Islam and Human Rights

1
Islam and Human Rights

• Dr. Sirkku K. Hellsten
• Centre for the Study of Global Ethics

2
Islam and Human Rights Different Debates

• Different issues are confused with each other
• 1. Human rights protection and human rights
  violations according to the International Human
  Rights principles
• a) within the Islamic states
• b) within Islamic communities in pluralist
  states
• 2. Islamic concept of human rights historical
  and philosophical debates on whether Islam has a
  particular concept of human right and whether
  Islamic religion and Islamic law can be
  consistent with human rights frameworks

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What is Islam?

• 2nd biggest religion in terms of numbers, 1.2.
  Billion, 20 of world population
• Sunni and Shia Islam
• Political approaches to Islam
• Five pillars of Islam
• Prophethood Muhammad
• Quran (Koran) and Islamic Law Sharia

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Centrality of these debates in current state of
world affairs

• Womens rights in Islamic states in Islamic
  communities womens rights in general
• Extremist and fundamentalist movement
• - Islam as religion vs. Islam as a radical
  political movement jihad
• 9/11 and clash of civilizations (Huntington)
• Need to go back to the real Islam and Islamic
  values to avoid political stakes from both sides
• Issues of globalisation values and ethics

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Debates on Human Rights and Islam

• Islam is invoked to put aside HR protection or to
• justify human rights violations
• 1. Accept that the two systems operate in
  parallel
• - HR cannot be applied to Islam because of the
• cultural specifications and differences in values
• - Islam offers an adequate system to protect and
• promote HRs
• 2. To Achieve reconciliation
• - by reinterpreting and changing Islam
• - by changing human rights
• - by working on both and finding a compromise

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Justification for rejecting HRs

• Origins of human rights
• - modern, Western concept, cultural imperialism,
  political rather than humanistic aims
• The law of God and the law of men
• - the separation btw the spiritual, the personal
  andthe political
• Social responsibility Duties gt Rights
• Individual vs. Collective/Group Rights
• The issues of foundations secular - religious

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HRs violations in Islamic states

• Islamic law punishments death penalty other
  hadd punishments considered often as forms of
  torture like cutting of limbs
• Womens rights
• Minority rights rights of non-Muslism right of
  sexual minorities, etc.
• Slavery

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Compatibility of HRs and Islam

• Historical foundations of Islamic values
• Compatibility of Human rights and Islamic values
• Different interpretations of Quaran and Sharia
• How to overcome universalism and relativism
  polarization Islam as one religion as the
  religion human rights as universal secular
  principles

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Islamic human rights declaration

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam
  (1980, Islamic Council)
• Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (1991,
  Organization of the Islamic Conference)
• Arab Charter on Human Rights (1994, League of
  Arab States)
• new draft 2004 by Arab standing Committee on
  Human Rights
• approved but not ratified by Arab states

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How to make HRs legitimate in Islamic context 1

• I Working on the sharia
• Cross-cultural dialogue and internal discourse
  (An-Naim) new interpretations
• Culture is a living, symbolic and open-ended
  experience politics, religion and culture
  context and interaction

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How to make HRs legitimate in Islamic context 2

• II Working on Human Rights discourse
• - too much emphasis on civil and political
  rights
• - too much Individualism
• Conclusion
• Moderate cultural relativism is acceptable
  respect for different cultures
• Radical cultural relativism must be denounced
  (Donnelly)

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• What elements of African Charter included?
• Are these three declarations consistent with each
  other?
• Are all or any of them compatible with
  International Human Rights covenants?
• Which is the most liberal, and which most
  authoritarian?