scholarly journals Do Human Rights Have a Secular, Individualistic & Anti-Islamic Bias?

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-169
Author(s):  
T. Jeremy Gunn

There is a widely shared belief, both within and outside the Muslim world, that Islamic law cannot be reconciled with the modern human rights regime that developed out of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (udhr). Many Muslims perceive that the purportedly individualistic, secular, and Western orientation of human rights is alien to Islamic values. Abdulaziz Sachedina and other scholars of Islam have argued that the underlying tenets of the udhr and its progeny are simply incompatible with Islamic law. In reality, the problem is not an underlying conflict between human rights and Islam, but the mistaken assumption that the modern nation-state is the proper institution for interpreting and enforcing Islamic law.

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmood Monshipouri

Fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Muslim world shows signs of divergence from and convergence toward that declaration. There obviously exist some fundamental disagreements between the Muslim world and the West regarding the separation of religion from politics. Other differences centre particularly on the nature of universality of human rights, women's rights, and the rights of minorities. Islamists are faced with two options: either (1) reconcile the sources of cardinal Islamic truth with those of an emerging transnational society, or (2) re-establish the practical relevance of authentic Islamic ideas to international normative standards. The contemporary discourse on human rights has pressured Muslim theological thinkers into committing to the modern notions of popular sovereignty and political democracy. Meanwhile Muslim reformists continue to explore common grounds with the West so as to promote principles as well as practices that are consonant with modern human rights standards. The task of Muslim reformists is fraught with difficulties and their effectiveness is hard to gauge; nonetheless, their calls for democratisation, the expansion of civil society, and the protection and promotion of individual rights are gaining a wider popular appeal.


Fully Human ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 28-54
Author(s):  
Lindsey N. Kingston

Chapter 1 shows how the value and meaning of citizenship have evolved within political thought, with particular attention to the intensification of debates in relation to the protection of modern human rights. With the creation of the United Nations and the adoption of rights norms, the international community made assumptions about identity and membership that effectively limited the inclusiveness of so-called universal rights. By privileging state sovereignty and legal nationality, the human rights regime created protection gaps for noncitizens and people at the margins. Scholars continue to debate whether globalization has eroded the importance of state citizenship and the nation-state, or whether it has in fact strengthened the state’s role in the world system. I argue that citizenship continues to have persistent power and appeal, and that this complex concept is often conversely viewed as a right, an identity, and a commodity.


2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 320-334
Author(s):  
Silas W. Allard

In her essay “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man,” Hannah Arendt famously wrote, “Nobody had been aware that mankind, for so long a time considered under the image of a family of nations, had reached the state where whoever was thrown out of one of these tightly organized closed communities found himself thrown out of the family of nations altogether.” Surveying the aftermath of the world wars, the same aftermath that eventually led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Arendt found that a person had to be emplaced—the subject of a political space—in the state-oriented order of geopolitics to be cognizable as a subject of human rights. The stateless, being displaced, were excluded from such a regime of rights and from the global political community. Bare humanity, Arendt argued, was an insufficiently binding political identity. As she wrote in her arresting language, “The world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human.”


2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-69
Author(s):  
Nam-Kook Kim

This paper examines how Britain tries to defend its national sovereignty against European challenges in the area of human rights policies and how the British approach to human rights has evolved after adjusting complicated demands from Europe. I explore the three British Acts of human rights and immigration policies: the Human rights Act of 1998, the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act, and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. I assess the British case in the context of two competing views: one, human rights as a constitutive principle of, not an external imposition on, liberal nation states. The other, human rights as a universalized discourse of entitlement that rendered national citizenship inventively irrelevant. I argue that the British case basically confirms the priority of national sovereignty in the evolution of human rights regime, but shows a transition to the concept of human rights as a universalized entitlement beyond the nation state.


Author(s):  
Labeeb Bsoul

This paper illustrates the contributions of Islamic law to the development of transnational socio-political organisations that transcend racial and geopolitical fixations. Those are best enshrined in the premise of the unıty of believing community and humanity led to the Shari‘ah/Islamic law. Islam advocates the development and consolidation of communities. Thıs study dıscusses the concept of ‘ummah’ (community of believers) according to the tradıtıon of Prophet Muhammad and surveys ıts development throughout the Islamıc caliphates, sultanates, and imamates up untıl colonialısm and modern ‘nation-state’ system. The article argues that there are ontological, epistemological, and normative differences spanning the divide between Muslim and Western worldviews especially concerning the development and management of their polities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-76
Author(s):  
Daniel Alfaruqi

