mean the expiation of some of their sins. Freeing a slave of one’s own free will was declared to be an act of such great merit that the limbs of the man who manumitted a slave would be protected from hell-fire-one for each limb of the slave freed. The result of this policy was that, by the time of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, all the old slaves of Arabia had been liberated. The Prophet (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) alone liberated as many as 63 slaves. The number of slaves freed by `A’ishah was 67; Abbas liberated 70; `Abdullah Ibn `Umar liberated 1000; and `Abd al-Rahman purchased 30,000 and set them free. Other Companions of the Prophet liberated a large number of slaves, the details of which are given in the hadiths and history books of that period. 6. The Right to Justice This is a very important and valuable right, which Islam has given to man. The Qur’an has laid down: “Do not let your hatred of a people incite you to aggression” (Al-Ma’idah: 3), and “Do not let ill-will towards any folk incite you so that you swerve from dealing justly. Be just; that is nearest to heedfulness” (Al-Ma’idah: 8). Stressing this point the Qur’an again says: “You who believe stand steadfast before Allah as witness for (truth and) fair play” (An-Nisa’: 135). The point is thus made clear that Muslims have to be just not only to their friends but also their enemies. 7. The Equality of Human Beings Islam not only recognizes the principle of absolute equality between men irrespective of color, race or nationality, it makes it an important reality. Almighty Allah has laid down in the Qur’an: “O mankind, we have created you from a male and female.” In other words, all human beings are brothers. They all are the descendants from one father and one mother. The Qur’an says, “And we set you up as nations and tribes so that you may be able to recognize each other” (Al-Hujrat: 13). This means that the division of human beings into nations, races, groups and tribes is for the sake of distinction, so that people of one race or tribe may meet and be acquainted with people belonging to another race or tribe and co-operate with one another. This division of the human race is neither meant for one nation to take pride in its superiority over others, nor for one nation to treat another with contempt. Allah says, “Indeed, the noblest among you before Allah are the most heedful of you” (Al-Hujrat: 13). That is, the superiority of one man over another is only on the basis of piety, purity of character and high morals, and not color, race, language or nationality. People are, therefore, not justified in assuming airs of superiority over other human beings. Nor do the righteous have any special privileges over others. This has been thus exemplified by the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in one of his sayings: “No Arab has any superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over a black man, or the black man any superiority over the white man. You are all the children of Adam, and Adam was created from clay.” (Bayhaqi and Bazzaz) In this manner Islam established the principle of equality of the entire human race and struck at the very root of all distinctions based on colour, race, language or nationality. According to Islam, Allah has given man this right of equality as a birthright. No man should therefore be discriminated against on the grounds of the color of his skin, his place of birth, the race or the nation in which he was born. 8. The Right to Cooperate and not to Cooperate Islam has prescribed a general principle of paramount importance and universal application. The Holy Qur’an says: “Cooperate with one another for virtue and heedfulness and do not cooperate with one another for the purpose of vice and aggression.” (Al-Ma’idah: 2) This means that anyone who undertakes noble and righteous work, irrespective of whether he is living at the North Pole or the South Pole, has the right to expect support and active co-operation from Muslims. But he who practices vice and aggression, even if he is one’s closest relation or neighbor, does not have the right to our support and help in the name of race, country, language or nationality, nor should he expect Muslims to co-operate with him. The wicked and vicious person may be our own brother, but he is not of us, and he can have no help or support from us as long as he does not repent. On the other hand, the man who is doing deeds of virtue and righteousness may have no kinship with Muslims, but Muslims will be his Companions and support; or at least his well-wishers. Conclusion This is a brief sketch of those rights which, 1400 years ago, Islam gave to man, to those who were at war with each other and to the citizens of its state. It refreshes and strengthens our faith in Islam when we realize that even in this modern age, which makes such loud claims of progress and enlightenment, the world has not been able to produce more just and equitable laws than those given 1400 years ago. On the other hand, it is saddening to realize that Muslims nonetheless often rely on the West for guidance.”

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Human rights in islam 8 min read.

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By: Azra Awan

Islam’s Model of Human Rights: A Comprehensive and Progressive Vision

We live in an age that is striking in its unprecedented technological sophistication. Unfortunately, the prejudices and inequities that have plagued the human race historically continue to exist, and are responsible for untold human suffering. It is in this context that the subject of human rights is especially pertinent. This brochure explains the origins of human rights in Islam, detailing the comprehensive and progressive entitlements Islam advocates on various issues afflicting the world today.

What constitutes human rights? Can we come to a common understanding of these liberties and thereby ensure that these are universally granted to every member of society? These questions have been the subject of historic documents such as the Magna Carta, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, the American Bill of Rights and the Geneva Convention.

How Islam Promotes Justice, Equality, and Brotherhood

What is often overlooked, however, is that these questions have also been addressed by various religious traditions. The Islamic model of human rights in particular is striking in its rigor, its vision and its relevance to modern times. The distinguishing feature of human entitlements in Islam is that they are the natural outcome of a broader practice of faith, deeds and social behavior that Muslims believe are divinely mandated. The Quran, the holy book of Islam, says:

God commands justice, doing good, and generosity towards relatives and He forbids what is shameful, blameworthy, and oppressive. He teaches you, so that you may take heed. (16:90)

Muhammad (peace be upon him), the final prophet of Islam, established the very first Islamic society which eliminated the spiritual and social problems rampant in the Arabian Peninsula. Freedom of religion was instituted in Medina; women were honored and respected as equals; racial discrimination was practically eliminated; tribal warfare was replaced with united ties of brotherhood; usury and alcohol were completely forbidden. As Karen Armstrong, a renowned author of books on comparative religion, has expressed, “Muhammad … was a dazzling success, politically as well as spiritually, and Islam went from strength to strength to strength.”

The Divinely Prescribed Rights of Islam: A Model for the Modern World

Islam’s contribution to human rights is best appreciated when viewed against the backdrop of world history as well as the realities of modern times. Social, racial, gender, and religious inequities continue to exist. Economic and social disparities have resulted in oppression of the lower classes; racial prejudices have been the cause of subjugation and enslavement of people with darker skin; women have been weighed down by chauvinistic attitudes, and pervasive attitudes of religious superiority have led to widespread persecution of people with different beliefs.

When considering the question of human rights and Islam, it is important to distinguish the divinely prescribed rights of Islam from potential misinterpretation and misapplication by imperfect human beings. Just as Western societies still fight against racism and discrimination, many Muslim societies struggle to fully implement the rights outlined in Islam.

Dignity and Equality

Human rights in Islam stem from two foundational principles: dignity and equality. Dignity is a fundamental right of every human being merely by virtue of his or her humanity. As God states in the Quran, “We have honored the children of Adam and carried them by land and sea; We have provided good sustenance for them and favored them specially above many of those We have created” (17:70).

Regarding equality, God (Allah in Arabic) clearly declares that in His sight, the only distinguishing factors between humans are righteousness and piety: “People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another. In God’s eyes, the most honored of you are the ones most mindful of Him: God is all knowing, all aware” (49:13).

The diversity of humanity into many races and ethnicities is a testament to God’s majesty and wisdom. Therefore, racial superiority and discrimination is prohibited in Islam and contradicts its essence. This concept is exemplified in the final sermon of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) who proclaimed:

No Arab has any superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab. Nor does a white man have any superiority over a black man, or the black man any superiority over the white man. You are all the children of Adam, and Adam was created from clay.

Women’s Rights

So many of the human rights violations are committed against women in this world. Under the laws of Islam, women have the right to own property and businesses, engage in financial transactions, vote, receive inheritance, obtain an education and participate in legal and political affairs. The fact that some Muslim societies do not always accord women all these liberties is an example of how human beings can fall short of fully implementing the Divine Will.

Both men and women have responsibilities towards their families and societies as is clear from the following verse: “The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practice regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise” (Quran, 9:71).

God promises in the Quran, “If any do deeds of righteousness – be they male or female – and have faith, they will enter Heaven, and not the least injustice will be done to them” (4:124).

The Birthrights of Life and Security

In Islam, life is a sacred trust from God and the most basic right of a human being. No individual is permitted to take the life of another, unless it is for justice administered by a competent court following due process of law.

God recognizes this right in the Quran, “ Nor take life – which Allah has made sacred – except for just cause” (17:33). He also says, “…if anyone kills a person – unless in retribution for murder or spreading corruption in the land – it is as if he kills all mankind while if any saves a life it is as if he saves the lives of all mankind ” (5:32).

Not only do human beings have the right not to be harmed, they have the right to be safeguarded from harm, physical or otherwise. For instance, under Islamic law, people are legally liable for not preventing a blind man from dying of a perilous fall, if they were in a position to save him.

How Islam Promotes Human Rights Even in Wartime

Even during war, Islam enjoins that one deals with the enemy nobly on the battlefield. Enemy soldiers and prisoners of war are not to be tortured or mutilated under any circumstances. Islam has also drawn a clear line of distinction between combatants and non-combatants.

As far as the non-combatant population is concerned, such as women, children and the elderly, etc., the instructions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) are as follows: “Do not kill any old person, any child or any woman” and “Do not kill the monks in monasteries.” Hence, non-combatants are guaranteed security of life even if their nation is at war with an Islamic state.

Freedom of Belief

Contrary to popular misconceptions, a genuine Islamic republic is obligated to not only permit but respect diversity. Thus, non-Muslims within an Islamic territory are allowed to worship in accordance with their religion. There are many examples of this historically.

When Muslims began ruling Palestine in 637 C.E., they invited the Jewish people to live in Jerusalem after 500 years of exile. In 1187 C.E., after retaking Palestine from the Crusaders, Muslims treated Christians with honor despite the brutality they had endured at the hands of the Crusaders. Christians were allowed to leave in peace or to stay in harmony.

While Spain was under Muslim rule, the city of Cordova was considered the intellectual center of Europe, where students went to study philosophy, science and medicine under Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars. This rich and sophisticated society took a tolerant view towards other faiths, while peaceful coexistence was unheard of in the rest of Europe. The historian James Burke mentions in his book, The Day the Universe Changed , that thousands of Jews and Christians lived in safety and harmony with their Muslim overlords in Muslim Spain.

The Right to a Basic Standard of Life

A basic standard of life includes the minimum essentials necessary for survival, such as food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anyone deprived of these necessities is entitled to receive aid in order to meet their needs. It is the duty of every Muslim with adequate means to give from their wealth, in order to eradicate poverty from society.

Describing the righteous believers in the Quran, God reminds that they are those who give a “rightful share of their wealth to the beggar and the deprived” (51:19). The Islamic state is also obligated to spend from its treasury to support the poor and disadvantaged.

The Entitlement to Justice

Islam requires that Muslims possess upright character and deal justly with the entire human race, irrespective of their ethnicity, nationality, creed and whether they are a friend or foe.

God says in the Quran, “ You who believe, be steadfast in your devotion to God and bear witness impartially: do not let hatred of others lead you away from justice, but adhere to justice, for that is closer to awareness of God. Be mindful of God: God is well aware of all that you do ” (5:8).

Reflecting on the concept of justice in Islam, Sarojini Naidu, the Nightingale of India, stated in a speech, “The sense of justice that Islam encompasses is one of the most wonderful ideals of Islam, because, as I read in the Qur’an, I find those dynamic principles of life, not mystic but practical ethics for the daily conduct of life suited to the whole world.”

Rights and Mutual Responsibility

From the foregoing discussion, it is clear that Islamic law has divinely mandated rights for individuals in their specific roles as spouse, parent, child, relative, neighbor, friend and even foe. In its distribution of rights and responsibilities, Islam has addressed the social, racial, gender, and sectarian issues plaguing our global society. Indeed, the model of rights and mutual responsibilities enshrined in Islam has a tremendous potential for individual and social reform in the world.

Note: Note: The “peace be upon him” next to Prophet Muhammad, represents the invocation Muslims say with his name as a form of respect.

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Human rights from an islamic perspective: a critical review of arabic peer-reviewed articles.

1. Introduction

1.1. origins of the debates on human rights and islam, 1.2. research on implementation of human rights in muslim countries, 1.3. research on foundations of human rights in religious texts, 1.4. human rights and debates on western hegonomy, 2. materials and methods, 2.1. framing theory as a methodology for analysis of texts on human rights, 2.2. search procedure and criteria for selection of publications, 2.3. transliteration and translation of arabic sources, 3.1. human rights definition and its foundations.

Those benefits that derive their originality from Divine Revelation and Islamic thought. Those benefits that derive their originality from Divine Revelation and Islamic thought since the advent of the Messenger (God’s blessings and peace be upon him) and the rising sun of Islam, apart from man-made laws, social norms, and international agreements. These rights are closely related to the human being, that creature whom God has honoured above all other creatures.

The general view of human rights and their Western sources did not come from a vacuum. Rather, they came from suffering, and most of them were Western philosophers and scholars who suffered from barbarism and falsifying the facts. Some of these philosophers studied Islamic jurisprudence and history. ( Qusailah 2020, p. 676 )

Human rights in Islam are from the core of belief and Shari’a. They are not a favour by people toward each other. They are related to the legal costs and duties that result in reward or punishment. ( Alrashid et al. 2021, p. 134 )

The position of Islam toward individual intellectual freedom is not different from its position toward general intellectualism. Islam has never attempted to impose on the minds a specific scientific theory regarding any phenomenon. ( Alrashid et al. 2021, p. 134 )

3.2. Defining the Problem

Western domination and tyranny, coupled with media manipulation to assert control and intellectual dominance over numerous nations, particularly Arab and Islamic ones, has resulted in the erosion of the Islamic perspective on the matter and related issues. This has instilled in many Muslims the belief that the only path to securing their rights is through submission to the West, either voluntarily or unwillingly, and tolerating all forms of degradation and insult.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights cannot carry out its work in preserving human rights due to the failure of some countries to respond to and implement this declaration, as its application is subject to the criteria of various forces in this world, while under the Islamic state, man enjoys the freedom of belief and religion, and he has absolute freedom to choose any religion.

3.3. Identifying the Forces of the Problem

The culture, media, and politics of the world today are interested in the continuous talk about human rights, which has become a subject taught since childhood, in which the Western model is presented through international humanitarian law and the Charter of the United Nations. However, the Islamic civilized model has consciously and intentionally been neglected, with the aim of concealing or distorting the model of the Islamic state in its various eras as a state that protected human rights and secured them with respect to lives, beliefs, and property.

3.4. Judgments and Moral Evaluations

Proceeding from the great importance of human rights, especially after the deterioration of the human condition today, and the misuse of the issue on the part of the enemies of Islam , and given that many of the principles and laws of human rights stem from Western thought and its material values, truncated from moral and spiritual values . (our bold)

The Islamic view on human rights includes all kinds of intellectual rights, beliefs, the right to work, the right to education, the right to life, and other rights that are distinguished from contemporary human rights by originality, independence, and balance . ( our bold )

3.5. Suggesting the Solutions

• The belief that human rights are divine, which makes them not subject to material force, and their interpretation does not depend on the human interests and the particular desires of individuals.
• Not linking rights to their national level but rather to their global level that transcends national borders.
• Commitment to human rights is a divine approach that is not subject to any changes or legal amendments and is not subject to human discussion, as they are fixed divine rules that are not subject to discussion, modification, or change.
• Commitment to human rights by describing this obligation as the performance of religious duties and in fulfilment of divine commands.
• Based on these arguments, the implication is that people should work to believe in Islamic Shari’a because it is not possible to apply this approach without a belief in the divine origin of Islamic Shari’a. In other words, the proposed solution is directed at believers in Islam, extolling them to adopt more fundamentalist interpretations of Islam in their own lives, as well as increasing their efforts to work for the spread of Islam and establish global forms of governance ruled by these principles.

4. Discussion

5. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Almahfali, M.; Avery, H. Human Rights from an Islamic Perspective: A Critical Review of Arabic Peer-Reviewed Articles. Soc. Sci. 2023 , 12 , 106. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12020106

Almahfali M, Avery H. Human Rights from an Islamic Perspective: A Critical Review of Arabic Peer-Reviewed Articles. Social Sciences . 2023; 12(2):106. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12020106

Almahfali, Mohammed, and Helen Avery. 2023. "Human Rights from an Islamic Perspective: A Critical Review of Arabic Peer-Reviewed Articles" Social Sciences 12, no. 2: 106. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12020106

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Islam at a Glance

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Human Rights in Islam (part 1 of 3): Rights for all of Humankind

Description: power and politics in human rights..

• By Aisha Stacey (© 2009 IslamReligion.com)
• Published on 29 Jun 2009
• Last modified on 24 Mar 2019
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While nobody denies that there are certain inalienable human rights, just what those rights are is often subject to fierce debate.  While some cultures focus on individual rights and freedoms, others are more concerned with rights that ensure the survival of communities.  The world is populated by diverse nations and tribes so it makes sense that laws and declarations made by human beings are not going to be universally accepted no matter how morally upstanding they are.

God says in the Quran:

“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another.” (Quran 49:13)

From this, we see that interaction between nations is normal and desirable.  However, it is part of the nature of humankind to be jealous and at times self-serving.  Islam takes into account these vagaries of human nature, and therefore looks to the supreme Creator for guidance.  Human rights and responsibilities are enshrined in Islam; they are the foundation for the Sharia (Jurisprudential law).

There is no doubt that around the world, abuses of human rights are being perpetrated, often in the name of religion and sadly sometimes in the name of Islam.  However, it is important to recognise that just because a country is known as Islamic, this does not mean that it automatically follows the laws sent down by God.  It is also important to realise that not all Muslims understand and follow their religion.  Culture often dictates action.  Of course, the same can be said of all religions.  Throughout history, humankind has used the name of God to justify unspeakable acts.

