Home  Essays Zaid Shakir on Islam and the UDHR
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Zaid Shakir on Islam and the UDHR |
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Written by Zaid Shakir
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Monday, 31 October 2005 |
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Page 1 of 4
American Muslims, Human Rights,
and the Challenge of September 11, 2001
By Imam Zaid Shakir
Introduction
The tragic events of
September 11, 2001, have called into question many fundamental Islamic
principles, values, and beliefs. The ensuing discourse in many critical
areas reveals the weakness of Muslims in making meaningful and
substantive contributions towards a clear understanding of the Islamic
position on a number of critical issues. The purpose of this paper is
to examine one of those issues, human rights, in an effort to identify:
1. How human rights are defined in the Western and Islamic intellectual traditions;
2. Why human rights issues are of central importance to Islamic propagation efforts in North America;
3. What are the implications of the tragic events of September 11, 2001 for prevailing Muslim views of human rights?
This paper is not designed
to respond the attacks of those authors who assail the philosophy,
conceptualization, formulation, and application of human rights policy
among Muslims. Such a response would be quite lengthy, and owing to the
complexity of the project, would probably raise as many questions as it
resolved. Nor is it an attempt to call attention to the increasingly
problematic indifference of the United States government towards
respecting the civil liberties and other basic rights of its Muslim and
Arab citizens. We do hope that this paper will help American Muslims
identify and better understand some of the relevant issues shaping our
thought and action in the critical area of human rights.
Part One: Defining Human Rights
A review of the relevant
literature reveals a wealth of definitions for human rights. Some of
these definitions are quite brief, others quite elaborate.1
However, few of these definitions deviate far from the principles
delineated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), issued
by the UN General Assembly in 1948. That landmark document emphasizes,
among other things:
The right to life, liberty, and security of person; the right to
freedom of thought, speech, and communication of information and ideas;
freedom of assembly and religion; the right to government through free
elections; the right to free movement within the state and free exit
from it; the right to asylum in another state; the right to
nationality; freedom from arbitrary arrest and interference with the
privacy of home and family; and the prohibition of slavery and torture.
This declaration was followed by the International Covenant on
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), in 1966. In the same
year, the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
was also drafted. These arrangements, collectively known as the
International Bill of Human Rights, were reaffirmed in the Helsinki
Accords of 1975, and buttressed by the threat of international
sanctions against offending nations. When we examine these and other
international agreements governing human rights, we find a closely
related set of ideas, which collectively delineate a system of
fundamental or inalienable, universally accepted rights.
These rights are not strictly political, as the UDHR mentions:
"The right to work, to protection against unemployment, and to join
trade unions; the right to a standard of living adequate for health and
well-being; the right to education; and the right to rest and leisure."
In summary, we can say that human rights are the inalienable social,
economic and political rights, which accrue to human beings by virtue
of their belonging to the human family.
Defining human rights from
an Islamic perspective is a bit more problematic. The reason for this
is that there is no exact equivalent for the English term, “human
rights,” in the traditional Islamic lexicon. The frequently used Arabic
term, al-Huquq al-Insaniyya, is simply a literal Arabic translation for
the modern term. However, our understanding of the modern term, when
looked at from the abstracted particulars comprising its definition,
gives us insight into what Islam says in this critical area. For
example, if we consider the word “right” (Haqq), we find an array of
concepts in Islam, which cover the range of rights mentioned in the
UDHR.
If we begin with the right
to life, Islam clearly and unequivocally guarantees that right. The
Qur’an states, Do not unjustly take the life which Allah has
sanctified. [6:151] Similarly, in the context of discussing the
consequences of the first murder in human history, For that reason
[Cain murdering Abel], we ordained for the Children of Israel that
whoever kills a human being for other than murder, or spreading
corruption on Earth, it is as if he has killed all of humanity. And
whoever saves a life, it is as if he has saved all of humanity. [5:32]
It should be noted in this
regard, as the first verse points out, Islam doesn’t view humanity as a
mere biological advancement of lower life forms. If this were the case,
there would be little fundamental distinction between human and animal rights, other than
those arising from the advancement and complexity of the human mind.