Abstract.The controversy between Islamic law and universal human rights continues to roll. Apart from universal claims to human rights principles, when he saw that the concept came from the West, some Muslims were suspicious and considered it an attempt to secularize Islamic law. As a result, conservative Muslims continue to reject the application of Western standards, even in the name of universal human rights, to legal problems in Muslim societies. Based on this research, it can be concluded that the Islamic response to human rights is a reflection of global, lasting and fundamental demands. By not intending to have anology, in fact Islam has first taught humanity about concepts that are egalitarian, universal and democratic. This concept that is so beautiful and comprehensive is allegedly adopted by the West through the emergence of universal ideas standardized in the convention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Islamic teachings cover all aspects of human life, and of course they have included rules and high respect for human rights. But it is not in a structured document, but is spread in the holy verses of the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. The birth of the UDHR and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) endorsed by the OIC was an attempt to clarify the actions of Muslim countries on arrogant, authoritarian and arbitrary Western claims.Keywords: Islamic law, human rights Abstrak.Kontroversi antara hukum Islam dan hak-hak asasi manusia universal terus bergulir. Meskipun telah melekat klaim universal pada prinsip-prinsip HAM, ketika melihat bahwa konsep tersebut berasal dari Barat, sebagian umat Islam curiga dan menganggapnya sebagai usaha untuk mensekulerkan hukum Islam. Karena itu, kalangan Muslim konservatif tetap menolak penerapan standar-standar Barat, meskipun atas nama HAM universal, terhadap persoalan-persoalan hukum pada masyarakat Muslim. Berdasarkan penelitian ini diperoleh kesimpulan bahwa respon Islam terhadap hak asasi manusia adalah cerminan dari tuntutan global, abadi, dan fundamental. Dengan tidak bermaksud untuk berapologi, sesunguhnya Islam telah terlebih dahulu mengajarkan umat manusia tentang konsep yang egaliter, universal, dan demokratis. Konsep yang sedemikian indah dan komprehensif ini disinyalir diadopsi oleh Barat melalui pemunculan ide-ide universal yang dibakukan dalam konvensi Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Ajaran Islam meliputi seluruh aspek dari sisi kehidupan manusia,dan tentu saja telah tercakup di dalamnya aturan dan penghargaan yang tinggi terhadap hak asasi manusia (HAM). Namun memang tidak dalam satu dokumen yang terstruktur, tetapi tersebar dalam ayat-ayat suci al-Quran dan Sunnah Nabi Muhammad SAW. Kelahiran UDHR dan Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) yang diratifikasi oleh OKI merupakan upaya penjernihan yang dilakukan oleh negara-negara Muslim atas klaim Barat yang arogan, otoriter dan semena-mena.Kata kunci: Hukum Islam, Hak Asasi Manusia


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 334-338
Author(s):  
Helmut Philipp Aust

“Digital technology is transforming what it means to be a subject.” The increase in the use of big data, self-learning algorithms, and fully automated decision-making processes calls into question the concept of human agency that is at the basis of much of modern human rights law. Already today, it is possible to imagine a form of “algorithmic authority,” i.e., the exercise of authority over individuals based on the more or less automated use of algorithms. What would this development mean for human rights law and its central categories? What does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted seventy years ago as a founding document of the human rights movement at the international level, have to say about this?


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Asma Manzoor ◽  
Saba Imran Ali ◽  
Muhammad Nadeemullah

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) came into existence after World War II when the Nazi violence perpetrated upon the Jews came to light, the world community realized that the UN Charter was not sufficiently specific to protect human rights. In response, the Declaration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948. General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It consists of 30 articles which cover a broad range including social, political, economic and religious rights. Though not legally binding, the UDHR is considered a foundational document in international human right laws. It has inspired the development of 50 human rights instruments around the world including international treaties, national constitutions, and regional human right laws. Whereas Islamic law or Shari’ah, has been used in countries throughout the world for more than 1,400 years and remains the ideal legal system for more than a billion people worldwide. During the reign of the Ottoman Empire, the nations under its rule flourished in such diverse fields of medicine, education, social sciences and arts. While Shari’ah has been examined in great detail, religious scholars and groups for implementation in Islamic countries mostly completed the research. However, by comparing the rulings and methodology of Shari’ah to current systems around the world, it is possible to gain both a better understanding and also provides an alternative current system of laws.


Author(s):  
Sadari Sadari

This article offers a study of h}udu>di> (limit) in Islamic family law contained in the Indonesian Compilation of Islamic Law (KHI). The study of h}udu>di is nothing other than the process of desacralization that KHI becomes progressive in line with the development of modernity and in the context of Indonesian-ness. To that end, this article makes two efforts, firstly, by rejecting the idea that gives no attention to limit in one hand, and secondly, by strengthening the thoughts of scholars who offer new ijtihad both in its concept until to methodology. Thought that strengthens it came from Syrian figure, namely Muh}ammad Shah}ru>r, through a plausibility structure. His study of hududsupported Nurcholish Madjid idea about the de-sacralization, so as to perform the coherence between KHI to human rights issues, democracy, nation-state, civil society, and constitutionalism. So this article supports the spirit of de-sacralization - in addition to not abandon its sacralization - initiated by Nurcholish Madjid. The source of this study is KHI, by using the hududparadigm, that based on a maxim of sabat al-naswa harakah al-muhtawa, meaning that the text is permanent , but the content moves. So that the rule of law is always rooted in liminality based on the text, which is the pivot of study centered on the text toward the context, not vice versa.


2019 ◽  
Vol 132 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-465
Author(s):  
Remko Mooi

Abstract No small affair. The Netherlands and the declaration of human rights, 1948-1957The 1970s have often been indicated as the decade when human rights rose to significance in the international arena. In the period before, states supposedly showed little genuine interest in them. In this article, it is shown that the Dutch government was already committed to establishing a far-reaching, binding human rights regime during the first post-war decade. Whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has traditionally been critiqued for shying away from establishing legal obligations, the Netherlands and other states in fact expected a binding treaty to follow swiftly. International supervision to compliance was deemed important too. Already during the 1950s the Netherlands and various other countries allowed individuals to file applications against states under the European Convention on Human Rights. This period should therefore not be overlooked when studying the origins of our modern day human rights system.


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