The planet earth stumbled into the 21 st century beset by wars, famines and great social unrest, therefore today’s catch phrases espouse the supposed remedy; freedom, democracy, and reconciliation.  Human rights have understandably become paramount.  Governments, non Government organizations, and religious and charity groups have all spoken about equality and inalienable rights.  The United Nations was formed to stand as a beacon of hope for understanding and joint initiatives but in actuality it is a toothless tiger, unable to reach agreement on most resolutions and unable to enforce the resolutions that do pass.

More than 1400 years ago, God sent down the Quran, a book of guidance for all of humankind.  He also chose Muhammad as the final Prophet; he was the human being capable of leading humankind into a new era of tolerance, respect, and justice.  The words of Quran and the authentic traditions of Prophet Muhammad contain rights and responsibilities granted by God to humankind.  They are not subject to the whims and desires of men or women and they do not change as borders or governments shift and settle, sometimes unrelentingly.

The United Nations proclaimed the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.  It set out, in 30 articles,  the fundamental rights to be universally protected and described them as, designed to promote, “ universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms [1] ”.   The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights went on to describe these rights as inherent to all human beings regardless of sex, race, creed, or colour and declared them indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated.  In the following 60 years other declarations, treaties, and committees have come into existence, all focusing their efforts on ensuring the rights of various groups within varied societies. 

The tenants of Islam include a basic set of rules designed to protect individual rights and freedoms, however the rights of individuals are not permitted to infringe upon the rights of communities.  Islam is a doctrine concerned with respect, tolerance, justice, and equality and the Islamic concepts of freedom and human rights are imbedded in the faith in the One God.  If humankind is to live in peace and security, he or she must obey the commands of God..

Muslims believe that God is the sole Creator and Sustainer of humankind and the universe.  He has given each human being dignity and honour and the human rights and privileges we enjoy are granted by Him.  The rights granted by God are designed for everybody.  One person is not more worthy of protection than another is.  Each person is entitled to sustenance, shelter, and security and if some people are denied their God given rights, it is the responsibility of the rest of humankind to restore those rights.

“O you who believe!  Stand out firmly for God, be just witnesses, and let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice.  Be just: that is nearer to piety, and fear God.  Verily, God is well acquainted with what you do.” (Quran 5:8)

Power and authority narratives have become entrenched in human rights advocacy.  Legislation and unenforceable treaties cannot protect the downtrodden and oppressed.  However, Islam proclaims that God treats all human beings equally and true human rights can only be achieved by obedience to Him.  In the following series of articles, we will examine the 30 articles of the Declaration of Human Rights and compare them to the Islamic standpoint and the reality of life in the 21 st century.

[1] (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)

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Islam and Human Rights: A 50 Year Retrospective

The debate on Islam and human rights is roughly 50 years old. During this time a vast literature has been produced analyzing the relationship between the religion of Islam, Muslims societies and international human rights norms. What have we learned during this time that can further an understanding of this topic among students, scholars and members of the general public? What analytical framework is optimal? Is the crisis of human rights in Muslims societies a function of internal conditions, external factors or are they to be located within the framework of Islamic doctrine, traditions, the shariah in particular? This article grapples with these questions by looking back over the past five decades. The objective of this essay is to advance an objective framework of analysis for understanding the debate on Islam and human rights. A historical and comparative approach is adopted. Key moments that have shaped the debate on Islam and human rights are recalled. Significant political developments that have shaped the contours of the debate are examined such as the legacy of colonialism, the rise of political Islam, the role of Western policy and the failure of the post-colonial state in the Arab-Islamic world. The contributions of influential scholars and activists who have advanced the struggle for human rights in Muslims societies are also recognized in this article.

When future intellectual historians look back on the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the debate on Islam and human rights will feature quite prominently. The reasons for this are not difficult to discern. This debate overlaps with several important themes, events and controversies that have shaped the political and moral landscape of the past 40 years.

A short list of these events would include: the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the mainstreaming of political Islam in the Middle East; the Israel-Palestine Conflict; the Salman Rushdie Affair; Turkey’s quest for admission into the EU; the rise, fall and return of the Taliban; the Danish Cartoon Controversy; l’affaire du foulard (hejab) in France and Quebec and the debate on secularism, the question of multiculturalism, immigration, and debates on pluralism and reasonable accommodation. Also of critical importance are the Al Qaeda terror attacks on 9/11 and the subsequent American-British occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the emergence of ISIS, and finally, the global rise of authoritarian populism, a right-wing ideology for which anti-Muslim bigotry is a key component. [1] In all these cases, the question of Islam, Muslims and human rights has been front and center in the public, intellectual and policy debate.

The relationship between Islam and human rights matters for several additional reasons. According to the Pew Research Center, 25 percent of the global population today is Muslim. By 2050 almost one-third of the planet will be Muslim. [2] Islam is the second largest religion in the world, it produces the largest number of converts, and 49 countries have a Muslim majority population. Significant Muslim minority populations also exist in India, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, where their status is subject to debate, disagreement, discrimination and even genocide (in the case of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uyghurs in China). [3]

1 The Colonial and Post-Colonial Context

Islam and human rights are often discussed as a form of binary opposites in a Kiplingesque manner, with scant attention given to the lived historical reality: the long 20th century where Muslim women and men engaged with the ideals of human rights and democratization. It could be said these new intellectual formations occurred during the age of European empires and colonial conquest, decolonization, and the establishment of Muslim authoritarian states where human rights were observed more often in the breach. The age of European empires brought social and political changes to Muslim-majority societies. The old order and traditional hierarchies were displaced. New social and political formations and movements emerged. It is during this era that Muslim politico-religious movements emerged, which would later be called Islamist. They were largely reactive, reactionary and concerned with expelling the European colonizers and the dangerous ideals they had introduced in society.

To complicate matters further, there was a contestation of Islamic traditions taking place within the Muslim world. Much of nineteenth and twentieth-century Islamic intellectual thought was framed by the encounter with the colonizing West. Liberal Islamic thinkers believed that the West’s strengths needed to be emulated or indigenized: whether in reference to the struggle for gender equality, human rights, or constitutionalism, as democracy was called in the early part of the twentieth century. The Islamists or fundamentalists felt that Western influences needed to be expelled along with the colonizer.

Islamist and liberal Islamic thinkers are the flip side of the same coin: both were shaped by the twentieth-century engagement with the West and Western colonization of Muslim lands. Revivalists ironically borrowed liberally from illiberal Western traditions. Consider Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903–1979) the enormously influential Islamist intellectual who argued, “I wanted to rid them [Westernized Muslim intellectuals] of the wrong notion that they needed to borrow from others in the matter of culture and civilization.” [4] His definition of jihad, however, is worth examining: “In reality Islam is a revolutionary ideology and programme which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals. ‘Muslim’ is the title of that International Revolutionary Party organized by Islam to carry into effect its revolutionary programme. And ‘Jihad’ refers to that revolutionary struggle and utmost exertion which the Islamic party brings into play to achieve this objective.” [5] Here Mawdudi borrows from a European vocabulary. In a very real sense Islam is redefined, and new meanings are poured into familiar words. Is it any wonder that traditionalist contemporaries of Mawdudi considered his understanding of Islam to be errant and akin to a new religion?

However, it is the “liberal” Muslim reformer who was derided as inauthentic, a phenomenon that the late Wilfred Cantwell Smith wrote about so presciently in the 1950s. [6] Islamists also defined much of contemporary Muslim society as being un-Islamic. We thus need to understand that the Islamist’s claim to authenticity is at the very least suspect and that there has been and is a contestation of Islamic tradition taking place.

Scholarship to date on “Islam and human rights” has narrowly focused on opposition of Islamist ideologues and movements to global human rights norms. It also has tended to narrowly frame the question as the alleged incompatibility between Islam writ large with human rights. This narrow framing absolves state actors from responsibility for perpetrating grave human rights abuses. Consider the Syrian and Iraqi regimes which have acted with near genocidal impunity. The narrative framing of Baathist Iraq and Assadist Syria was one of modernizing states that were engaged in resisting radical Islamists, which made committing grave violations of human rights permissible as the lesser of two evils. It also diverted attention from authoritarianism, indeed despotic elites that refused to share power and resisted democracy by using a praetorian guard directed at its citizenry.

2 The Origins

It is difficult to locate the intellectual origins of the debate on Islam and human rights with precision. Until the late 1970s, the subject rarely came up. In the early years of the United Nations, there was little controversy. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted in 1948, along with two subsequent covenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1966, Muslim states and participants were largely supportive.

Muslims participated and played an important role in drafting and discussing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They discussed the primacy of individual rights versus the authority of the state, women’s rights in marriage, and religious freedom. They not only played an important role in moving this nascent human rights project forward but also in universalizing these newly defined norms. Susan Waltz notes:

Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, Foreign Minister of Pakistan and head of Pakistan’s UN delegation in 1948, did not enter the debate on the UDHR until the final days of its review. However, he made a long lasting impression with strong words about freedom of religion, which he addressed to the UNGA in plenary session. In 1949, when the Commission began its work of drafting the covenants several other individuals rose to the fore, including Bedia Afnan from Iraq, Jawaat Mufti from Syria, and Abdul Rahman Pazhwak from Afghanistan. Pazhwak served as chair of the Commission in 1963, as did Egypt’s Mahmoud Azmi in 1953. [7]

Shaista Ikramullah was a member of the Third Committee, a Pakistani delegate, and with Eleanor Roosevelt, was the only Muslim woman to have participated in the actual drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She took a strong interest in the formulation of Article 16 which explicitly championed equal rights of women and men in marriage. Ambassador Ikramullah later said “it was imperative that the peoples of the world should recognize the existence of a code of civilized behaviour which would apply not only in international relations, but also in domestic affairs.” [8] A pioneering female human rights thinker in an era of global male chauvinism, she later became a member of the committee on the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” and noted later with sorrow that states did not wish to have their sovereignty infringed upon, and expressed regret that the sections dealing with “cultural genocide” [9] were removed.

Ikramullah later observed there were Western nations that believed the draft declaration went too far. South Africa fell into this category. Western nations following the Anglo-American lead believed that the focus should be on individual rights and not with the responsibilities of the state. Ideological divisions between the Soviet Union and Western nations were starting to emerge. Few scholars of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are familiar with her, and she has been largely relegated to the margins of history, including in Muslims societies.

Saudi Arabia abstained in its vote on the UDHR at the UN General Assembly. According to research by Susan Walz, Muslim states made important and substantive contributions to all three foundational UN documents on human rights. While some objections were raised by Muslim delegates on the question of women’s equality and the right to change religion, none of these objections prevented Muslim states from formally endorsing international standards for human rights.

This was clearly reflected in the 1972 charter of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to which all Muslim states belong. The UN Charter and basic human rights are viewed as entirely compatible with Islamic values in this document. The preamble states:

Resolved to preserve Islamic spiritual, ethical, social and economic values, which will remain one of the most important factors of achieving progress for mankind;

Reaffirming their commitment to the U.N. Charter and fundamental Human Rights, the purposes and principles which provide the basis for fruitful cooperation amongst all people; [10]

The OIC Charter was ratified in 1974. In 1990, however, the OIC announced the publication of a new document – the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. This document differed significantly from international human rights norms. Article 22 (a), for example, states that “everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the shariah .” The content of shariah and who had authority to interpret it was left deliberately vague. This shift can be explained by two factors. At the level of the state, Muslim ruling elites sought to perpetuate their authoritarian rule by manipulating religion in the service of political power. At the level of society, Islamist opposition groups, used identity politics to demand a rewriting of laws to conform with a new understanding of Islamic authenticity.

These trends in Muslim politics have led to a corruption of Islam’s ethical heritage and its human rights potential. According to Khaled Abou El Fadl, modern “Islamic thinking … has remained reactive … [in] that it defines its position vis-à-vis democracy … or human rights, always with an eye toward how the other defines himself.” [11] The other, in this case, is the hegemonic West. Developing this thought further, Abou El Fadl observes:

In the age of post-colonialism, Muslims have become preoccupied with the attempt to remedy a collective feeling of powerlessness and a frustrating sense of political defeat, often by engaging in sensational acts of power symbolism. The normative imperatives and intellectual subtleties of the Islamic moral tradition are not treated with the analytic and critical rigor they rightly deserve, but are rendered subservient to political expedience and symbolic displays of power. [12]

He describes this condition and the identity that is constructed around it as resulting from the predominance of a “theology of power.” [13] Abou El Fadl also notes that this new way of constructing a Muslim identity marks a radical rupture with the Islamic past and is “thoroughly a by-product of colonialism and modernity.” The Islamist groups that he is critiquing

define Islam as an ideology of nationalistic defiance of the other, a rather vulgar form of obstructionism vis-à-vis the hegemony of the Western world. Therefore, instead of Islam being a moral vision given to humanity, it becomes constructed into the antithesis of the West. In the world constructed by these groups, there is no Islam; there is only opposition to the West. [14]

3 A Turning Point

The late 1970s was a turning point in the global debate on Islam and human rights. It is noteworthy that the interest in the subject arose in the West after Euro-American economic and political interests in the Middle East had begun to be threatened. The toppling of the pro-Western monarchy in Iran by Islamic revolutionaries in 1979 was a key moment in this context. In the decades before this event, there was little concern in the West (among intellectuals or government officials) about Islamic fundamentalism in Saudi Arabia, for example. Even after the revolution in Iran, the West openly supported Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan to counter the Soviet occupation, while simultaneously decrying it in Iran. [15]

The 1979 Iranian Revolution coincided with a new trend in Muslim politics. Religiously inspired protest movements were asserting themselves in a bid to obtain political power across the Middle East and North Africa. Their goal was a comprehensive religiously based transformation of state and society. The post-colonial secular state had failed, they argued, and the answer was a return to a new politicized understanding of religion. In Pakistan and Malaysia, ruling parties sought to exploit this wave of Muslim identity politics to retain power, by passing laws based on a literalist reading of the Qur’an. Known as the Hudud Ordinances in Pakistan, these new laws sought to impose harsh penalties for theft, the consumption of alcohol, extra-marital sex, blasphemy and apostasy. In Malaysia, a similar process unfolded in the 1980s, albeit more gradually, based on an updating and expansion of the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965. [16] These developments, which took place in other Muslim states to varying degrees, contributed to a new global debate on Islam, Muslims and human rights.

The end of the Cold War was another critical moment. “There are a good many people who think the war between communism and the West is about to be replaced by a war between the West and Muslims,” observed William Pfaff in The New Yorker in 1991. [17] A flurry of articles and books soon appeared that echoed and affirmed this sentiment, from Francis Fukuyama’s thesis on “The End of History” and Bernard Lewis’ essay on “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” to Robert Kaplan’s suggestion about “The Coming Anarchy” and most influentially, Samuel P. Huntington’s essay on “The Clash of Civilizations.” Collectively, these influential Western intellectuals reinforced the idea that the Islamic faith and Muslim civilization are incompatible with liberty, democracy, human rights, gender equality and other emancipatory principles. [18]

As early as 1991, Fukuyama suggested that after the Cold War “the world will henceforth be divided along different lines, with the Third World and Islamic world defining the main axis of conflict.” [19] Huntington was more explicit. The “underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization, whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” [20] Conor Cruise O’Brien, the famous Irish man of letters, took it a step further.

“Muslim society looks profoundly repulsive … It looks repulsive because it is repulsive … A Westerner who claims to admire Muslim society, while still adhering to Western values, is either a hypocrite or an ignoramus or a bit of both. At the heart of the matter is the Muslim family, an abominable institution …. Arab and Muslim society is sick, and has been sick for a long time. In the last century, the Arab [sic] thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick, and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.” [21]

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, appeared to confirm this grim prognosis. For Robert Kaplan, Samuel Huntington’s thesis on the clash of civilizations was vindicated by the actions of Osama Bin Laden, while Bernard Lewis observed that Al Qaeda “do not differ from the mainstream [of Muslims] on questions of theology and the interpretation of scripture.” [22] With this critique, the floodgates opened, and an interest in all things related to Islam and Muslims, including human rights, developed at a dizzying rate. Largely forgotten in this debate, however, was the fact that on September 11th, Islam did not attack the United States, Al Qaeda did. Equating the two became a point of departure for widespread public, intellectual, policy debate, as well as grand theorizing about the Muslim world. Disaggregating Islam from Osama Bin Laden became increasingly difficult in this emotionally charged context. In the ensuing years, objective analysis was further complicated by a massive American and British military presence in Iraq that in turn produced an Iraqi insurgency led by Al Qaeda.

The hysteria resurfaced with the rise of ISIS in 2014. In a widely read cover story in The Atlantic (and later book), “What ISIS Really Wants,” Graeme Wood argued that ISIS was not an aberration but rather an authentic reflection of Islamic civilizational values. He quoted the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel in support of his view. Muslims who rejected the Islamic authenticity of ISIS, Haykel affirmed are “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion … [that neglects] what their religion has historically and legally required.” [23]

Paraphrasing Haykel, Wood wrote that “the fighters of the Islamic State are authentic throwbacks to early Islam and are faithfully reproducing its norms of war. This behavior includes a number of practices that modern Muslims tend to prefer not to acknowledge as integral to their sacred texts. ‘Slavery, crucifixion, and beheadings are not something that freakish [jihadists] are cherry-picking from the medieval tradition’, Haykel said.” American Muslims “cannot condemn slavery or crucifixion out-right without contradicting the Koran and the example of the Prophet.” To do so would be “an act of apostasy.” The worst part of the ISIS phenomenon, Wood concluded, was that “they live among us.” [24]

4 Beyond Orientalism: A Critical Engagement

It would be insufficient to leave the conversation here. While media bias and an Orientalist construction of the debate on Islam and human rights has been analytically distorting, there are huge problems within Muslim societies that cannot be ignored. First, an obvious but often ignored point is that Muslims do not exist as a monolith. A range of views exist on Islam and human rights, from liberal to conservative, to many shades in between. Firm positions, however, have been adopted by influential Muslim organizations, Islamic scholars and political leaders that have produced an ethical chasm between these positions and international human rights standards. [25] In short, an interpretation of Islam premised on a literal reading of the Qur’an and a conservative application of the shariah , have contributed to a human rights crisis both normatively and practically in many Muslim societies. The key points of conflict are the following: legal equality for women, equal citizenship rights for non-Muslims, freedom of religion and the question of apostasy, freedom of speech versus attempts to limit free speech in the name of blasphemy.

