The Interdependence of Religion, Secularism, and Human Rights: Prospects for Islamic Societies

Religion, secularism, and human rights are interdependent, and the apparent tensions between any or among all of them can be overcome by their conceptual synergy. Given the obviously problematic features of their relationships, however, the interdependence of the three should be deliberately reinforced and stressed now; indeed each of the three should undergo an internal transformation to strengthen the already existing synergy. I am using the term synergy to indicate that the internal transformation of each paradigm or discourse (religion, secularism, human rights) is not only necessary for promoting relationships among the three but is also facilitated by it: each of the three tends toward transformation in favor of the other two. Each needs the other two to fulfill its own rationale and to sustain its relevance and validity for its own constituency.

I hasten to add that I am not suggesting the collapse of all related ideas, institutions, and policies into the framework I am describing. My purpose here is to highlight the dynamics of one complex process that might contribute to individual freedom and social justice. Moreover, while I believe that what I am proposing is potentially applicable to various religious and political contexts, my primary concern as a Muslim is the prospect for this approach in Islamic socie-ties. That is, I would like to encourage the determined promotion—the strengthening—of this synergy in the interest of legitimizing human rights, regulating the role of religion in public life, and affirming the positive place of secularism in Islamic societies. Being from Sudan myself, I am acutely aware that hundreds of thousands have died, and millions continue to endure untold suffering, because of widespread confusion over just these issues. Some politicians manipulate that confusion for their own purposes and thus we require a framework that minimizes it.¹ While attempting to outline a theoretical framework that could be of use in Islamic societies, I hope that others may seek to use it in their own religious and political contexts.

This task might be approached from a variety of perspectives, but I prefer to begin by considering the moral and philosophical foundation of human rights since it most clearly highlights both the reality of tension and the possibilities of mediation among the three paradigms. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), issued by the United Nations in 1948, asserts that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." No specific foundation for the equality of human beings in dignity and rights, whether religious or secular, is stated, and the omission was apparently designed in the interest of achieving consensus. But more than fifty years later, the question—what is the moral or philosophical foundation of universal human rights?—remains difficult to answer, and answering it remains crucial for the practical implementation of those rights.

The difficulty in achieving agreement—agreement among all communities—on a single foundation for human rights indicates that we should promote instead an overlapping consensus among multiple foundations. Each community could then subscribe to a global agreement on the validity and application of universal rights without concluding that the agreement was an alien imposition. I hope to show that an overlapping consensus is best achieved by encouraging and even exploiting the interdependence of religion, secularism, and human rights.

Working Definitions

The term human rights is often used, in a rough and intuitive way, to signify the objectives or the implications of historic struggles for freedom and justice. But the term can also refer, more particularly, to the conception of individual freedom and social justice articulated in the UDHR and further specified in subsequent treaties that enable its implementation. In this latter sense of the term—the sense in which I use it here—human rights are due to all human beings by virtue of their humanity, without distinction on grounds such as race, sex, religion, language, or national origin. The key feature of human rights, by...