Islam and Human Rights

Abstract

Islam and Human Rights is an attempt to establish whether Islamic Law, Sharia, is compatible with universal human rights as they are defined in the International Bill of Human Rights. After briefly describing the history of universal human rights, the concept of cultural relativism and introducing the early history of Islam as well as the concept of Sharia, the analyze focuses on a selection of human rights documents produced in an Islamic environment. Some of the documents are created on an intergovernmental level, such as the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights and the Arab Charter on Human Rights, while some are simply created by private institution, but has had a prominent position in the doctrine. The aim is to highlight in what parts these documents have difficulties reaching up to international human rights standards, due to clashing religious or cultural values. The emphasis will be on the equality between sexes, the rights of religious minorities and freedom of religion, since these are the three main areas in which differences traditionally arises. The second part of the essay deals with the practical aspect of human rights in the Arabic parts of the world. The Arab countries are selected as limitation since they are the birthplace of Islam, and the countries in which you more often find a purer form of state Islam. The focus will be on the existence of local and regional organizations, describing their situation and the complications they suffer from, both in relation to their own governments, but also in their cooperation with international organizations. Finally an attempt will be made to establish whether there exist any human rights interest, or movements, within the fundamentalist groups in the area.