The debate on these issues, however, has not been static. Contrary to the common Western view, considerable evolution, transformation and reinterpretation has taken place. Muslim reformers have led the way in a serious effort to reformulate Islamic norms in a modern context. Whether these new ethical readings of Islam will carry favor among the majority of Muslims, is open to debate. Significant shifts have already occurred, particularly in the realm of women’s equality and largely due to the work of organically connected Muslim women’s rights activists. [26]

Furthermore, the dire socio-economic and political conditions afflicting Muslim majority societies cannot be ignored. This context fundamentally shapes the moral contours of the debate on Islam and human rights and informs ideas and attitudes within Muslim societies. One could argue that the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are the dark days of Muslim history, replete with torture states, corrupt ruling elites, repressed civil societies, and detention centers overflowing with political detainees. Authoritarian regimes are ascendent everywhere, while democratic opposition groups and social protest movements are severely repressed, especially in the Middle East and North Africa.

When judged by key indicators such as democratic development (civil and political rights), press freedom, censorship, women’s representation, the status of minorities, and state-sanctioned executions, the countries of the Islamic world, the Arab world in particular, have some of the lowest scores in the world. [27] Adding to this grim picture is the expansion of mass poverty and economic destitution for hundreds of millions of Muslims. Data on global inequality reveals that the Middle East, despite an abundance of wealth, has some of the highest wealth inequality scores in the world. The World Inequality Lab (co-directed by Thomas Piketty) reports that “the Middle East [is] the world’s most unequal region [where] the top 10% capture 61% of national income.” Oxfam has confirmed this finding while observing that the coronavirus pandemic has significantly expanded the problem of mass pauperization across the region. [28]

The picture becomes bleaker still. According to the 2021 Global Peace Index (GPI), the “Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remained the world’s least peaceful region.” Many of the most unstable countries in the world are located here. As a result, the Global Peace Index observes that conflict in the Middle East has been the key driver of the global deterioration in peacefulness since 2008.” [29]

In their annual report on “10 Conflicts to Watch in 2021,” the International Crisis Group confirmed that seven out of 10 of the most destabilizing world conflicts were in the Arab-Islamic world. [30] This overlaps with another key statistic. Among the world’s refugee population, Muslims constitute the clear majority. The top seven countries of origin that account for the most refugees in the world today, involve Muslim populations. Among the top 10 refugee hosting countries, seven are Muslim majority. [31]

This is the socio-economic and political backdrop that informs the debate on Islam and human rights today within Muslim societies. The playing field is far from level. Two points need emphasizing. First, the greatest violators of human rights in the Muslim world are not militant groups but states. Witness Syria, where since 2011, more than half a million people have been killed. According to Human Rights Watch, 90% of these deaths are directly attributable to the policies of the Assad regime (backed by Russia and Iran), including the repeated use of chemical weapons. [32]

State violators of human rights can be found throughout the Muslim world with few exceptions. One key reason that determines this is state capacity. Using the power that modern technology provides in terms of surveillance and monitoring, the lives of citizens can be controlled and repressed. Non-state actors cannot compete with authoritarian states in this area, as the state has a near monopoly on the means of violence.

Consider the 10 most populous states in the Middle East: Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, the UAE and Israel. In all these cases, with the possible exception of Iraq, it is the state that is responsible for the vast majority of human rights violations. In the past decade alone, several cases stand out. In 2013, after a military coup in Egypt, more than a thousand peaceful protesters were killed by the Egyptian regime, in Raba’a al-Adawiya massacre in Cairo. Human Rights Watch described this as a “likely crime against humanity”, and “what may have been the worst single-day killing of protesters in modern history.” [33]

Another massacre took place in Iran in November 2019. Rising fuel prices triggered nationwide street protests that were ruthlessly suppressed. The Internet was shut down and within the span of a few days, 1500 people were killed by security forces in various Iranian towns and cities in what Amnesty International called “a killing spree.” [34] While the Turkish government has not been as brutal in terms of repression, under President Erdoğan, Turkey has held the distinction of being the “biggest jailer of journalists in the world”. [35] Thousands of academics, judges and government employees have been fired and prosecuted on baseless charges in the post 2016 crackdown. [36]

And then there is Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has distinguished himself in several ways. He masterminded the murder and dismemberment of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As Minister of Defense, he oversees the war in Yemen, which has been characterized by well-documented war crimes, and an ongoing famine that has produced “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world” according to the United Nations. Internally, Mohammed Bin Salman presides over a brutal police state that arrests women’s rights activists, dissident theologians, intellectuals, and even members of his own family. In March 2022, Saudi Arabia undertook the largest mass execution in its history. Eighty-one people were killed in one day. Forty-one of them were from Saudi Arabia’s shia minority.

The Israel-Palestine conflict continues to produce mass violence, especially against Palestinians. During the past 12 years there have been five major eruptions of violence, nearly all in Gaza: Operation Cast Lead (2008–2009); Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), Operation Protective Edge (2014), The Great March of Return (2018) and Sheikh Jarrah/Gaza war (2021). The dead have been mostly Palestinian. For example, during the 2008–2009 war, human rights groups documented nearly 1400 Palestinians deaths, of which four-fifths were civilians, including 350 children. Ten Israeli soldiers were killed, four of them by friendly fire, as well as three civilians. The ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed was more than 100:1 and the ratio of Palestinian civilians to Israeli civilians killed was 400:1. [37] This ratio roughly holds true during moments of mass deaths between Palestinians and Israelis.

The question of Palestine or, to be precise, the newly dispossessed Palestinians also figured in discussions by the framers of the UDHR. The distinguished French jurist René Cassin who played a prominent role in the framing of the UDHR and was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, came to view the Palestinian refugee issue as one that would be solved by population transfer. Cassin, by the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, described his relationship with Israel as one of “complete admiration” viewing the Palestinians as a mere refugee problem requiring “a humane solution” but critically, not based on the right to return, which he supported for Jews. [38] This view is not based on a universal set of human rights norms but one that derives from illiberal ethnocentric chauvinism and bias.

In many of the cases of mass violence in the Middle East, a complicating factor that shapes Muslim attitudes toward human rights, are the double standards of Western liberal democracies. Several of the biggest violators of human rights in the Arab world, are strong allies of the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. These liberal democracies frequently invoke the values of the European Enlightenment, yet their foreign policies toward the Muslim world are often at odds with their vocal support for human rights and democracy. Reflecting on this problem, Eqbal Ahmad, the late Pakistani dissident intellectual observed:

Our first encounter with democracy was oppressive. Democracy came to us as oppressors, as colonizers, as violators. As violators, they spoke in the language of the Enlightenment and engaged in the activities of barbarians …. Secondly, after decolonization our experience was again with the democratic power centers, the United States, France [and] Britain. Our experience, even in [the] second stage of our post-colonial history, was one of these big Western powers calling themselves the ‘Free World’ and … actively promoting neo-fascism and neo-fascist governments in one Muslim country and Third World country after another. Historically the United States has spoken of democracy and has supported Somozas, Trujillos, Mobutu Sese Seko, Suharto of Indonesia, the Shah of Iran, Zia ul Haq of Pakistan ….Therefore, our first experience with democracy was one of outright oppression, and our second experience with democracy was one in which [the West] promoted fascism, global fascism in some cases. [39]

These double standards have consequences. They further complicate the moral and ethical debate on Islam and human rights within Muslim societies. Many Muslims are perplexed as to whether the West is a model or a menace? They wonder how to differentiate between the ideals of human rights, first articulated and codified by Western governments and applied to their own citizens, versus the actual practice of Western policy that often negates these ideals when it comes to relations with the Islamic world. Western support for Israel at the expense of the human and national rights of the Palestinians perfectly illustrates this point. The Iraq war, the Abu Ghraib prison, Guantánamo Bay and ongoing Euro-American support for brutal dictators in the Middle East all complicate internal Muslim debates on Islam and human rights.

Given this context, there is a case to be made for Muslim exceptionalism. The Princeton scholar, L. Carl Brown, has noted that decades after the end of colonialism, “the Middle East remains the most penetrated international relations subsystem in today’s world.” [40] When other religious communities were grappling with how to reconcile tradition with modernity in the context of an emerging debate on human rights, they did not face the distorting effects produced by ongoing Western intervention and imperialism. Arguably, this fact is unique to the Arab-Islamic world. It deeply effects the moral context in which Muslims engage with the question of human rights. As a result, it cannot be ignored.

5 Conclusion

In seeking analytical clarity, posing the right question matters. Instead of asking whether Islam is compatible with human rights, the better question to pursue is under what social conditions can human rights be advanced in Muslim societies? There are several benefits to this approach.

First, keep in mind an obvious but often ignored fact. There is no uniform entity called Islam, just as there is no monolithic Christianity or Judaism. There are only Muslims living in specific social and cultural contexts, and at specific moments in time, responding to the world around them. Islamic history matters profoundly, but it does not determine the future. More significant is the local, regional and international environment in which this Islamic history and heritage is understood and interpreted. As Anthony Chase observes, “it is the political, social, and economic context that explains the status of human rights, for better or for worse; Islam is neither responsible for rights violations nor the core basis for advancing rights.” [41]

A word about political context, violence and scriptural hermeneutics. Qur’anic interpretation undertaken in contexts where there is political freedom, a social safety net and the rule of law, will look very different than an interpretation by someone living in poverty, in a closed society, under a torture state. In other words, violent interpretations of Islam that we have witnessed over the past 45 years, often mirror the state-sanctioned violence Muslims have struggled against during the same period.

Many of the most prominent advocates of violent revolution in the Arab-Islamic world, from Sayyid Qutb to Abu Musab al-Zarkawi to Ayman al-Zawahiri, are products of prison systems where they have spent years in prison, subjected to unspeakable cruelty. It is unsurprising, therefore, that people exposed to prolonged torture and extreme interrogation conclude that violence is a legitimate political tool. According to the Palestinian Islamist, Khaled Abu Hilal, “prison is my university,” a point that was also eloquently made a hundred years ago by the Russian author and Marxist revolutionary, Maxim Gorky.

A people brought up in a school that reminds one of the torments of hell on a small scale; a people accustomed to the clenched-fist, prison, and the whip, will not be blest with a tender heart. A people that the police agents have ridden over will be capable in their turn of walking over the bodies of others. In a country where unrest has reigned so long it is difficult for the people to realize from one day to the next the power of right. One cannot demand from a man who has never known justice that he should be just. [42]

This draws our attention to the structural conditions in Arab-Islamic world that produce radical and violent interpretations of Islam. Changing these structural conditions will help advance the struggle for human rights in Muslim societies.

This article has taken a broad historical approach by identifying evolving, cyclical, and reactive patterns of human rights discourses during the 20th century. It has asserted that Muslim thinkers and activists have contributed to the evolution of global human rights and they have championing these norms in their host societies. We have emphasized the necessary task of identifying those prominent thinkers and voices both female and male that have championed human rights as authentic and congruent with historical antecedents of Islamic traditions of pluralism and tolerance. At one time, they were the norm, ascendant, and not the exception.

It is therefore no surprise that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to three Muslim women in the past two decades. These women have championed human rights: Shirin Ebadi (2003), Tawakkol Karman (2011), and Malala Youfsafzai (2017), and to this list Mohamad Yunus (2009) should be added. Shirin Ebadi was the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to secure the human rights of women and children in Iran. Tawakkol Karman was the first Arab and Yemeni to receive the prize for her contributions during the Arab Spring. Malala Yousafzai as a child activist supported the rights of girls to an education in Swat, Pakistan and was the target of a Taliban assassination attempt, narrowly escaping death. She is also the first ethnic Pashtun to be awarded the Nobel Prize and the second Pakistani to receive one. She identifies herself as a “feminist and Muslim.” These standard bearers for human rights illustrate a simple truism: Muslim women’s movements are the locomotive for human rights advancement in Muslim societies whether it be Muslim girls in Afghanistan bravely resisting Taliban denial of access to education or Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian NGO that advances women’s and minority rights in Malaysia.

We see at this moment of history, neo-traditional, populist, and reactive authoritarian forces ascendant globally. Islamist movements (scholars in the 1960s described them more accurately as religious nationalists) bear more than a passing resemblance to newly ascendant Western and Asian nationalists and populists. Both are reactive forces to profound societal dislocations: demographic, economic, and political.

Michael Sells, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School, has defined fundamentalism in the following manner: “A stubborn belief in an unchanging, essentialist, monotonic identity for both self and other that refuses to acknowledge any counter evidence, an irrational inability to see the diversity of identity in each of us. Fanaticism might be defined as the collapsing of identities into a single association.” [43] This definition is sufficiently broad to allow scrutiny of both religious and nationalist exclusionary ideologies. Moreover, it helps us to understand how the nationalist ideologue and the fundamentalist share the same construction of identity—one that is reactive, resistant to pluralism, and visceral in rejecting the larger currents of societal change (for example, demographic shifts in Europe, and the development of a middle class and educated women in Muslim-majority societies). Moving forward, these movements will be a significant, but not the only obstacle, to the realization of human rights in Muslim societies.

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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Human Rights by Abdulkader Tayob LAST REVIEWED: 14 December 2009 LAST MODIFIED: 14 December 2009 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0036

Introduction.

The study of Islam and human rights looks at the relationship between a specific culture and way of life on the one hand and a set of universal values and legal instruments on the other. Agreements and charters on various aspects of human rights were presented and adopted by the United Nations, which was established soon after World War II. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 was followed by other agreements and instruments on economic and social rights; on the rights of children, migrant workers and their families, and other vulnerable groups and individuals; and against racial and gender discrimination. In the discussion on Islam and human rights, Islam was represented by states and in public debate. At the formal level of the United Nations, Islam was represented by specific Muslim states and their legal and religious institutions. Since 1948 and particularly after the 1970s, the relationship between Islam and human rights has increasingly been debated by religious scholars, secular intellectuals, activists, and ordinary Muslims.

Aftermath of World War II

Discussion on the relationship between Islam and human rights is dominated by Islamic law and its particular contradictions with human rights schemes. The seminal Khadduri 1946 essay seems to have set the framework for thinking about these contradictions. However, Khadduri also reflected on the possibility of change in Islamic law through the influence of modernizing movements. Some of the regional studies on these modernizing developments are important for understanding the meaning and breadth of modernization and Islamic modernism ( Hourani 1970 , Mardin 1962 , Ahmad 1967 ). These studies shed light on the extent and degree of political modernization promoted by intellectuals, a process in which human rights would, directly or indirectly, play a role. A related issue raised by a few Muslim intellectuals in the postwar years was the right of Muslims to establish ideological states. Most Muslims were part of broader national movements for liberation, and they themselves did not think too extensively about the right to form their own states. However, some were already expounding such ideas within the framework of the quest for national sovereignty ( Hamidullah 1973 ).

Ahmad, Aziz. Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857–1964 . London: Oxford University Press, 1967.

A comprehensive account of Islamic modernism in the Indian subcontinent from the 18th century. It documents the leading figures who promoted a distinctive modernist approach to individual freedom, justice, community, and nation.

Hamidullah, Muhammad. Muslim Conduct of State: Being a Treatise on Siyar, that is, Islamic Notion of Public International Law, Consisting of the Laws of Peace, War, and Neutrality, Together with Precedents From Orthodox Practice and Preceded By a Historical and General Introduction . 6th revised and enlarged ed. Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1973.

First published in German in 1935 and translated into many languages. The book was clearly written within the framework of the United Nations and the sovereignty of states. Hamidullah proposed the right of Muslims to found states on the basis of their distinct ideology (Islam). His argument was followed by other thinkers.

Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939 . London: Oxford University Press, 1970.

First published in 1962, Hourani documents the extensive development of modern Islamic thought and secular movements in the Arabic world.

Khadduri, Majid. “Human Rights in Islam.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 243.1 (1946): 77–81.

DOI: 10.1177/000271624624300115

The concept of human rights is not alien to Islam, in which the “Koran is [the] constitution and the bill of rights of the Islamic state.” There were several limitations of rights in the premodern Islamic legal framework, however, particularly against women and non-Muslim groups, but Muslims in the 1940s appeared to be progressing toward their resolution in the process of modernization

Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah. Islam and Human Rights . Islamabad, Pakistan: Islam International Publications Ltd., 1989.

First published in 1967, this is a statement in support of human rights by the Pakistani foreign minister, who represented his country at the United Nations in 1948. Human rights were legal instruments, but human beings needed to “to deepen … consciousness of the duties we owe to each other at the moral and spiritual levels” (p. 14). This was something that religion and culture could contribute.

Mardin, Serif. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas . Princeton Oriental Studies 21. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962.

A study of modernization in the Ottoman Empire, as a counterpart to Ahmad 1967 and Hourani 1970 on the Arab and Indian traditions.

McDonough, Sheila. The Authority of the Past: A Study of Three Muslim Modernists . Chambersburg, PA: American Academy of Religion, 1970.

An important monograph on ethical approaches pursued by Indian modernists (e.g., Khan, Iqbal, and Parwez). More recent reformist positions still draw on some of these arguments.

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Islam and Human Rights

Book by Khaled El Fadl, Riffat Hassan, Saad Ibrahim, Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Robert Pastor, Recep Senturk and Shireen T. Hunter, with Huma Malik (eds.)

