The Development of Human Rights in Muslim Societies

Abstract

Muslim states and scholars have had a dual encounter with human rights. On the one hand, it is claimed that Islam is a pioneer religion in offering universal ethics and valuable teachings on the dignity of man, on human rights and, particularly, on the equality of human beings before the law. Thus, the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant conventions in principal are accepted. On the other hand, creating the new idea of “Islamic human rights” in which the current principles of human rights are governed by the Sharī’a, Muslims spurned the equality in the cases of women and non-Muslims as if they regarded the inequality as a part of their faith. Some Muslims regard the paradigm of human rights as a new means by which Western culture dominates Muslim contexts in a post-colonial modern world.

In this contribution I will offer a solution that stems from Muslim jurists’ literature and language concerning the contradictions between Islam and human rights. This solution has some precedents in jurisprudence in other cases. However, the realization of the solution needs some prerequisite knowledge to lead the jurists as well as Muslim states to accept all doctrines of the human rights concerning the rights of religious minorities. The solution could be applied to other legal subjects which are in conflict with human rights.

Originally published as The Development of Human Rights in Muslim Societies in: M. L. Pirner, J. Lähnemann, H. Bielefeldt (Hrsg.) Menschenrechte und inter-religiöse Bildung, EB-Verlag Dr. Brandt e.K., Berlin 2015.