ISLAM AND POLITICS

Transcending Universalism: Islam and Human Rights

One of the significant achievements of the United Nations during the first fifty years of its history has been the negotiation and promulgation of comprehensive set of standards for international human rights. Since its declaration in 1948, there has been much talked of human rights.

The question whether human rights are indeed truly universal or particular has been discussed among scholars in the world. Does every article, which is written in the declaration, contain universal values? Can it be applied to every culture, nation, in everywhere and every time? These questions appeared because the United Nations put a word ?universal? in the title of its declaration. Moreover, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not divinely revealed truths given to the people of the world. Rather, they are socially constructed documents, forged by committed group of people within a specific historical context involving conflicting agendas.

A still more different conception is the issue of religion. For religious critics of the universalist definition of human rights, nothing can be universal that is not founded on transcendent values, symbolised by God, and sanctioned by the guardians of the various faiths. Unlike religions, human rights do not represents an all-encompassing way of life. Thus, human rights are not necessarily the highest manifestation of ethical spirit in human history. They are not intended to replace, for instance, Christian demands of love, Islamic solidarity, or the Buddhist ethic of compassion. Rather, they concentrate on political justice by setting up some basic normative standard.

The concept of human rights is a development of Western civilisations. It is a historical product which evolves in Europe, out of foundations in Christianity, Stoicism and Roman Law, but which gains force and direction only with the contractual and pluralist nature of European feudalism.

Islam and Human Rights

As Kung and Moltmann state that many of the great world religion have their problem with the affirmation and realizations of human rights which were proclaimed by the American and French revolutions and finally grounded in the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations in 1948.

The task of finding an indigenous Islamic voice with which to articulate international human rights in Islam, is further compounded by the fact that more than one voice and school of thought are heard in Muslim societies. However, the Muslim scholars who have engaged in the debate on the issue of cultural relativism and human rights can be divided into two broad groups: conservativists (traditionalist) and liberalists (modernist).

The conservative group objects to the imposition of western standards on non-individualistic Islamic cultures. They argue that the sphere of public authority in Muslim societies was regulated through religious norms. For them, universal human rights are perceived as a threat to this idealised society with its integrative membership. Instead of rejecting human rights altogether, this group emphasis on redefining these rights in an exclusively Islamic framework.

Liberal group, on the other hand, have moved far beyond literal interpretations of the sacred text and developed methodologies, mostly based on the various techniques of ijtihad. For them, Islamic tradition should be reinterpreted to make it fully consonant with the international norms. Abdullah Ahmed An-Naim --Muslim law scholar who equally stresses his Islamic identity and his adherence to international human rights-- states that Islam is in substance compatible with Western human rights legal norms if interpreted accordingly. To support his contention he refers, on the general level, to the elasticity of Islam and to its capability to accommodate various interpretations equally favorable or hostile to human rights. Furthermore, liberal Muslim reformers argue that no inherent contradiction exist between Islamic principles and the emancipator claims of human rights as embodied in the existing international standards. The Quranic idea of human dignity, indeed, requires a political commitment to human rights, in solidarity with people of different religious beliefs and philosophical convictions.

Both conservative and liberal groups in Islam are still debating the relationship between Islam and human rights. However, to integrate the language of human rights into existing frame work of the sharia which is more emphasised by the conservative group, Muslims produced two Declaration of human Rights; Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights issued by the Islamic council for Europe in 1981 and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, adopted by the organisation of the Islamic Conference in August 1991. Thus, to examine whether Universal Declaration of Human Rights conflict with the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights or not, some examples are discussed below.

Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that ?men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. This article is totally conflicting with the Islamic belief system that forbids Muslim women to marry with a non-Muslim man. Moreover, article 18 says ?everyone has the right to freedom of thoughts, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief?. Most Islamic countries reject this religious liberty, particularly the right to change one?s religion. Although the Quran states that there is no compulsion in religion, the crucial issue of the ban on conversion from Islam to another religion still stands as obstacles to the full recognition of religious liberty in Islamic countries.

Some articles of Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, on the other hand, are open to be criticised. For example article 6 states that women is equal to man in human dignity. Actually, sharia was concerned with guaranteeing certain minimum rights for women rather than achieving equality between men and women. In terms of that limited objective, one finds that the position of women under sharia was superior to their position under other legal systems prevailing up to the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, from the point of view of complete equality between men and women required by modern human rights standards, sharia provisions are no longer adequate.

Another interesting point is that the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights states in article 23: ?In view of the fact that the world of Islam is veritably Ummah Islamia, every Muslim shall have the right to freely move in and out of any Muslim country?. It is difficult to practice the article that every Muslims shall have the rights to freely move in and out of any Muslim countries. As the world is divided into many nation and states, Indonesian Muslims, for example, must have a passport and visa to be allowed to go to Malaysia, Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries.

From the explanation above, this is clear that the variety of Islamic position in the area of human right exist. Although the Muslim conservative group is quite successful to formulate Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, it is important to note that in reality, the ideal concept of Islamic rights is not easy to be implemented. Referring to two examples above, it seems that Universal Islamic of Human Rights is ?a wish list?.


To conclude, from the Islam?s experience, it is important to note that while society is characterized by power-political conflict and by profound and abiding human difference, it is difficult to make a declaration of human rights which can be accepted by all countries in the world and applied in different time and different places.

I agree that human rights are one of the most important elements in the modern world. However, in the world of plurality, we have to note that it may be difficult to stand in one paradigm or worldview and from it tell those in another that they are wrong and must change. What is possible though is to use the interplay of ideas, reasons, stories and relationship to develop ?a worldviews bridge? which leads to the establishment of a common platform on which to stand in the quest for the betterment of humankind.

posted by Alin at 8:29 AM