Published July 1, 2005

Advancing a U.S.-Muslim Dialogue

"These state-of-the-art essays represent a major advance in the conversation on Islam and human rights. With an innovative blend of historical, conceptual, and geopolitical perspectives, Islam and Human Rights claims a distinct place for itself by its well-integrated coverage of all relevant issues.... Invaluable to scholars and policymakers alike."--Peter Mandaville, Director, Center for Global Studies, George Mason University "The distinguished authors dispassionately analyse an emotive subject and offer a constructive guide to how Muslims themselves can advance a progressive agenda and the United States can reconcile its interests and ideals.... Speaks thoughtfully to the concerns of policymakers, journalists, and the informed public."--James Piscatori, Fellow, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies In the last few years, issues related to human rights, including encouraging the democratization of Muslim societies from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, have acquired great importance in shaping the character of U.S.-Muslim relations and U.S. policy toward Muslim countries. An important impetus behind this development were the tragic events of 9/11, which demonstrated the destructive potential of militant groups that use a distorted interpretation of Islam as justification for their actions. These events also led to a greater realization by the United States--and the West--that a lack of democracy and lack of respect for human rights have been contributory factors to the rise of militant Islam. Consequently, in its approach toward the Muslim world, the United States has emphasized the themes of human rights and democracy. Within the Islamic world, too, both secular and moderate Islamists have begun focusing on issues related to human rights. Although many conservative Muslims believe that Islam is incompatible with Western notions of democracy and human rights, reformist Muslim thinkers and activists maintain that a proper reading of Islamic injunctions and the ethical values underpinning those injunctions shows there is no such incompatibility. Complicating the debate is the fact that many Muslims--secular as well as conservative and reformist--doubt the seriousness of the U.S. commitment to the cause of human rights and democracy in the Muslim world, believing that the United States applies human rights' standards selectively to suit its strategic and economic interests. Irrespective of the validity of these charges, they are part of the context of the U.S.-Muslim dialogue on human rights. And it is this complex dialogue that this volume seeks to advance. Shireen T. Hunter is director of the CSIS Islam Program; author of Islam in Russia (M.E. Sharpe/CSIS, 2004) and The Future of Islam and the West (Praeger/CSIS, 1998); coeditor, with Huma Malik, of Modernization, Democracy, and Islam (Praeger/CSIS, 2005); and editor of Islam, Europe’s Second Religion (Praeger/CSIS, 2002). Huma Malik is deputy director of the CSIS Islam Program.

Khaled El Fadl, Riffat Hassan, Saad Ibrahim, Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Robert Pastor, Recep Senturk

Shireen t. hunter, with huma malik (eds.).

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Those who argue for an Islamic conception of human rights agree that it is essential for a connection to be made between international human rights law and Islamic values if human rights are to gain widespread acceptance among Muslims. This chapter outlines the most important Islamic textual sources of authority and legal tools that can be used in this endeavour.

Muslim thinkers and scholars who argue for an Islamic conception of human rights, in general, agree that it is essential for a connection between international human rights and Islamic values to be established if the human rights discourse is to gain widespread support among Muslims. For many Muslims, an Islamic conception of human rights should be based on the authoritative texts of Islam, namely, the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 11/632), as well as the principles of Islamic law, as there is a close connection between Muslim discourses on human rights and Islamic law. Therefore, it is important for us to commence our journey exploring Islam and human rights with a brief look at the most important sources of Islamic law and at least some understanding of what Islamic law is. With this in mind, this chapter will first set out the most important Islamic textual sources and legal tools that can be used in this pursuit, briefly recounting some of the history of their development and exploring their potential in developing an Islamic conception of human rights.

THE SOURCES OF ISLAMIC LAW

While Muslims consider the Qur’an to be the Word of God, it is not a legal code. Instead, the Qur’an describes itself as “guidance for humankind” (Q. 2:185). According to Muslim belief, the Qur’an was revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad over a period stretching from 610 to 632 CE, while he lived in Mecca and Medina. These revelations became the foundation for the Prophet’s practical and ethical teachings and guidance. Importantly, the particular guidance and teaching that the Qur’an provided to the Prophet and his followers were closely connected to the context of the seventh century CE. Moreover, as the community’s situation changed, so did the Qur’an’s instructions.

The society into which the Qur’an was revealed had a different understanding of individual and collective rights to that which exists in many parts of the world today. But despite such differences, I argue that much of the guidance provided in the Qur’an can be applied to our context today. There are only a few verses that are clearly not applicable to the contemporary period. I do not believe that these verses pose an obstacle to the construction of an Islamic human rights discourse. Throughout this book I will highlight some of the verses that appear problematic, as well as those that offer clear pathways towards a conception of human rights that can operate in an Islamic framework.

The most significant such pathway is the Qur’an’s insistence on recognising the dignity of the human person. The Qur’an says, “We created human beings in the finest state.” (Q. 95:4) The Qur’an also declares that: “We have honoured the children of Adam” (Q 17:70) and, in describing Adam’s creation, “I breathed from My Spirit into him.” (Q. 38:72) Thus, a unique dignity was granted through God’s very act of the creation of Adam, and in particular His breathing into him of His Spirit. Since all of humanity is, according Muslim belief, descended from Adam, every human being possesses this God-given dignity. 1

In contemporary Muslim scholarship on human rights, it is quite common to find references to these Qur’anic verses, with scholars highlighting the similarities that certain human rights have to the message of the Qur’an. Since God is the primary authority in Islam and the Qur’an is, for Muslims, the very Word of God, to cite the Qur’an in support of a particular human right gives this position great legitimacy. However, this can work both ways. It is equally possible to reject certain rights while drawing on the Qur’an for justification. Qur’anic verses can and have been interpreted towards a variety of ends.

In my view, if the context of any given verse is given proper consideration, the Qur’an can be of great help in developing an Islamic human rights discourse. This is not simply a matter of trying to read certain meanings into relevant Qur’anic texts to support a particular right. Such texts need to be read within the broader framework of the values and norms that the Qur’an contains. It is important to consider how any given text was understood in the early centuries of Islam; how it is understood today; and how this may or may not be applied to contemporary issues. The interpretation of such texts will, of course, vary from period to period, but I agree with Fazlur Rahman that it is always possible to find meaning that remains as a core value, transcending time and place. 2 It is these core values that can be drawn upon to argue in support of particular human rights within an Islamic framework.

Hadith or Traditions of the Prophet

The second important authority in Islam that can be used in developing a meaningful Islamic human rights discourse is the “traditions” of the Prophet, known as the hadith. The hadith are the documentation of the Prophet’s example or normative behaviour. An example of hadith relevant to the discourse on human rights are the reports of the Prophet’s famous Farewell Sermon, delivered in 10/632:

O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust.

Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you.

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have rights over you.

Treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers.

All humankind is from Adam and Eve; an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab and a non-Arab has no superiority over an Arab; a white has no superiority over a black and a black has no superiority over a white, except by piety and good action. 3

Even though the Prophet lived in the early part of the seventh century CE in Mecca and Medina, his practice and teachings still have relevance to the contemporary period and need to be taken seriously. Given the sheer number of relevant hadith texts and their importance in Islamic legal tradition, it is impossible not to refer to hadith when developing an Islamic conception of human rights based on the practice of the Prophet. Indeed, some Muslim scholars argue that there are a wide range of hadith texts that are extremely relevant to contemporary thinking on human rights. The problem then arises: on what basis can Muslims differentiate between hadith texts that support human rights, and those that may not?

A key issue to be aware of when discussing hadith is that of historical authenticity. While Muslims consider the Qur’anic text to be historically reliable because it was compiled very soon after the Prophet died, the recording of hadith occurred differently. The first generation of Muslims were not particularly keen on putting together a reliable collection of hadith for future generations. This unfortunately resulted in a proliferation of unreliable hadith among the second and third generations of Muslims and beyond. When political conflict was rife among early Muslims in the post-prophetic period, hadith were deliberately manipulated and in some cases entirely created in the service of political and ideological ends. Many hadith on the same subject thus may have contradictory messages. Sometimes, understanding the context may help to determine the true message of the hadith in question, but in other cases these contradictions cannot be overcome. Moreover, while the Qur’an quickly became a closed text, the hadith corpus was never a single, fixed document. Rather, they were proliferate and unregulated, and the reports that emerged contained both true prophetic example and inauthentic material.

To address the issue of authenticity, some scholars made it their project to scrutinise the chain of transmission of every hadith in public circulation. Through this analysis, these scholars were able to put together a number of hadith collections that Muslims deemed (to varying degrees) “reliable”. Such collections began to emerge in the second century of Islam, continuing into the third and fourth centuries. Eventually, six major hadith collections came to be considered canonical, and remain so today for Sunni Muslims. However, the problem of contradiction continues to exist. Even when referring to the most “authentic” reports, it is still possible to find contradictory material within the hadith sources.

Traditional hadith scholarship relied heavily on the practice of scrutinising the chains of transmission to determine authenticity, but in contemporary Islamic scholarship there is a tendency to question this dependence. Following this view, those hadith that create difficulties for a contemporary human rights discourse might be subjected to further critical analysis. This might include interpreting them in light of their social and historical context, as well as the more traditional scrutiny of their chains of transmission. When a greater awareness of context is reached, it is possible to conclude that some of these hadith are simply no longer applicable in their literal form; alternatively, they might have a deeper message that transcends the literal meaning.

Ijma’ (Consensus)

Apart from its two primary sources—the Qur’an and hadith—Islamic legal tradition deploys other tools that are also relevant here. One of these is ijma’ or the consensus of the community (usually understood to be that of the jurists), which is considered a secondary source of law. Like many other issues or concepts within Islam, there are different ways of conceptualising “consensus”, and there is no final agreement on what consensus means. However, what is clear is that consensus concerns initial disagreement and diversity of views around a particular issue, and then a collectively agreed upon position developing over time. The source of authority on which it appears to be based is Q. 4:59, which states: “You who believe, obey God and the Messenger, and those in authority among you. If you are in dispute over any matter, refer it to God and the Messenger.” A hadith attributed to the Prophet also states, “My community will never agree on an error.” 4

The actual process of consensus therefore involves arriving at a collectively acceptable position after a process of discussion and debate. Such debates may take place over decades or even centuries, but when consensus is achieved, it carries a very high degree of authority. Some examples of consensus that have remained authoritative since the time of the Prophet include the importance of the five daily prayers, the practice of zakat (the obligatory alms tax), and the belief that the Qur’an is revelation from God.

In relation to human rights, Muslim scholars in the past came to a consensus on the idea that in certain cases human beings could be bought and sold. This notion of slavery was accepted in the Islamic legal tradition and was practised by Muslim societies up until the modern period. However, almost all Muslim scholars now argue that this consensus does not have any authority today. In fact, slavery in the sense of buying and selling human beings was abolished in all Muslim societies, where it was practised, in the twentieth century. This means that even though there may have been consensus on certain issues in the past, such consensus can be challenged in the modern period because of the significant differences between the context of the modern period and of the past.

Qiyas (Analogical Reasoning)

The final tool that is used to derive Islamic law is analogy or qiyas . Analogical reasoning has always been important in Islamic legal tradition. In fact, a large number of rules that are part of what we call Islamic law today were actually developed using analogy, based on the Qur’an and hadith. Given that there are very few texts in the Qur’an that are specifically related to matters of law, and the limitations in using hadith (discussed above), qiyas was regularly deployed to expand and apply what was textually available to a wider range of situations and circumstances. 5 As an example, Q. 2:219 clearly prohibits the consumption of wine. The rationale behind this prohibition, according to many jurists, is the effect of alcohol on the mind. Based on this rationale, any product that produces the same effects, such as narcotics, can be considered prohibited by analogy, thus expanding the scope of the rule. 6

Without analogical reasoning, Islamic law as we know it probably would not have developed. It is because of analogy that we have such a comprehensive system of rules, regulations and laws in classical Islamic legal sources for addressing most aspects of life. However as people living in the twenty-first century, we may not necessarily agree with all the precepts that Muslim jurists developed during the early period of Islam. The twenty-first century is a very different time compared to the pre-modern period, and thus calls for different understandings, particularly in the area of rights. This is where analogical reasoning is crucial today: it is possible to use analogy to broaden our understanding of an Islamic conception of human rights and to develop new ideas or positions in relation to particular human rights.

THE SHARI’A OR ISLAMIC LAW

I will now turn to an overview of the development of Islamic law—the Shari’a—with particular emphasis on the features of that development which lend themselves to the modern discourse on human rights.

Meaning and Historical Development

‘Shari’a’ is the term usually associated with the idea of “Islamic law”. The term occurs once in the Qur’an, where it designates a divinely appointed path: “Now we have set you on a clear religious path ( shari’a ), so follow it.” (Q. 45:18) The term is linguistically associated with notions of “the way” or “the road”. From this, the Shari’a is considered to be the path set out by God for Muslims to follow in order to achieve salvation. It refers to the totality of the guidance contained in the Qur’an and Sunna (the normative example of Prophet Muhammad).

Although Shari’a is the term most commonly associated with Islamic law, it is important to distinguish between Shari’a and fiqh . The word fiqh originally meant “understanding” or “discernment” in a general sense, and it occurs in the Qur’an and hadith with that meaning. 7 With the development of separate disciplines of law, theology, and asceticism in the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries, fiqh came to refer only to legal knowledge. Gradually, Shari’a and fiqh also came to be differentiated. “Shari’a” came to refer to the totality of God’s law in its perfect state, whereas “ fiqh ” referred to specific rulings obtained by interpreting the primary texts of the Qur’an and hadith using the tools referred to above. 8 Thus, for Muslims, while the source of the Shari’a is God, fiqh comes from human effort. Despite these differences, in the modern period (and also throughout this book), “Islamic law” and “Shari’a” are often used synonymously.

It is important to emphasise that Shari’a or “Islamic law” is not a unified body of law. Within it there are many schools of legal thought and, on any particular legal or moral issue, there may be a wide range of divergent views. On the one hand, this makes the task of determining whether human rights norms and Islamic law can be reconciled more difficult; on the other, it also allows considerable scope for finding compatibilities.

The Historical Development of the Shari’a: Four Key Stages

As I have written elsewhere, 9 the early development of the Shari’a (or Islamic law) can be divided into four stages. The first stage was the period when the Qur’an was revealed. At this time the Qur’an set down laws related to the individual (such as prayers and fasting) and for society more broadly (such as marriage, commercial transactions, and criminal law). All of these laws reoriented society towards a new, universal set of norms that transcended the previous pre-Islamic focus on kinship and tribal allegiance. 10

The laws of the Qur’an were not arbitrary—they aimed to realise certain ideals. These included the creation of a just and compassionate society, as well as instilling personal morality and God-consciousness. 11 By “laws” I refer both to specific rulings as well as more general principles and values. The Qur’an often prescribes conduct but is silent on the details, such as for the prayer and the zakat alms-tax. 12

The second stage occurred after the Prophet’s death. Islamic law was being developed by the Prophet’s Companions utilising ijtihad (individual reasoning). Islam was spreading outside Arabia and coming into contact with other cultures. The Muslim community had to “navigate an uncharted path for which the Qur’an provided little guidance”. 13

The Companions were able to guide the Muslim community in situations where the Qur’an or the Sunna did not provide a specific answer. Alongside the development and use of ijtihad , a type of consultation also existed in the development of law, especially during the time of the first four caliphs, known among Sunni Muslims as “Rightly Guided”. Historical reports point to the existence of a consultative body that could debate points of law and enact new rulings at the time.

The third stage begins with the time of the Successors (the second generation of Muslims), which spanned roughly the Umayyad caliphate from 41/661 to 132/750, up to the early years of the Abbasid caliphate. At this time, some changes took place which affected the trajectory of Islamic legal development. The Umayyads instituted dynastic rule and ended the form of consultation which had existed under the Rashidun (Rightly Guided) caliphs. Also, “law” was increasingly being developed by individual jurists in various key regions of the expanding Muslim caliphate. These jurists continued to practise ijtihad , and their efforts and creativity had a significant impact on the form and content of Islamic law. Their debates, teaching, and opinions are considered part of the raw material for Islamic law.

During this period, the practice of the Prophet and the Companions began to be emphasised as a fundamental source of law. In addition, two distinct approaches towards law and legal theory began to emerge: that of the “people of reason/opinion”, often called “rationalists”, and that of the “people of hadith”, or “traditionists”. 14 While the former emphasised the importance of reason, without neglecting the texts, the latter tended to base their opinions largely on texts (specifically, the Qur’an and hadith). 15 These two approaches struggled for hermeneutic primacy. This struggle was exemplified in the Mihna (inquisition), from 218/833 until 234/848. 16 The Mihna was a critical struggle between the traditionists (led by the hadith scholar Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/855)) and the rationalists (led by a group of rationalist theologians, known as Mu’tazilis, and some Abbasid caliphs). Debate over the status of the Qur’an and whether it was “created” or not led to a much broader debate on the place of human reason in the interpretation of the divinely revealed texts and, by extension, the role of reason in deducing the law. This intellectual struggle ebbed and flowed throughout the early history of Islam, until the fourth/tenth century saw what Wael Hallaq has termed “the great synthesis”. This was in essence a compromise between traditionism and rationalism: “It was the midpoint between the two movements that constituted the normative position of the majority; and it was from this centrist position that Sunnism, the religious and legal ideology of the majority of Muslims, was to emerge”. 17

The combining of the two dominant approaches culminated in the idea “that human reasoning must play a significant role in the law, but can in no way transcend the dictates of revelation”. 18

The final stage of the early development of Islamic law can be described as the rise of the jurists. The evolution of their authority meant that the jurists formed a separate source of legal authority to the caliph, creating a kind of separation of powers. As Hallaq explains:

Those men in possession of a greater store of knowledge grew more influential than others less learned, gaining in the process—by the sheer virtuousness of their knowledge—an authority that began to challenge the legal (but not political) authority of the caliphs. 19

This period began around 150/767 and continued into the third/ninth century. At that time, the major schools of law (the Sunni schools, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali, and the Shi’i Ja’fari school) began to emerge. Once established, these schools began to exercise great authority over the interpretation and application of Islamic law, and the view eventually emerged that somehow the venerated founders of the schools had completed all the necessary tasks of legal analysis and defined all the major intellectual structures of the law . As a result, new ways of looking at the text and constructing or interpreting law were discouraged to some extent in favour of faithfully following what these earlier scholars had done.

