Muslims and Global Justice

Chapter 7. Toward an Islamic Hermeneutics for Human Rights

Chapter 7 Toward an Islamic Hermeneutics for Human Rights A central question in the consideration of religion’s relation to human rights is whether the various views of what it means to be truly human leave room for a set of neutrally formulated common human rights. It is not possible, or desirable , in my view to identify a set of neutrally formulated human rights. Any normative regime, which justifies a set of rights and determines their content, must necessarily represent a commitment to a particular value system. This particularity is especially true of, on the one hand, a regime claiming to justify and formulate a set of human rights because of an organic relationship between the conception and implementation of such rights and, on the other hand, a normative regime, which provides or informs perceptions of human dignity, self-identity, and personal experience. Nevertheless, I will argue that an “internal” commitment to a normative regime need not and should not be exclusive of the “other” (however he or she is identified) with respect to a set of commonly agreed human rights. In my view, what is at issue is not the possibility of abstract or absolute neutrality from any religious, cultural, or ideological regime; rather, the question is how to reconcile commitments to diverse normative regimes with a commitment to a concept and set of universal human rights. If this reconciliation is achieved, the commitment of some to one regime or another would be, in effect, immaterial from other points of view. In other words, it would be possible to achieve the benefits of neutral formulation without pursuing the illusion of neutrality as such. It may be argued that excluding the requirement of neutral formulation simply circumvents the question of how to agree on a set of rights accruing universally to all human beings of whatever religious persuasion or lack Toward an Islamic Hermeneutics 183 thereof, irrespective of gender or race (hereinafter referred to as universal human rights). From this point of view, allowing the formulation of a set of rights to reflect a particular value system would impose that system’s criteria of entitlement on rights that might exclude certain human beings. Judging by the history to date, the argument goes, commitment to a religious value system would almost certainly exclude those who do not adhere to that religion or at least not accord them rights equal to those enjoyed by the adherents of the religion in question. Religious value systems also tend to deny women equality with men. This inequality, it should be added, is true not only of orthodox perceptions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam but also of other religious traditions, cultures, and even ideologies. In this light, it may be concluded that the only way to achieve consensus on a set of universal human rights is through “neutral formulation.” The difficulty of achieving consensus on universal human rights, however, is not due to commitment to a value system as such, be it religious, cultural, or ideological. What is problematic is the exclusive nature of value systems, that is to say, their tendency to define the relationship between the “self” and the “other” in antagonistic or negative terms, thereby diminishing prospects for the acknowledgment of equality and nondiscrimination. I would therefore argue that if and to the extent that it is possible to overcome this feature of the various value systems of the world today, global consensus on universal human rights would be attainable without requiring people to abandon their religious, cultural , or ideological commitments in order to subscribe to such a project. In any case, it would be counterproductive to require people to choose between their religion, culture, or ideology on the one hand and a supposedly “neutral” universal human rights project on the other. Most people would probably opt for the former for two reasons. First, to the vast majority, no human rights scheme can by itself serve as a substitute for religion, culture, or ideology. Second, most people would maintain that some conception of human rights is integral to their religion, culture, or ideology. To avoid undermining the legitimacy of a universal human rights project by placing it in direct competition with what people hold as their comprehensive fundamental value systems, we must pursue a strategy of internal transformation of perceptions of the religion, culture, or ideology in question to achieve a reconciliation between belief systems. Without minimizing the difficulties and risks of this approach, I maintain that such reconciliation is both conceptually possible...