However, Islam views human life as a biological reality, which has been
sanctified by a special quality that has been instilled into the human
being –the spirit [Ruh].2 We read in the Qur’an, …then He
fashioned him [the human being] and breathed into him of His spirit.
[32:9]
It is interesting to note
that this spiritual quality is shared by all human beings, and precedes
our division into nations, tribes, and religious collectivities. An
illustration of this unifying spiritual bond can be gained from
considering a brief exchange, which occurred between the Prophet
Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah upon him, and a group of his
companions. Once a funeral procession passed in front of the Prophet,
peace and blessings of God upon him, and a group of his companions, the
Prophet, peace and blessings of God upon him, reverently stood up. One
of his companions mentioned that the deceased was a Jew, to which the
Prophet, peace and blessings of God upon him, responded, “Is he not a
human soul?”3
Possession of this shared
spiritual quality is one of the ways our Creator has ennobled the human
being. God says in this regard, We have truly ennobled the human being…
[17:70] This ennoblement articulates itself in many different ways, all
of which serve to highlight the ascendancy of the spiritual and
intellectual faculties in man. It provides one of the bases for
forbidding anything, which would belittle, debase, or demean the human
being, and its implications extend far beyond the mere preservation
life.4 It guarantees his/her rights before birth, by forbidding
abortion, except in certain well-defined instances. After death, it
guarantees the right of the body to be properly washed, shrouded, and
buried. It also forbids the intentional mutilation of a cadaver,
even in times of war, and forbids insulting or verbally abusing the
dead, even deceased non-Muslims.5 While these latter points may be
deemed trivial to some, they help create a healthy attitude towards
humanity, an attitude that must be present if acknowledged rights are
to be actually extended to their possessors.
If we examine other
critical areas identified by the UDHR for protection as inalienable
rights, we can see that Islam presents a very positive framework for
safeguarding those rights.
In the controversial area of religious freedom, where Islam is
identified by many in the West as a religion which was spread by forced
conversion, we find that Islam has never advocated the forced
acceptance of the faith. In fact, the Qur’an unequivocally rejects this
idea. Let there be no compulsion in [accepting] Religion, truth clearly
distinguishes itself from error. [2:256] God further warns His Prophet,
peace and blessings of God upon Him, against forced conversions, If
your Lord had willed, everyone on Earth would have believed [in this
message]; will you then compel people to believe? [10:99]
In this context, every
human being is free to participate in the unrestricted worship of his
Lord. As for those who refuse to do so according to the standards
established by Islam, they are free to worship as they please.
During the Ottoman epoch, this freedom evolved into a sophisticated
system of minority rights known as the Millet System. Bernard
Lewis comments on that system,
"Surely, the Ottomans did not offer equal rights to their subjects –a
meaningless anachronism in the context of that time and place. They did
however offer a degree of tolerance without precedence or parallel in
Christian Europe. Each community –the Ottoman term was Millet- was
allowed the free practice of its religion. More remarkably, they had
their own communal organizations, subject to the authority of their own
religious chiefs, controlling their own education and social life, and
enforcing their own laws, to the extent that they did not conflict with
the basic laws of the Empire."6
Similarly positive Islamic
positions can be found in the areas of personal liberties, within the
parameters provided by the Islamic legal code. We will return to a
brief discussion of those parameters, and their implications for an
Islamic human rights regime. However, it isn’t the purpose of this
paper to engage in an exhaustive treatment of this particular subject.
Stating that, we don’t propose
that Islamic formulations in this regard are an exact replica of
contemporary Western constitutional guarantees governing human rights
policy. Muslims and non-Muslims alike, when examining the issue of
human rights within an Islamic legal or philosophical framework, should
realize that human rights regimes, as we know them, are a contemporary
political phenomenon, which have no ancient parallel. However, we
are prepared to defend the thesis that Islam has historically presented
a framework for protecting basic human rights, and that it presents a
system of jurisprudential principles that allow for the creation of a
viable modern human rights regime, totally consistent with the letter
and spirit of Islam.
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