ISLAMIC LEGAL CONCEPTS AND STRATEGIES TO ENGAGE WITH INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS NORMS

Since Shari’a (or Islamic law) forms such a central part of Muslim discourses on human rights today, it is important to identify resources from within this tradition that can be used to engage with international human rights norms. There are many concepts and tools that could be used for this purpose, but in this chapter I will identify those that I believe are the most important in this endeavour. In the second half of the book I will explore how Muslim thinkers and scholars are using such resources to harmonise international human rights law and Islamic law.

Human Rights as Binding by Agreement

It is possible to conceive of human rights norms as arising out of international law, and thus binding on all states by agreement. This way of thinking about human rights does not require us to subscribe to particular philosophical justifications, but sees them as an important part of the current legal and political landscape. Muslim-majority states function within a framework of international law and relations that have been established by the international community. Although it is theoretically possible for states to disconnect or isolate themselves from other states, in practice this would be extremely costly politically and economically, to say the least. An important tenet of Islamic law is the requirement to honour one’s agreements. All Muslim-majority countries are member states of the United Nations, and a number of important Muslim jurists have stated the view that the United Nations Charter represents a binding international agreement for Muslim States. In addition, since at least the 1980s, human rights language has been incorporated into trade agreements by major powers such as the United States and European Union. 20 Today, most important trading countries sometimes include human rights provisions in their preferential trade agreements. Some of these are binding. 21 Thus Muslim-majority states must function and interact within a global environment where human rights are strongly valued and considered an important part of the international legal and political framework.

Taking into Consideration the Principle of Darura (Necessity)

A key principle that is highly relevant is that of necessity ( darura ). This Islamic legal concept allows Muslims to depart from an established legal ruling in exceptional circumstances, as long as the result does not go against the fundamental objectives of the Shari’a. The principle of darura can be invoked in a situation where applying the original legal ruling may result in loss or damage to one of the “five fundamentals”: protection of a person’s religion, life, lineage, reason, or property. 22 In such cases, this legal concept of necessity can be used to remove the hardship or risk to the person. 23

A related concept is “need” ( haja ). Haja is defined in Islamic jurisprudence as “those things which put the Muslim in a difficulty, if not fulfilled, even if he/she can do without”. 24 The concept of haja therefore allows the removal of a difficulty that is causing a person hardship. 25 Haja is different from darura because with haja a person’s life is not threatened or in danger from the impediment (nor are any of the five fundamentals at stake); however, without removing the difficulty, the person will face significant hardship. 26 When a haja affects a whole society, the need becomes a “universal need” ( haja ‘amma ). 27 When it becomes such a universal need, then it becomes very similar to necessity.

Both of these concepts are very useful for helping Muslims respond to the international human rights discourse today. Where difficulties or tensions arise in the areas of certain rights, the concepts of necessity and need can be used as a justification for modifying certain traditional legal rulings because of compelling circumstances.

Reliance on Hikma (Rationale and Wisdom)

Another way to address difficulties between Islamic law and international human rights law is to apply the concept of hikma , where the rationale and wisdom behind a Qur’anic or prophetic prescription is taken into account. For instance, as discussed further in Chapter 7, many scholars argue that the rationale behind the Qur’an allowing the practice of polygyny was to ensure justice and protection for vulnerable members of the Muslim community; namely widows and orphans. If Q. 4:3, the verse that sanctions polygyny, is taken literally , without any deeper understanding, it stands in tension with those provisions of human rights law that affirm equality between men and women, particularly in the context of marriage. However, by taking into account the hikma of the verse, the apparent difficulties can be resolved to some extent.

Contextualisation of Relevant Texts

One approach that is useful for addressing tensions between Islamic law and international human rights law is to contextualise, where feasible, those verses of the Qur’an or traditions of the Prophet (hadith) that appear to conflict with international human rights standards. By contextualising these texts, scholars may consider a text’s original purpose, and how this might be applied in today’s context.

However, it is important to keep in mind that contextualising a text is not simply a matter of reading into the text a predetermined meaning. Rather, it is a principled approach that not only takes the linguistic meaning of the text seriously but goes further, and gives consideration to the original context in which the Qur’anic revelation occurred in the early seventh century CE. This includes its political, social, economic, intellectual, and religious context, and the values, norms, and institutions that existed in that society and have a bearing on the particular issue being explored. Through analysis, the interpreter can determine how the text was understood among the first generation of Muslims and in the early periods of Islamic history, as well as within the context of that time.

Once this has been determined, the interpreter will then relate this understanding to the present context. This involves analysing all the relevant aspects of the contemporary context, including its social, political, cultural, economic or intellectual elements, and comparing and contrasting this to the original context of the text. This process will lead to a relevant interpretation of the text, without sacrificing its ultimate objective and fundamental message. Consideration also needs to be given to the concerns and needs of the time; common sense; the sensibilities of the broader religious community; and the fundamental values and practices that the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad emphasised.

Keeping an Eye on the Mutable and Immutable

When contextualising texts of the Qur’an or hadith that are associated with human rights, Muslim scholars often discuss whether a particular ruling or decision associated with a text is changeable or unchangeable (or, in other words, mutable or immutable). Many Muslims would argue that if a ruling is considered so important or fundamental to Islamic law it should not be modified or changed in light of international human rights law and, in such cases, Muslim scholars should not give in to demands made by the international human rights community. While Muslim scholars have explored the idea of mutable and immutable in Islamic law for many centuries, using different terminology and language, it still remains an important concern for Muslims today when engaging with international human rights norms.

Although there is no universally agreed upon definition of what is considered mutable or immutable, it is possible to list categories of rulings that Muslims, in general, consider to be immutable. For example, the fundamental beliefs of Muslims: belief in one God, the prophets, the Scriptures and life after death; the fundamental pillars of Islam: the five daily prayers, fasting, zakat and pilgrimage; and those matters that are clearly made permissible or prohibited in the Qur’an or traditions of the Prophet, such as theft (prohibited) or buying and selling (permitted). These are all considered immutable, and the belief is that no Muslim has the authority to go against them. Beyond this, there may also be other immutables, although they may not have the broad universal agreement that these kinds of fundamentals enjoy.

In the area of human rights, most of the difficulties Muslims experience are not about such universally agreed upon immutables, but about legal rulings where there is less agreement. These rulings often come from a particular scholar’s independent reasoning ( ijtihad ) or may even be the standard position of a particular school of law. In such cases there is room to check whether the ruling is in fact a universally agreed upon immutable or not. For example, in the case of gender equality, there is no universally agreed upon position among Muslims that opposing (or supporting) gender equality is a fundamental value in Islam. Similarly, in the case of Muslim men being able to marry more than one woman, there is no universally agreed upon position which suggests that this is something Muslim men must do. Thus, there is room for Muslim scholars to explore whether such rulings can be rethought in light of our contemporary context and brought in line with contemporary human rights concerns and standards. This gives Muslim scholars significant flexibility to creatively engage with international human rights law; contribute new ideas to this engagement; and to perhaps develop relevant new ‘Islamic’ understandings.

The issue of immutability is particularly important when we examine the engagement of Muslim-majority states with the international human rights treaty regime. The vast majority of states’ objections to particular rights, which can be seen in the reservations made against various articles of the treaties, are by and large not related to immutable issues, as we will see in Chapters 7 to 11.

This chapter has provided a brief overview of the most important sources of Islamic law for any discussion on Islam and human rights today. In developing arguments in favour of human rights or even against human rights, Muslims have relied on these sources as well as methods of interpretation that have been developed over many centuries. While texts can be read in very different ways, what is important is to highlight that within Islamic tradition, there are a large number of texts, ideas, views and interpretations, as well as principles and strategies that provide room for exploring and perhaps even rethinking some of the legal rulings that may have relevance to the kind of concerns articulated in this book. As I will argue, these can be used successfully to develop an Islamic understanding of human rights that is not in conflict with internationally accepted standards and norms. An understanding of these views, principles and strategies is extremely important for engaging successfully in the discourse on Islam and human rights.

LOOKING AT AN ISSUE CLOSELY: THE CASE OF “RIGHTS” IN THE HADITH

The second most important textual authority in Islam after the Qur’an is the collected traditions of the Prophet, known as hadith. Below a number of hadith that support the notion of rights in general or specific substantive rights. In any attempt to provide an Islamic conception of human rights that may form a basis for reconciliation with international human rights law, it is often important to cite the necessary texts from the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet. As we can see below, there are resources in these traditions that can be helpful when developing Islamic arguments in favour of human rights .

•   One of the Companions of the Prophet, Salman said: “Your Lord has a right over you; and your soul has a right over you; and your family has a right over you; so you should give all those who have a right over you their rights.” The Prophet said, “Salman has spoken the truth.” 28

•   The Prophet said: “Whoever has oppressed another person concerning his reputation or anything else, he should beg him to forgive him before the Day of Resurrection when there will be no money [to compensate for wrong deeds]; if he has good deeds, those good deeds will be taken from him according to the oppression he has committed, and if he has no good deeds, the sins of the oppressed person will be loaded onto him.” 29

•   The Prophet said: “On the Day of Judgment, [all] rights will be given to those to whom they are due.” 30

•   When a funeral procession passed by the Prophet, and he stood up, it was said to him, “It is a Jew.” The Prophet said, “Was he not a soul?” 31

•   The Prophet said, “Certainly, I witnessed a pact [of justice] in the house of Abd Allah b. Jud’an which, if I were called to it now in the time of Islam, I would respond. Make such alliances in order to return rights to their people, that no oppressor should have power over the oppressed.” 32 This hadith is regarding the Hilf al-Fudul [Pact of the Virtuous], a pact of justice made by the people of Mecca, including the young Prophet Muhammad, in which they pledged to respect the principles of justice and intervene to support the oppressed, no matter what their tribal affiliation.

•   The Prophet said: “Five are the rights of a Muslim over his brother: returning the greeting of peace; visiting the sick; following the funeral processions; accepting invitations; and saying “God have mercy on you” when someone sneezes. 33

•   The Prophet said during his Farewell Sermon: “Verily, your blood, your property and your honour are sacred to one another, like the sanctity of this day of yours, in this month of yours and in this city of yours.” 34

•   The Prophet said: “Guard [the right of] the two weak ones: the slave and the woman.” 35

•   The Prophet said, “He is not from my nation who does not honour our elders, nor have mercy on our young ones, nor recognize the rights of our scholars.” 36

Apart from the traditions of the Prophet, there are also views expressed by Muslim jurists on issues that are relevant to the human rights discourse today. Below I provide two such views:

•   Abu Bakr al-Sarakhsi (d. 483/1090), a leading Hanafi jurist of the eleventh century CE, said: “When God the Exalted created humanity to carry His Trust (amana ) , He dignified them with reason (‘ aql ) and sacred inviolability ( dhimma ) in order to be responsible for fulfilling the rights ( huquq ) of God placed over them. Then He granted them sanctity (‘ isma ), freedom ( hurriyya ), and property rights, so that they might endure, and be able to carry out the Trust. Hence, this freedom, sanctity, and right of property are established [as a property] of a person at the time they are born. Those capable of discernment ( mumayyiz ) and those who are not are equal in this regard, and likewise sacred inviolability is established at birth whether they are of sound mind or not.” 37

•   Muhammad al-Shaybani (d. 189/805), an eminent early Hanafi jurist, said: “The basic principle ( asl ) is that it is an obligation upon the leader of the Muslims to support those who reside in our country under a covenant of protection ( al-musta’manun ). They must be given recourse against anyone who oppresses them, just as it is an obligation to fulfil the rights of non-Muslim citizens.” 38

1   See Abdullah al-Ahsan, “Law, Religion and Human Dignity in the Muslim World Today: An Examination of OIC’s Cairo Declaration of Human Rights”, Journal of Law and Religion 24(2) (2008–09): 569.

2   See Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 6–7.

3   The Prophet Muhammad, “Prophet Muhammad’s Last Sermon” (Islam The Modern Religion). Available http://www.themodernreligion.com/prophet/prophet-lastsermon.htm (last accessed 4 December 2017).

4   Ibn Majah, Sunan Ibn Majah , Kitab al-fitan, bab al-sawad al-a’ẓam, No. 3950; Tirmidhi, Jami’ al-Tirmidhi , Kitab al-fitan, No. 2167.

5   Abdullah Saeed, Islamic Thought: An Introduction (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2006), 49.

6   Saeed, Islamic Thought , 49.

7   See Q. 7:179.

8   Saeed, Islamic Thought , 44.

9   Ibid, 46–7.

10 See Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 22.

11 Saeed, Islamic Thought , 46.

13 Hallaq, Origins , 33.

14 Saeed, Islamic Thought , 47.

16 Hallaq, Origins , 124.

17 Ibid 125.

18 Ibid 148.

19 Ibid 77.

20 Susan Ariel Aaronson and Jean Pierre Chauffour, “The Wedding of Trade and Human Rights: Marriage of Convenience or Permanent Match?” (2011) WTO 15 February 2011. Available https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/wtr11_forum_e/wtr11_15feb11_e.htm#feedback (last accessed 28 November 2017).

22 Mansour Z. Al-Mutairi, “Necessity in Islamic Law” (1997). Thesis submitted to the University of Edinburgh for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. January 1997, 171–2.

24 European Council for Fatwa and Research’s Resolution on “Permissibility of Conventional Mortgage under Necessity”. Fourth Ordinary Session [27–31 October, 1999]. Available http://eshaykh.com/halal_haram/permissibility-of-conventional-mortgage-under-necessity (last accessed 4 December 2017).

25 Al-Mutairi, “Necessity in Islamic Law”, 17.

26 Ibid 66.

27 Rationale for the Fatwa on Mortgage (2001), 4.

28 Al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari , Kitab al-sawm, No. 1968.

29 Al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari , Kitab al-mazalim, No. 2449.

30 Muslim, Sahih Muslim , Kitab al-birr wa-l-sila wa-l-adab, No. 2582.

31 Al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari , Kitab al-jana’iz, Nos. 1312–13; Muslim, Sahih Muslim , Kitab al-jana’iz, No. 961.

32 Abu Muhammad Qasim b. Thabit al-Saraqusti, al-Dala’il fi gharib al-hadith , ed. Muhammad al-Qannas (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Ubaykan, 1421), 2:487, No. 265; Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi, al-Sunan al-Kubra , ed. Muhammad Ata (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1424/2003), 6:596, Kitab al-wasaya, No. 13080.

33 Al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari , Kitab al-jana’iz, No. 1240.

34 Al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari , Kitab al-hajj, No. 1739; idem, Kitab al-hudud, No. 6785; Muslim, Sahih Muslim , Kitab al-qasama, No. 1679.

35 Abu al-Qasim b. Asakir, Tarikh Madinat Dimashq , ed. Amr al-Amrawi (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr, 1415/1995), 52:38, No. 6086. In another narration, the Prophet said: “Fear God [regarding the rights of] the two weak ones: the orphan and the woman.” Abu Ja’far al-Tabari, Jami’ al-bayan an tafsir ay al-Qur’an , ed. Ahmad Shakir (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risala, 1420/2000), 7:561, sub Q. 4:5.

36 Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad , eds, Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut and Adil Murshid et al. (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risala, 1421/2001), 37:416, Hadith Ubada b. al-Samit, No. 22755.

37 Abu Bakr al-Sarakhsi, Kitab al-Usul (Beirut: Dar al-Maʿrifa, n.d.), 2:334, Fasl fi bayan taqsim al-alama.

38 Abu Bakr al-Sarakhsi, Sharh al-siyar al-kabir , (n.p.: al-Sharika al-Sharqiyya li-l-I’lanat, 1971), 1853, Bab ma yajib min al-nusra li-l-musta’manin wa-ahl al-dhimma.

Table of Contents

• Human Rights
• Islam and the Law
• Islamic Studies

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The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s declaration on human rights: Promises and pitfalls

• English PDF

Turan Kayaoglu Turan Kayaoglu Former Brookings Expert, زميل سابق في بروكنجز

September 28, 2020

• 38 min read

Content from the Brookings Doha Center is now archived . In September 2021, after 14 years of impactful partnership, Brookings and the Brookings Doha Center announced that they were ending their affiliation. The Brookings Doha Center is now the  Middle East Council on Global Affairs , a separate public policy institution based in Qatar.

Introduction

The United Nations (U.N.) set the international standard for basic human rights by adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. 1 It further elaborated on this document through major conventions such as the 1966 International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In addition to these global initiatives, complementary declarations were developed by regional organizations including the Organization of American States, Organization of African Unity, and Council of Europe. Under the umbrella of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC; formerly the Organization of Islamic Conference), Muslim states revisited these concepts in the 1980s to draft their own instrument.

The culmination of such efforts was the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which presented a set of rights informed by conservative Islamic values and “Sharia,” or Islamic law. 2  Within the instrument, the OIC laid out many of the rights in the UDHR, however, it neglected gender and non-Muslim rights. Not to mention, the organization co-opted the language of Sharia in the document to empower states and ensure national sovereignty. After its adoption, human rights activists in the West and some in the Muslim world claimed that the Cairo Declaration conflicted with the UDHR.

In the early 2010s, the OIC began revising the instrument and introduced the OIC Declaration on Human Rights (ODHR) almost a decade later. The document was scheduled to be approved at the organization’s Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) meeting in April 2020. However, this was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the ODHR better reflects principles rooted in international human rights law, it falls short on issues related to family values, freedom of speech, and political participation. The evolution of the Cairo Declaration is encouraging, however, as it demonstrates the OIC’s willingness to draw closer to the basic human rights standards of the UDHR. The new declaration provides an opportunity for the U.N., Western governments, and human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to engage in dialogue with the OIC over the ODHR and UDHR’s areas of divergence and to collaborate on the points of convergence, such as the prohibition of torture, women’s rights, and the right to education, to ensure that such freedoms are protected in practice.

Like its predecessor, the ODHR is a non-binding document whose value is mostly symbolic. However, it is worth discussing for four reasons. Firstly, the evolution of the Cairo Declaration provides a useful lens to understand human rights debates, intellectual currents, and political changes in the Muslim world. Secondly, non-binding human rights declarations often become binding conventions and treaties. This was the case with the UDHR, which informed the ICCPR and ICESCR. Moreover, non-binding declarations may also create norms. In this case, by championing some ideas over others and mobilizing civil society organizations (CSOs), the ODHR will define acceptable human rights behavior. Finally, the OIC is a significant actor in international diplomacy and has been active on issues such as freedom of speech, hate speech, family values, and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights in the halls of the U.N. in New York and Geneva. The ODHR articulates the organization’s vision of universal freedoms and helps us to understand emerging fault lines in the global politics of human rights.

The 1990 Cairo Declaration: A product of its time

The Cairo Declaration was a product of the late 1980s and early ’90s. The collapse of the Soviet bloc and democratic transitions in central and eastern Europe ushered in a period of liberal optimism in world politics. Two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the U.N. General Assembly had decided to use this momentum to build a global consensus on basic freedoms at the World Conference on Human Rights, which took place in Vienna in 1993. 3 However, the international debate on human rights began to shift as the Cold War drew to a close. The cleavage between the West’s civil and political rights and the Soviet bloc’s economic rights evolved into a dichotomy between traditional Western liberalism and the Global South’s demands for a voice in the emerging world order.

The decision to convene the World Conference intensified the Global South’s deliberations on human rights. 4 In 1990, the OIC adopted the Cairo Declaration; in 1992, members of the Non-Aligned Movement formulated the Jakarta Message; and in 1993, Asian states and NGOs issued the Bangkok Declaration. All these statements, while affirming the universality of human rights, elevated non-interference, economic rights, and respect for cultural differences. They asked for a balanced view between rights and duties, individual and community rights, and between a desire for progress and respect for traditional values. 5

In addition to the above, the Cairo Declaration was a product of the rise of an Islamist perspective. In 1948, Muslim states’ representatives were active in the preparation of the UDHR and other international covenants such as the ICCPR and ICESCR. 6 With the conspicuous abstention of Saudi Arabia, Muslim states joined the UDHR and many also ratified the covenants, albeit frequently with Sharia-based reservations. 7 Yet in the 1960s and ’70s, the tides changed. The politicization of human rights during the Cold War, the failure of international law to deliver on Muslim-priority issues such as Palestine and Kashmir, as well as both U.S. and Soviet support for various authoritarian regimes and interventions in Islamic nations, often in the name of “human rights,” fueled the Muslim world’s disillusionment with the global discourse on universal freedoms.

This disillusionment was an important contributing factor that allowed political and revolutionary Islam to dominate Muslim perspectives on human rights. Intellectuals, such as Pakistani Abul A’la Maududi (1903–79) and Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (1906–66), urged Muslims to choose Islam over capitalism and socialism as a comprehensive framework of governance to address society’s economic, political, and social ills. Scholars formulated a framework for human rights based on Quranic teachings of social justice, the inherent dignity of man as God’s vicegerent, and the idea that all are equal under God. 8 Although rarely at the political helm, Islamists’ ideas dominated Muslim intellectual currents in the 1980s and ’90s. The Iranian revolution, the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Soviet bloc’s subsequent collapse all served to further popularize the Islamist vision. 9

Iran played a crucial role in preparing and promoting the Cairo Declaration. 10 The Islamic Republic was the most ideologically driven Muslim country and championed its post-revolutionary political system as ideal for other OIC states. Iran sought to assert its political leadership of the “ummah,” or global Muslim community, and did so by confronting Western states. 11 Human rights were a core component of the Islamic Republic’s ideological campaign and in 1984 the country challenged the UDHR. Within the U.N., Iran’s representative called the document a collection of secularized ideals informed by Judeo-Christian traditions incompatible with Sharia. 12 Reintegrated into the OIC after being marginalized during the Iran-Iraq war, the Islamic Republic used the organization to assert its leadership on wedge issues between the Muslim world and the West.

Sharia, Sovereignty, and Human Rights

In the 1990 Cairo Declaration, the OIC laid out many of the rights articulated in the UDHR. Indeed, the organization defended the preservation of human life, the protection of one’s honor, family, and property; and upheld the human right to education and medical and social care. 13 Yet, it did not commit to individual equality and non-discrimination, especially on issues related to gender and the rights of non-Muslims.

From an international human rights perspective, the OIC stirred controversy because the Cairo Declaration claimed adherence to Sharia. In the preamble, it was stated that “fundamental rights and universal freedoms … are an integral part of [Islam],” and that such are “binding divine commandments” revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran. The centrality of Islamic law is clear from the declaration’s articles. Article 22 stated that “Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.” Article 12 affirmed that “Every man shall have the right, within the framework of Shari’ah, to free movement,” although, nothing is said about every woman. Finally, Article 25 further made Islamic law supreme by declaring it the document’s “only source of reference.” 14

Such shorthand and cursory use of Sharia gave rise to important shortcomings. Firstly, the Cairo Declaration never specified what the term constituted. Given the diversity of opinions on Sharia across time and between and within “madhabs,” schools of Islamic jurisprudence, it is impossible to know what rights are protected by the document. Moreover, limiting rights to a Sharia compatible framework of values would render them meaningless due to the comprehensiveness of Islamic law. For instance, Article 22, mentioned above, guarantees the right to express one’s opinion freely so long as it does not contradict the principles of Sharia. Yet, because Islam is a religion known to govern all parts of a Muslim’s life, this means that free speech would be limited in all spheres. Not to mention, the OIC never clarified exactly what constituted a contradiction. Furthermore, several of the Cairo Declaration’s articles violated international law. Article 10 designated non-Muslims to a subordinate status and prohibited conversion from Islam. In addition, the declaration did not recognize freedom of assembly and association or protect women from discrimination. Indeed, Article 12 provided the right to freedom of movement solely to men while Article 6 declared them as being the head of the household. 15

Yet, by far, the Cairo Declaration’s greatest shortcoming was its empowerment of states over individuals. In the modern world, the governments of Muslim countries, especially Sunni ones, have increasingly incorporated Sharia into their domestic legal systems and subsumed it under their authority. In the absence of an international body that has the final say over Islamic law’s interpretation, the 1990 declaration relegated human rights to the discretion of states. This was a deliberate choice on the part of the OIC, which sought to co-opt the language of Sharia to protect national sovereignty.

Cairo Declaration: Reception and Impact

In the 2000s, OIC bureaucrats and member states contended that the Cairo Declaration was a complement to the UDHR, rather than a substitute. In an address to the U.N. in 2007, Pakistan’s Ambassador Masood Khan said that the legal instrument “is not an alternative, competing worldview on human rights. It complements the Universal Declaration as it addresses religious and cultural specificity of the Muslim countries.” 16 Yet, because several Muslim states maintained Sharia-based reservations to international treaties, the liberal human rights community, especially in Europe and North America, saw the Cairo Declaration as an intended alternative to the UDHR, which OIC states could use as ideological backing to counter criticism of their poor human rights records. The concerns of liberal NGOs grew in the early 2000s when the OIC began lobbying the U.N. to classify religious defamation as a violation of human rights. Muslim states tried to frame defamation of religions as a form of hate speech, which was already outlawed by the ICCPR. 17 Yet, liberal groups saw this as an attempt to co-opt Sharia and restrict freedom of expression at the global level. 18

In 2019, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution, which declared that the Cairo Declaration and Sharia in general are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.­­­ In addition, the resolution asked three Council of Europe members (Albania, Azerbaijan, and Turkey) — all a part of the OIC — to distance themselves from the Muslim world’s instrument. 19 In the proceeding vote, Turkey and Azerbaijan’s delegations rejected the resolution while Albania’s did not participate. 20

Most human rights scholars ignored the Cairo Declaration, and among the minority who studied it, views were varied. Some argued that the declaration contradicted the UDHR ,21 while others thought it useful in “normalizing” the discussion about human rights in Muslim-majority states and societies.” 21 Still, others called it “a dormant document” without “an interpretative or enforcement organ.” 22

To say that the Cairo Declaration was a void instrument would be accurate. Not a single piece of domestic legislation in the OIC countries can be attributed to it. Even in the U.N., OIC members hardly refer to it or care to include it in their human rights responses. 23 Muslim advocacy groups and even OIC bureaucrats have ignored the instrument. Even so, the value of the Cairo Declaration has been symbolic rather than practical, allowing Muslim states to assert their voice in global human rights debates, which they have felt both excluded from and subjugated by. In turn, the reaction it elicited reflects the international community’s uneasiness about that voice. Some uneasiness is grounded in genuine concern for human rights in the Muslim world and some in Islamophobia.

The Road to Revision: The OIC Declaration on Human Rights

The OIC has paid attention to criticisms of the Cairo Declaration. According to a document released by the organization last year, “it is recognized that there are obvious legal, linguistic and perceptional gaps and inconsistencies in the [Cairo Declaration], which require careful screening and review to make it more practical, representative, broad based and above all implementable.” 24 This attitude reflects the process of reform that the organization carried out in the mid-2000s. Pushed by Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, who served as secretary-general from 2005 to 2013, 25 the OIC adopted its Ten-Year Program of Action in 2005 and revised its charter in 2008, with changes made to reassert a commitment to human rights. 26 During this period, the organization started to lessen the mention of Sharia in its human rights documents, referring instead to Islamic values more broadly. For example, in the Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam of 2005, the OIC invoked Sharia, yet, Islamic law was framed as a broad set of values that informed the document and was not used to curtail universal freedoms. 27 Having taken it one step further, the Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women (OPAAW) of 2016 did not refer to Sharia at all but mentioned “Islamic values” several times. For instance, the introduction stated that “through OPAAW, OIC is taking steps towards eliminating all forms of discrimination against women in order to reduce inequalities between women and men pursuant to Islamic values of social justice and gender equality.” 28

More significantly, the OIC established the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) in 2011. 29 The body lacks powers to investigate human rights violations or enforce its decisions; nor does it have the resources for effective human rights monitoring. In an earlier assessment, I concluded that it has become window dressing, more interested in the rights of Muslim minorities in places such as Palestine or Myanmar than the human rights violations of its member states. 30 While that is still true, the commission has institutionalized human rights discourse within the OIC and become a focal point for advocacy. During the IPHRC’s first meeting in Jakarta in 2012, Secretary-General İhsanoğlu asked the 18-member body in his opening address to “review and update OIC instruments, including the Cairo Declaration.” 31 Moreover, the CFM provided the commission an explicit mandate to revise the document so that it is in harmony with “existing international human rights standards and the relevant Islamic teachings and principles of equality and justice.” 32

The IPHRC led the revision process, and like for other OIC documents, this was carried out in an opaque manner. 33 A subgroup of IPHRC commissioners drafted the revised version and presented it to the CFM, which created an intergovernmental group to finalize the draft. Once complete, the document was presented before the council for final approval. At each step of the way, little is known about the players involved as the members of both the IPHRC subgroup and intergovernmental group were kept private. Moreover, during the revision process, the OIC never shared a working draft publicly to solicit feedback from CSOs, NGOs, or unions, who are the most progressive voices on Islam and human rights in the Muslim world. The reluctance to work with such groups reflects many member states’ hostility toward them and the OIC’s strong intergovernmental orientation. Yet, the IPHRC could have used the revision process to cement its independence and strengthen its own relations with civil society.

Moving away from Sharia

In terms of style and underlying philosophy, the ODHR is more closely aligned with universal human rights norms than was the Cairo Declaration. The OIC changed the title from the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam to solely the OIC Declaration on Human Rights. This change signifies that forces within the organization have moved it away from claiming to speak on behalf of the religion, emphasizes the OIC’s intergovernmental nature, and better aligns the declaration with other regional human rights instruments. The revisions also secularized the document by removing many of the references to Sharia and Islam.

These moves were not simply token changes to appease the Cairo Declaration’s critics or an attempt at self-branding. Rather, they reflect ideological shifts in the Muslim world that began to take shape in the early 2000s and intensified after the 2011 Arab Spring. The Cairo Declaration was a product of the broader influence of Islamists who saw “Islam as the solution” and Iran, which saw political confrontation on wedge issues as an opportunity to assert its Muslim leadership. In 2020, however, the tides have turned against them: Islamism has lost its allure in Muslim political thought, and Iran has lost its prominent positon in the OIC due to conflict with the organization’s current dominant power, Saudi Arabia. 34 At the same time, moderate voices in places such as Turkey have gained influence, 35 thus steering the organization’s human rights philosophy further away from political Islam.

The ODHR reflects an uneasy, at times inconsistent, compromise among three influences. The first is state sovereignty. Authoritarian state bureaucrats emphasize non-interference in domestic affairs, the primacy of national law over human rights, and a disregard for the freedom of association and political participation. The second influence is reactionary resistance to a progressive interpretation of basic freedoms. This is most strongly articulated by conservatives, some of whom demand the protection of Islamic principles, including family values, which they view as threatened by Western cultural imperialism often disguised in the rhetoric of international human rights. In conservative circles, family values are sometimes used as a platform to push back against calls to increase women’s and SOGI rights. A third influence stems from moderates wanting to ensure compatibility between universal freedoms and Islamic principles. Like political Islamists who organized around certain key thinkers, moderates have been empowered by contemporary intellectuals such as Egyptian Hassan Hanafi (1935–), Mauritanian Abdullah bin Bayyah (1935–), Iranian Abdolkarim Soroush (1945–), and Tunisian Rachid Ghannouchi (1941–). One popular approach used by some of these intellectuals has been “maqasid,” which entails interpreting the rules of Sharia in a way that protects and promotes the preservation of life, intellect, lineage, property, and religion. This technique of legal understanding, broadly speaking, provides for an interpretation of Islamic law that aligns with universal human rights norms. 36

In an effort to reconcile all three influences, the OIC removed the mention of Sharia from operational articles, though keeping it in the preamble, and made further concessions to appease each camp. To ensure that states would still maintain sovereignty, the organization foregrounded domestic law. Moreover, it emphasized traditional values to please conservatives and provided further detail on the ODHR and UDHR’s areas of overlap for the sake of moderates.

Content: Convergences and Divergences

The ODHR reflects a significant departure from the Cairo Declaration and a step closer to the UDHR. Even so, there are still many ways that the document falls short of international norms.

In setting the ODHR apart from the Cairo Declaration, the OIC removed the language of Islamic superiority from the preamble. A historic document, the Medina Charter, sometimes called a constitution, was prepared under the Prophet Muhammad in 622 A.H. and is referred to in the ODHR as the oldest human rights document in Islam to demonstrate the Muslim world’s early recognition of basic freedoms. 37 Yet the charter, while ahead of its time in terms of pluralism and tolerance, is in fact not about human rights. Rather than specifying the rights of individuals as in a constitution, it is instead a treaty that focuses on the rights and duties of groups and tribes, including Jewish ones, residing in Medina, and their commitment to collective defense. 38 Moreover, unlike its predecessor, the ODHR places less importance on Islamic law. Indeed, Sharia is mentioned only three times and is framed solely as a set of principles that inform the instrument. The OIC offset this reduced emphasis on Sharia by frequently referencing to national law, emphasizing the primacy of state sovereignty over universal freedoms. This change, however, renders the document meaningless in authoritarian settings void of strong rule of law and elevates the role of Sharia implicitly, specifically in OIC states that hold Sharia-based legislative systems.

These criticisms aside, however, the OIC drafted the ODHR so that it draws closer to international human rights norms. For instance, the document increases women’s rights, specifically through Article 5, which declares that “State and the society shall take all necessary measures to eliminate difficulties that impede the empowerment of women, their access to quality education, basic health care, employment and job protection and the right to receive equal remuneration for equal work as well as their full and effective participation in all spheres of life.” The article adds that “Women and the girl child shall also be protected against all forms of discrimination, violence, abuse and harmful traditional practices.” Moreover, the ODHR does not establish husbands as the head of the family. 39

Despite such advancements, the OIC still failed to comply with various international norms. For example, the ODHR, like its predecessor, omits many rights including the freedom of peaceful assembly and association and universal suffrage. This, unsurprisingly, reflects the predominance of authoritarian political systems among member states, rather than Sharia morality or jurisprudence. The document also defines marriage between a man and a woman, and asks member states to protect family and marriage, thus demonstrating the conservative influences described above.

The ODHR also falls short in the area of LGBTQ rights. In the U.N., the OIC has actively argued that the LGBTQ community is not entitled to equality or protection from discrimination and moreover, that LGBTQ claims undermine family values, and perpetuate the Western liberal cultural assault on Islamic principles more broadly. 40 With its emphasis on family and the traditional definition of marriage, the new declaration builds on this stance and will only strengthen the OIC’s resolve in international fora. Not to mention, it will empower anti-LGBTQ groups in member states.

Furthermore, freedom of expression is not included in the ODHR. The preamble states the need to “protect the rights of communities and preserve their dignity and religious and cultural identity.” This language in part reflects the OIC’s concerns over Islamophobia in the West and its decade-long push to combat religious defamation at the U.N. 41 Yet, the organization introduces restrictions to freedom of expression that surpass hate speech, stating that this right “should not be used to violate sanctities of the dignity of prophets, religions, religious symbols or to undermine moral and ethical values of society.”

A final distinction between the UDHR and ODHR is that unlike the former, which requires states to protect human rights, the latter is filled with references to the responsibility of “the State and society.” This combination blurs a central theme in modern human rights, as covenants and treaties assign full responsibility to states in order to ensure that people in their territory and under their jurisdiction enjoy universal freedoms. 42

The Question of Implementation

The ODHR will be significant because it demonstrates the willingness of Muslim states to move away from rejecting the UDHR and using Sharia to limit universal freedoms. The instrument offers a more developed and contemporary formulation of OIC members states’ views on human rights, compared to the Cairo Declaration, by articulating differences on issues such as women and family, freedom of speech, and SOGI rights. These issues are heavily contested in the global public sphere, not to mention, U.N. fora. The ODHR offers a clear formulation of the OIC’s positions on these matters, strengthens the organization’s resolve, and provides an opportunity for member states to defend their practices against Western criticism. However, moving forward, the most important question will be the document’s relevance to human rights on the ground. Like the 1990 Cairo Declaration, the ODHR is non-binding. And while there were some attempts to create a binding convention of human rights, that project seems to have been all but shelved.

What effect will the ODHR have on the protection and promotion of human rights in member states? If member states legislate human rights, they will likely use U.N. instruments over those of the OIC, to signal their compliance to such conventions and appease Western nations as well as human rights communities. Yet at the same time, member states and conservative groups may invoke the ODHR to strengthen their positions on free speech restrictions, including blasphemy laws, combat LGBTQ demands, or promote family values.

The ODHR may face a similar fate among human rights advocacy groups as the Cairo Declaration. Advocacy groups in OIC states, many of which subscribe to the UDHR, will likely ignore the declaration because they were excluded from the revision process and because the document, like its predecessor, does not protect the freedom of association and assembly. Needless to say, this is quite unfortunate. As the OIC has developed its human rights agenda throughout its reform process, there were hopes that it would have collaborated with CSOs and possibly granted them “consultative status.” 43 The IPHRC’s own statute encourages the commission to collaborate with, promote, and support human rights civil society. 44

Integrating CSOs into the OIC can advance human rights by strengthening the freedom of association, and encourage political participation by increasing their visibility and providing them the opportunity to become involved in global politics. Civil society can also help to expand the organization’s human rights capacity and push member states toward a more rights-enhancing direction. 45 Indeed, it would be helpful to include CSOs, which possess the most progressive voice on Islam and human rights in the Muslim world, so that they could encourage the organization to close the ODHR and UDHR’s gaps, and better protect those rights mentioned in both declarations.

The OIC has not yet collaborated with human rights civil society due to the skepticism and even hostility that member states hold toward it. The organization does, however, work with humanitarian groups that are apolitical, service oriented, and of a conservative Islamic bent, 46   as well as Muslim NGOs outside of its member states. 47 On their part, some human rights CSOs have shown strong interest in working with the IPHRC in particular. When the commission was first established in 2011, more than 230 such organizations from 24 OIC states, under the leadership of MAZLUMDER, a Turkish-Islamic human rights NGO, appealed to the organization to “ensure space for civil society participation in the Commission and follow a process that is consultative and inclusive of civil society at all levels.” 48 Their plea went unanswered, however, and CSOs remain an untapped resource in the community of OIC states. Indeed, the exclusion of civil society in the ODHR drafting process was a missed opportunity.

A final way for the OIC to work on the declaration’s implementation is to engage government-funded administrative bodies responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights, known as national human rights institutions (NHRIs). Out of 57 member states, 34 have NHRIs. The IPHRC has long sought to establish closer relations with such bodies and an OIC network for them. If realized, this network would facilitate the monitoring and implementation of the ODHR. However, for this to happen, the OIC would need to expand the IPHRC’s mandate so that it has the power to enforce decisions and the resources to improve monitoring.

Conclusion and Recommendations  

The ODHR marks an improvement from the 1990 Cairo Declaration as it aligns more closely with the UDHR, and offers a contemporary formulation of Muslim state positions on human rights. Though some may fear that the revised instrument is simply its predecessor rebranded, this deflects attention away from the OIC’s great progress. Indeed, the revision of the ODHR demonstrates the organization’s engagement with international human rights, responsiveness to criticism, and its willingness to move away from rejecting the UDHR or co-opting Sharia to limit basic freedoms.

Moving forward, if the OIC and international community seek to further human rights in the Muslim world, they should focus on implementation, diplomacy, and involving civil society. Regarding implementation, the OIC should continue to refine its human rights vision and, more importantly, move to implement basic freedoms with binding treaties and monitoring. It should also help member states build their human rights capacity. On the part of the international community, it can and should collaborate with member states, and their NHRIs more specifically, to realize ODHR principles that already align with those of the UDHR. On areas of divergence, the U.N., Western governments, and human rights NGOs should engage in diplomacy and dialogue with the OIC. Carrying out tactful discourse will be of the utmost importance. If the international community attacks the ODHR though caricaturing, belittling, and shaming, this will empower OIC conservatives at the expense of moderates. Finally, CSOs must be brought to the table. Indeed, the OIC should engage with CSOs, NGOs, and unions in member states if it wants to increase efficacy. And though civil society was excluded from the Cairo Declaration’s revision process, its involvement is key to guarantee that the ODHR has visibility, legitimacy, and impact.  

The tables below provide a comparison of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, and OIC Declaration on Human Rights (ODHR). 49 The source of each right is indicated by document and article number.

U: Universal Declaration of Human Rights

C: Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam

O: OIC Declaration on Human Rights

• United Nations (U.N.), “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” December 10, 1948, https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ .
• The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), “The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,” August 5, 1990, https://www.oic-iphrc.org/en/data/docs/legal_instruments/OIC_HRRIT/571230.pdf .
• Patricia Feeney, “The UN World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, June 1993,” Development in Practice  3, no. 3 (1993): 218–21, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/096145249100077371?journalCode=cdip20 .
• The Global South was active in human rights debates in other periods as well. For example, the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, advanced the right to self-determination, which was included in the 1966 ICCPR and ICESCR.
• OIC, “The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam”; Coalition for Peace and Development, “Bangkok NGO Declaration on Human Rights : report / by the Secretariat,” U.N., April 19, 1993, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/170675?ln=en ; U.N., “Final documents of the Tenth Conference of Heads of State or Government of NAM – Letter from Indonesia,” September 1992, https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-179754/ .
•  Susan Waltz, “Universal Human Rights: The Contribution of Muslim States,” Human Rights Quarterly  26, no. 4 (November 2004): 799–844, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20069761 .
•  For all reservations to the ICCPR, see “Status of Treaties: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” U.N. Treaty Collection, accessed July 29, 2020, https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-4&chapter=4&clang=_en . For a detailed discussion on Qatar’s use of Sharia-based reservations, see also Başak Çali, “Qatar’s Reservations to the ICCPR: Anything new under the VCLT Sun?,” September 19, 2019, https://www.ejiltalk.org/qatars-reservations-to-the-iccpr-anything-new-under-the-vclt-sun/ .
• Irene Oh, The Rights of God: Islam, Human Rights, and Comparative Ethics (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007).
•  Peter Mandaville, Islam and Politics (New York: Routledge, 2014).
• Yasser Salimi, “Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights: Problems and Prospects,” master’s thesis, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Institute of Political Science, September 23, 2019, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3564926 .
• Turan Kayaoglu, The Organization of Islamic Cooperation: Politics, Problems, and Potential (New York: Routledge, 2017).
• U.N., “Summary record of the 65th meeting, 3rd Committee, held on Friday, 7 December 1984, New York, General Assembly, 39th session,” December 17, 1984, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/73659?ln=en .
• This section is adopted from Turan Kayaoglu, “It’s Time to Revise The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,” Brookings Institution, Op-ed, April 23, 2012, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/its-time-to-revise-the-cairo-declaration-of-human-rights-in-islam/ .
• OIC, “The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.”
• “Statement by Ambassador Masood Khan, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Geneva, 10 December 2007,” Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the United Nations & Other International Organizations, accessed August 19, 2020, http://www.pakistanmission-un.org/2005_Statements/CHR/sthrcamb_10dec07.htm .
• U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” December 16, 1966, art. 20, https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx .
• “Islamic Law vs Human Rights,” Humanists International, March 10, 2008, https://humanists.international/2008/03/islamic-law-vs-human-rights/ . 
• Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), “Sharia, the Cairo Declaration and the European Convention on Human Rights,” Resolution 2253 (2019), January 22, 2019, http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=25353 .
•  “Vote on Resolution: Assembly’s voting results,” PACE, accessed August 1, 2020,  http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/Votes/DB-VotesResults-EN.asp?VoteID=37500&DocID=16838&MemberID=&Sort=1 .
• Abdullah Saeed, Human Rights and Islam: An Introduction to Key Debates between Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018), 57.
• Mashood A. Baderin, International Human Rights and Islamic Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 228.
• Ioana Cismas, Religious Actors and International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
• Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC) and the OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC), “Human Rights Standards and Institutions in OIC Member States,” September 16, 2019, https://www.sesric.org/files/article/674­.pdf .
• “General Secretariat,” Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), accessed August 19, 2020, https://www.oic-oci.org/page/?p_id=38&p_ref=14&lan=en .  
• Marie Juul Petersen and Turan Kayaoglu, eds., The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).
• Turan Kayaoglu, “A Rights Agenda for the Muslim World? The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Evolving Human Rights Framework,” BDC, Analysis Paper no. 6, January 2013, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Turan-Kayaoglu-English.pdf .
•  “OIC Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women (OPAAW),” November 1–3, 2016, https://www.sesric.org/files/OPAAW.PDF .
• Kayaoglu, “A Rights Agenda for the Muslim World?”
• Turan Kayaoglu, “The OIC’s Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission: An Early Assessment,” The Danish Institute for Human Rights, Matters of Concern, Human Rights’ Research Paper No. 2015/3, January 28, 2015, https://www.humanrights.dk/sites/humanrights.dk/files/media/migrated/2015%20matters_of_concern_kayaoglu_2015.pdf .
• OIC-IPHRC, “Statement by H.E. the Secretary General at the First IPHRC Session,” February 20, 2012, https://www.oic-iphrc.org/en/data/docs/session_reports/1st/SG%20Statement%20-%20IPHRC%20-%201st%20Session%20-%20Jakarta%20-%20EV.pdf .
• SESRIC and the OIC-IPHRC, “Human Rights Standards and Institutions in OIC Member States,” 9.
• Salimi, “Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights.”
• Shahram Akbarzadeh and Zahid Shahab Ahmed, “Impacts of Saudi Hegemony on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),”  International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society  31, no. 3 (2018): 297–311, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-017-9270-x .
• Kayaoglu, The Organization of Islamic Cooperation .
• Jasser Auda,  Maqasid Al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach (Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2008).
• For debate on the Medina Charter, see Anver Emon, “Reflections on the ‘Constitution of Medina’: An Essay on Methodology and Ideology in Islamic Legal History,”  UCLA Journal of Islamic & Near Eastern Law  1, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2001–2): 103–33, https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ucjicneal1&div=9&id=&page= .
• This has been a regular issue of the OIC’s human rights agenda. See Moataz El Fegiery, “Competing Perceptions: Traditional Values and Human Rights,” in The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights , Petersen and Kayaoglu.
• Robert C. Blitt, “The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Response to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights: A Challenge to Equality and Nondiscrimination Under International Law,”  Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems  28 , no. 1 (2019): 89–187, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3312845 .
• Turan Kayaoglu, “Giving an Inch Only to Lose a Mile: Muslim States, Liberalism, and Human Rights in the United Nations,”  Human Rights Quarterly 36, no. 1 (February 2014): 61–89, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24518097 ; Heini í Skorini, “The OIC and Freedom of Expression: Justifying Religious Censorship Norms with Human Rights Language,” in The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights , Petersen and Kayaoglu.
• In addition to regular states, state-like entities that maintain effective control of a population and territory have an obligation under international law to protect the human rights of people within their area of land; Jack Donnelly,  Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013).
• Marie Juul Petersen, “The OIC and Civil Society Cooperation: Prospects for Strengthened Human Rights Involvement?,” in The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights , Petersen and Kayaoglu.
• Kayaoglu, “A Rights Agenda for the Muslim World?”; For more information on the role of civil society and social movements in advancing human rights in the Muslim world, see Anthony Tirado Chase and Amr Hamzawy, eds.,  Human Rights in the Arab World: Independent Voices (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); and Anthony Tirado Chase,  Human Rights, Revolution, and Reform in the Muslim World (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012).
• Petersen, “The OIC and Civil Society Cooperation.”
• Kayaoglu, The Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
• This is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights classification and comparison template provided in Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice , Donnelly.

Middle East & North Africa

Shadi Hamid

September 29, 2023

March 14, 2023

Ranj Alaaldin

March 1, 2023

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Islam and Human Rights

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The relationship between Islam and human rights forms an important aspect of contemporary international human rights debates. Current international events have made the topic more relevant than ever in international law discourse. Professor Abdullahi An-Na'im is undoubtedly one of the leading international scholars on this subject. He has written extensively on the subject and his works are widely referenced in the literature. His contributions on the subject are however scattered in different academic journals and book chapters. This anthology is designed to bring together his academic contributions on the subject under one cover, for easy access for students and researchers in Islamic law and human rights.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part | 2  pages, part one: islam between universalism and secularism, chapter 1 | 10  pages, what do we mean by universal index on censorship, 1994, pp. 120–8, chapter 2 | 20  pages, islamic law, international relations and human rights: challenge and response 20 cornell international law journal, 2, 1987, pp. 317–35, chapter 3 | 14  pages, a kinder, gentler islam 52 transition, 1991, pp. 4–16, chapter 4 | 10  pages, re-affirming secularism for islamic societies new perspectives quarterly, 3, 2003, pp. 36–45, chapter 5 | 8  pages, islam and human rights: beyond the universality debate 94 proceedings of the american society of international law, 2000, pp. 95–101, part two: islam and human rights in the muslim world, chapter 6 | 40  pages, human rights in the muslim world: socio-political conditions and scriptural imperatives 3 harvard human rights journal, 1990, pp. 13–52, chapter 7 | 28  pages, civil rights in the islamic constitutional traditions: shared ideals and divergent regimes 25 the john marshall law review, 2, 1992, pp. 267–93, chapter 8 | 32  pages, human rights in the arab world: a regional perspective 23 human rights quarterly, 3, 2001, pp. 701–32, chapter 9 | 36  pages, human rights and islamic identity in france and uzbekistan: mediation of the local and global 22 human rights quarterly, 4, 2000, pp. 906–11, chapter 10 | 14  pages, ‘the best of times’ and ‘the worst of times’: human agency and human rights in islamic societies i muslim world journal of human rights, 2004 1, article 5, part three: some topical issues in islam and human rights discourse, chapter 11 | 28  pages, the islamic law of apostasy and its modem applicability: a case from the sudan 16 religion, 1986, pp. 197–223, chapter 12 | 18  pages, religious minorities under islamic law and the limits of cultural relativism 9 human rights quarterly, 1987, 1, pp. 1–18, chapter 13 | 26  pages, the rights of women and international law in the muslim context 9 whittier law review, 3, 1987, pp. 491–516, chapter 14 | 38  pages, the contingent universality of human rights: the case of freedom of expression in african and islamic contexts 10 emory international law review, 3, 1997, pp. 29–66, chapter 15 | 14  pages, why should muslims abandon jihacp. human rights and the future of international law 27 third world quarterly, 5, 2006, pp. 785–97, part four: conclusion: a theory of interdependence, chapter 16 | 26  pages, the interdependence of religion, secularism, and human rights: prospects for islamic societies ii common knowledge, 1, 2005, pp. 65–80.

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3 Islam and Human Rights

• Published: December 2011
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This chapter examines whether Islam is inherently compatible or incompatible with human rights. It first considers who is the “human” in human rights before discussing current Islamic discourse on the place of Islam in human rights. It then explores the issue of self-determination, including the right to decide the foundation of human rights one finds acceptable, as an integral component of the “human” in human rights. It also insists on the right of Muslims to assert a religious foundation or justification for human rights and argues that Sharia can only be freely observed by believers, and that its principles lose their religious authority and value when they are enforced by the state. Finally, it suggests that any conception of human rights cannot be “universal” if it is inconsistent with the religious beliefs of Muslims at large.

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Islam and Human Rights

Annual Public Lecture on Human Rights

On television screens, nightly we see Islam being portrayed as a violent and uncompromising religion. Murder, terrorism and denial of human rights are frequently blamed on Islam. At the same time, such acts are frequently justified as somehow “Islamic” by those that call themselves Muslim. The question posed therefore is whether Islam is compatible with the contemporary world and international standards of human rights. The speaker will argue that Islam advocates the peaceful co-existence of peoples, religions and society and guarantees individual and collective rights. The speaker will assert that Islam is not contrary to human rights. Rather, human rights are a central feature of Islam.

Karim Khan QC was called to the Bar of England & Wales in 1992 and is a Queen’s Counsel. He is also admitted to the Bar in Pakistan. He is the President of the International Criminal Court Bar Association (ICCBA) which represents both Victims and Defence Counsel eligible to appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

He has prosecuted at the ICTY and ICTR and acted as lead counsel for the largest group of civil party victims in case number one before the ECCC.

Presently, Karim is Lead counsel for Saif Al-Islam Gadaffi of Libya and is also lead counsel for Darfuri rebel leader Abdulla Banda before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Karim  has been Lead Defence Counsel in several other case before the ICC - namely for the current Deputy President of Kenya, H.E. William Ruto (the first successful ‘no case to answer motion’ at the ICC), for Ambassador Muthaura, Head of the Public Service of Kenya (the first case to be withdrawn by the Prosecutor of the ICC in a case which was confirmed), Sudanese Darfuri rebel leader, Bahar Idris Abu Garda (the first case not confirmed at the ICC),  Jean Pierre Bemba Gombo at the confirmation stage and Darfuri rebel leader Saleh Jerbo from his initial appearance until his death in the Darfur situation.

Karim has also acted as Lead Counsel at the ICTY, Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), EULEX Courts in Kosovo and at the Special Panel for Serious Crimes (Timor Leste). He was Counsel in the Defence Team representing Lawyer Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla before the Military Tribunal of Cameroon on charges which included terrorism. Felix is a human rights defender, the African Bar Association Vice President for Central Africa, President of the Fako Lawyers Association (FAKLA) and President of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CASC).

He is presently international Lead Counsel for large groups of victims of human rights violations in Albania, Kenya and Sierra Leone. Karim is a founding director of the NGOs, the “Peace and Justice Initiative” and “Global Victims Initiative’. He has published a number of leading texts on international criminal law, and is the co-author of Archbold ‘International Criminal Courts’.

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Home » Maliki Fiqh » BinBayyah.net » Human Rights in Islam

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Human Rights in Islam

In the Quran, there are various clear and strong texts that have delineated the fundamentals of human rights. However, the first declaration that can be called so is the magnificent speech delivered by the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in the Farewell Pilgrimage before about 120 thousands of his companions who gathered in `Arafat. In this speech, he laid the foundations of what can be called human rights. He declared the inviolability of bloods, properties, and honors and asked Allah and the people to bear witness to that. In this context, he has strongly forbidden inner fighting saying “Never shall you return after me [like] disbelievers striking the necks of one another.” He also recommended well treatment for women.

The essence of human rights can be summarized in two principles:

– Honoring, which is an established maxim for every human being just for being a human being. Almighty Allah said, “Yet very truly, We have so honored the Children of Adam: for We have carried them through the land and the sea. And We have provided them with all that is wholesome [in life]. And We have so favored them above most of what We have created with [such immense] favor.” [17:70]

– Equality, upon which Islam laid strong emphasis, as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “O people! Your Lord is one and your father is one. Neither an Arab has a merit over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab over an Arab nor a white person over a black one. You all belong to Adam and Adam was from dust.”

From these two principles begin all rights. Women have been given equal rights to those of men in terms of human honor- though this may vary for other functional reasons- and in terms of all forms of freedom. Man is originally free. This was best expressed in the words of `Umar, the Commander of the Believer “When have you enslaved people whereas they were born free?!”

Europeans had to wait for 1000 years later until Jan Jack Rousseau declared in his book  The Social Contract that man is born free. But freedom of the individual in Islam should not bring harm to the society. Equilibrium between the individual and the society is the most critical issue in the principle of freedom. Freedom is guaranteed as long as it does not contravene the general system as in the cases of reviling the religion, cursing people, or making transgressions against their bloods or properties. However, there may be difference of opinion over determining the general system and its ethical dimensions as will be explained.

Islam is the religion of solidarity in the sense that it not only enjoins you to refrain from harming others but also enjoins you, as a religious and juridical duty, to prevent people from causing harm to each others and to do your best to aid people, save their lives, protect their properties, and defend their honor. If you do not do so, you will become sinful; and a case can be filed against you in courts demanding compensation from you because you did not save a person from fire, prevent a blind person from falling in an abyss, etc. This is called the right of aid and support. “Then what is with you that you do not fight in the path of Allah and for the [utterly] helpless.” [4:75]

In short, all fundamental human rights are found in Islam. Man is honored by Allah and has the right to be respected and not to infringe his privacy. “Nor shall you spy [on each other]. Nor shall you backbite one another.” [49:12] “O you who believe! You shall not enter houses, other than your own houses, until you take [welcome] permission and great their people with peace.” [24:27]

However, this is not confined to Muslims but extends to peoples from other religions as well. Al-Bayhaqy in his  Sunan reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbad from entering the houses of the People of the Scripture without their permission and from eating their fruits unless they give it out of themselves.

Islam secured for man that he should not be addressed in a way he dislikes. Almighty Allah said, “O you who believe! Men shall not scoff at other men. For those [whom they scoff at] may be better than them. Nor shall women [scoff] at other women. For those [whom they scoff at] may be better than them. Nor shall you slander each other. Nor shall you revile each other by [way of abhorrent] nicknames.” [49:11]; and that he shall not be punished for someone else’s crime “For no sin-laden soul shall carry the [sinful] load of another.” [17:15] Man is innocent until the opposite proves true and should not be punished retroactively.

Islam guaranteed for man the right of ownership and to make use of the things that are not possessed by anybody such as earth, seas, rivers, wild animal, and fish.

People are partners in water, fire, grass. It is not permissible to transgress the possessions of others. If one dies and leaves something, it goes to his heir. People share natural resources with justice and kindness. Selling, leasing, loaning, borrowing, trading, and giving gifts are lawful means of earning to the exclusion of unlawful means such as theft, usurpation, usury, deception and gambling.

The poor and the weak have rights in the society and thus it is not permissible to leave any of them exposed to danger. These rights guaranteed by both the shari`ah and the judicial authority.

Islam has also guaranteed for the traveler that the resident people should guide him, give him to eat, and give him out of the zakah-charity if he needs because he is a wayfarer.

It has guaranteed the parents’ right and has enjoined children- by the judiciary power- to spend on them if they are poor; and so is the case with close relatives.

These rights are many and hence they have made the Muslim community cohesive, harmonious, and consolidated. Islam has enjoined those in authority among Muslims to establish the fundamental human rights and has given them in return for this duty the right of obeying them. Almighty Allah says, “O you who believe! You shall obey Allah. And you shall obey the Messenger and those in authority among you.” [4:59]

Scholars have founded what they called the objectives of the shari`ah; that is, the meanings derived from the totality of shari`ah texts identifying the goals of the shari`ah and its targets in isolation from the texts. Abu Ishaq al-Shatiby delineated the injunctions of the shari`ah saying: They refer to the preservation of its objectives with regard to the people. These objectives do not exceed three divisions: first, to be necessary, second to be complementary, and third to be embellishing.

Those that are necessary are indispensable for the interests of the religion and of this world which, if missed, this world will not go right but will go with corruption, turbulence, loss of life, loss of deliverance and bliss and with ultimate clear loss.

These objectives include the preservation of all fundamental and economic human rights, but they exceed with other indispensable rights for man’s promotion and protection, which are the goals of human rights. The necessary objective can be interpreted to be the right to live, the right of ownership, and the right to from a family in addition to the right of preserving reason, the right of practicing religion, and the right to preserve posterity.

Al-Shatiby pointed this out saying: The ummah (Muslim nation), rather all religions, has agreed that the shari`ah aims to preserve the five essentials: religion, souls, posterity, property, and reason.

Al-Ghazali said:  Man’s feeling safe for himself, property, and honor is a condition for the obligation of acts of worship.

The complementary objective can be translated as man’s right to have education, house, and other rights that lift the hardship of life and secure honorable living. Almighty Allah says, “Nor has He placed on you any [undue] strain.” [22:78]

The embellishing objective aims at giving life beauty and fun and enjoying wholesome things, as Almighty Allah says, “Say: Who is it that has prohibited the adornments of Allah, which He has brought forth for His servants, and the wholesome things of [His] provision?” [7:32]

These objectives set the foundation of an integrated and balanced outlook for human rights accompanied with the duty of both the society and the individual to secure and protect them as a religious responsibility as well as a legal and juridical one; that is, they are not just admonitory but biding- this is the advantage of law.

Some of us may see that this definition is close to the concept of the natural state or the natural law from which human rights derive their legitimacy and comprehensiveness as seen by some philosophers.

We can summarize the basic principles of human rights in Islam in the following points:

1. Establishing the state on the idea of  shura (consultation) starting with the choice the ruler and paying homage to him to continue ruling under the obligation of abiding by shari`ah rulings.

2. Enforcing the principle of legitimacy through the state executive authority and the judicial authority to protect the rights from all sorts of aggression or transgression and hence to prevent assault, taking captives and revenge.

3. Declaring the principle of equality between people, abolishing the system of classes and the habit of boasting with lineage and families, and establishing honor on the basis of piety alone; that is, on the basis of true faith accompanied by righteous work.

4. Establishing general freedoms on top of which come the sacredness of souls, honor, and properties along with housing, freedom of religion and opinion, freedom of work, and freedom of education as an obligatory right. It is a duty upon the society and the individuals to cooperate to preserve these rights.

5. Freedom of ownership accompanied by the obligation of social justice achieved through the imposition of zakah-charity and other duties on the properties of the rich for the sake of the underprivileged and the needy through the system of maintenance.

6. Freedom of making contracts and the obligation of fulfilling them and the freedom of trading and transacting accompanied by the restriction of preventing usury,  ghabn (unfair pricing), monopolization,  gharar (hazardous sale of uncertainty), and coercion and the exclusion of wills and the obligations of inheritance.

7. Fair treatment of women by giving them the right of inheritance, ownership, and discretion together with the basics of honor and equality in rights and duties and establishing marriage on cordiality and mercy. The wife has been given the right of dowry as a sort of honor for her and as discouraging from divorce without excuse. Polygamy was restricted with the condition of just treatment. Marriage of  shighar (exchange of daughters or sisters for marriage with no mandatory gift to a bride from her groom), temporary mirage, and burying female babies alive are practices that have been prohibited.

8. Regulating penalties and distinguishing between the public right or the right of Almighty Allah and the personal right and distinguishing between legal penalties prescribed by the shari`ah and other penalties that are not prescribed but left for the discretion of the judge known as  ta`zeer in addition to regulating the conditions of the crime of murdering and deliberate injuries and determining blood money and compensations.

9. Setting the foundation of international law of relations exhorting peace and brotherhood and the obligation of fulfilling covenants disallowing aggressive war and allowing defensive war for the sake of repelling aggression against religion, home, and holy places, preserving the freedom of religion, and helping the wronged person even if he is non Muslim.

10. Freedom of expression known as enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil. This freedom is bound by the dictates of responsibility, for Islam considers the consequences of deeds and words. Thus, there is no freedom of speech to curse others or to disseminate harmful values in the society- it is responsible freedom.

11. The right of the poor and the weak in economic protection. Almighty Allah says, “Thus they feed with food- despite their own desire for it- the indigent, and the orphan, and the captive [of war]” [76:8] and “Moreover, in their wealth was a rightful share [of charity] for the beggar and the destitute.” [51:19]

12. The right of people in fairness and justice. Almighty Allah says, “O you who believe! Be ever upright for [the sake of] Allah, bearing witness [to truth] with [impartial] justice. Therefore, let not detestation [for some people] induce you to be unfair. [Rather,] be fair! For to do so is, indeed, closer to the fear of Allah. Therefore, fear Allah! Indeed, Allah is all-aware of all that you do” and [5:8] “And whenever you judge between people, you shall judge with justice.” [4:58]

13. The right of people on each other to cooperate and have mutual assistance. Almighty Allah says, “Rather, you shall help one another to virtuousness and to the fear of Allah. But you shall not help one another to sin and to aggression.” [5:2] Others’ right of justice was not known before Islam. Islam was the first to acknowledge these rights regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, or religion.

The Gracious Quran speaks about just cooperation that is based on the principle of freedom and the supremacy of the society “Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to an equitable word between us and you: That we shall not worship other than Allah. And we shall not associate anything in [our worship of] Him. And we shall not take one another as lords apart from Allah.”[3:64] explaining this verse Muhammad ibn `Amr al-Razy (544-606/1149-1209) said, “‘An equitable word’ indicates justice and fairness between all of us in terms of worshipping Allah equitably.” This means that there should be no extravagance or hegemony of one group over the other. All people enjoy freedom and equality before Allah, the One and Only God of all the people.

14.  The right to refuse prohibited things; that is, the right not to be forced to commit things prohibited by the shari`ah. The noble Messenger said, “No created being should be obeyed in disobedience of the Creator.” Almighty Allah said, “He said: The promise of My covenant shall not extend to the wrongdoers.” [2:124] By virtue of this, no ruler can enact the lawfulness of something prohibited or detrimental to people’s interests. The juristic rule is that “the ruler’s management of the subjects is bound by serving their interest.” Similarly, it is not for a powerful state or nation, even if it is a Muslim one, to impose things that cause harm to the interests of small countries.

15. Protecting properties. Almighty Allah says, “Moreover, you shall not consume one another’s wealth by false means, nor proffer any of it to [bribe] those in authority, in order to sinfully consume a portion of people’s wealth- while you know [it is wrong].” [2:188]

16. Preserving human dignity and honor. Almighty Allah says, “O you who believe! Men shall not scoff at other men. For those [whom they scoff at] may be better than them. Nor shall women [scoff] at other women. For those [whom they scoff at] may be better than them. Nor shall you slander each other. Nor shall you revile each other by [way of abhorrent] nicknames. Woeful is the ungodly name after attaining faith” [49:11] and “O you who believe! Shun much suspicion. For, indeed, certain kinds of suspicion are sinful. Nor shall you spy [on each other]. Nor shall you backbite one another.” [49:12]

17. Protecting private life. Almighty Allah says, “O you who believe! You shall not enter homes, other than your own homes, until you take [welcome] permission and greet their people with peace. That is best for you- so that you may become mindful [of the benefit of Allah’s commandments]. But if you do not find anyone therein, then do not enter them until permission is given to you. Moreover, if it is said to you: Turn back! then turn back [and do not persist]. That is purer for you.” [24:27-28]

Human rights in Islam enjoy the privilege that the wise Lawgiver gave them a divine source, a sacred essence, and a rational characteristic. They are established by the Creator’s will and derived from His religion. They are beyond whims and are secured forever.

Dr. Khayyat maintains that human rights fall within the divine appointment of man as a successor. The covenant of succession includes his rights and duties and there is harmony and synchronization between individual’s rights and public interest. Each right for the individual includes a right for God- i.e., for the society- though priority is given to God’s right in the case of conflict. These rights includes the five necessities of the shari`ah; namely, the preservation of religion, reason, soul, posterity, and property.

Perhaps the most important mainstay for human rights in the shari`ah is the independence of the judiciary; for the judge’s only reference is to the shari`ah and his conscience.

This independence is shown by the brief message sent by `Umar, the commander of the believers, (may Allah be pleased with him) to Mu`awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan, the governor of Syria and Palestine telling him that “You have no authority over `Ubadah ibn al-Samit.” `Ubadah was sent by the Caliph as a judge for Palestine. `Umar, thus, put an end for the governors’ interference in judiciary.

Here is another message sent by the Caliph `Umar ibn al-Khattab to Abu Mosa al-Ash`ary establishing the rules of judiciary that secure rights:

“Judgeship is a firm obligation and a followed methodology. So you should comprehend what is submitted before you; for it is useless to speak with a truth that is not enforceable. Treat people equally in terms of how approach you, how you face them, and how you judge between them so that no noble person should wish for your unjust inclination and no weak person should despair of your justice. Evidence is upon the claimant and vow is on the one who denies. Reconciliation between Muslims is permissible except that reconciliation that renders the unlawful lawful and the lawful unlawful. Whoever claims an absent right or evidence give him respite with fixed date, for this way you give the best excuse and clarify the blindness of the issue. No sentence you passed one day and then you revised it and was guided to the right opinion should prevent you from returning to the truth. The truth is old and nothing renders it void. Returning to the truth is better than going forward with falsehood. Muslims are trustworthy with one another with the exception of someone known for false testimony or someone whipped in penalty for a crime or a person whose credibility is under suspicion due to his alliance or relation to another. Almighty Allah is aware of the secrets of people and He has concealed the reasons of their falling under penalty unless with clear evidences and oaths. You should thoroughly comprehend that which is submitted before you and is not in the Quran or the Sunnah and then apply analogy.

Be aware of similar cases and look for what you see as the best in the sight of Allah and closer to the truth. Beware of anger, anxiety, boredom, feeling hurt by people and seeking to be remembered by the disputants. Judging in favor of the truth is a reason for deserving the reward of Allah and for having good remembrance among people. Hence, he who is sincere to the truth, even against himself, Allah will sufficiently take care of what is between him and the people. He who adorns himself with that which is not within himself will be disgraced by Allah. Allah does not accept from a person except that which is sincerely for Him. What do you think of the reward of Allah in His near provision and the treasures of His mercy?! Peace be upon you together with the mercy of Allah.”

Ibn al-Qayyem al-Jawziyyah said, “This message is great and scholars received it with approval and established upon it the rules of judgeship and testimony. The ruler and the mufti (jurist counselor) are more needful to reflect on and learn it.”

During the Abbasid period and in the end of the second century of Hijrah the caliph kept himself away from appointing judges as he entrusted this judiciary. Al-Rasheed appointed Abu Yousof as a judge and entrusted him to appoint judges in other countries and thus judiciary had some sort of administrative independence.

Office of the ombudsman can be considered an advanced means to protect human rights; particularly from the injustice of the authorities. It was established by al-Mahdy in the second half of the second century of Hijrah. It received people’s complaints even against high officials. Al-Mady and his successors up to the period of al-Muhatady (255 AH) used to dedicate one or two days a week to sit and listen to people’s complaints against those in authority as well as others.

Military justice was formed during the Mamluki period after expelling the crusaders from Syria by the end of the seventh century. This judiciary was for settling disputes among the soldiers. In Damascus there were two military judges.

After this quick survey over human rights in Islam, we shall focus on four key issues due to their importance in the current dialogue over human rights in Islam to see in the light of the shari`h and under the shade of the Western philosophy the prejudice against the Islamic shari`ah. We are going to dedicate four chapters for these issues: the first chapter will be about the status of women, the second about freedom and equality, the third about  shura (consultation) and democracy, and the forth about Islamic criminal laws and human rights.

This answer was collected from BinBayyah.net, which contains of feature articles and fatawa by world renowned ‘Alim, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, from Mauritania.

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