Thread by @Tweetistorian

In the previous thread we looked at premodern human rights discourse in Islamic intellectual history. In this final thread we will look at the relationship between Islam and modern human rights discourse.

~aym

https://twitter.com/tweetistorian/status/1449086550097149955

So let us begin where the genesis of our question lies, at the birth of modern human rights themselves. After WWII the United Nations formed out of the League of Nations to represent the new world emerging out of the ashes of colonialism and world wars.

~aym

Out of these same ashes several forces, including religious forces such as the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain (d.1973), used
the post-war momentum to bind the new order to the highest ethical standards that went beyond the earlier international treaties.

~aym

such as the Geneva and Hague Conventions, or national personal rights such as granted by the French and American constitutions. Before the formulation of post-WWII human rights there is a long world history of the concept of rights within law and ethics.

~aym

Some say it begins with the earliest laws know, such as the Babylonian Codex Hammurabi (1754 BCE), which integrated both the protection and redress of human lives, their bodies, and their property.

~aym

Also early religious and philosophical concepts of the sacredness of humans and that the created order grants them rights (i.e. “natural rights”). From the Early Modern period onwards we see a development of states having natural rights which it can claim over other states.

~aym

These ‘rights of states’ (i.e. Maritime law, colonial claims etc.), evolved within Enlightenment discourse to natural rights as being the foundations of the state (i.e. constitutionalism etc.).

~aym

This, together with the development of military technology and its increasing inflicted horrors, also generated international treaties and the beginning of international humanitarian law which tried to deescalate and ban certain applications of military technology.

~aym

Also to protect persons caught in
and between the conflicts (i.e. Geneva Conventions etc.). So human rights developed from a minimal concept in premodern law and abstract ethics, into a maximal and concrete foundation of law and ethics in modernity.

~aym

This historical development is important to understand in which ways post-WWII human rights can be understood as having both historical foundations and being a novel development within law and ethics.

~aym

(Image: Timeline from an upcoming article)

The UN, as a response to the horrors of WWII, desired to provide a new civilizational standard for both previously colonizing and colonized states to uphold and hold another accountable. It is within this context wherein an international team of jurists and philosophers…

~aym

…draft the first versions of what would become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR, 1948). The final drafting was developed in cooperation with the majority of the world's
nations, including almost all Muslim-majority nations.

~aym

But even with this wide Muslim-
majority support there was still the issue that the UDHR was mainly based on Western concepts
of rights and personhood which started the discussion of its (semi/non-)compatibility with
Islam.

~aym

And so, with the genesis of modern human rights discourse and law the questions surrounding its relation to Islam also begins. First of all, why do we need to speak the language of human rights at all?

~aym

The answer to that is straightforward, because it is the dominant legal framework in the contemporary world. It is the currency of the moral world economy. Muslims also helped developing modern human rights, they already speak the language and helped formulate it.

~aym

And more importantly, because human rights as a concept is a good thing. It has become the
main representation of global ethics, a global civil religion, as Islamicate-Hellenistic ethical
philosophy dominated before it.

~aym

In the 19th and 20th century the
classical Islamic polity collapsed and was replaced, through internal and external forces, with Western constitutionalism and nationalism. The constitutionalist movements, beginning with the Ottoman Tanẓīmāt reforms (1839-1876).

~aym

This introduced the engagement of Islamic reformist thought with Western law and polity. With the introduction of constitutionalism, Western legislation, and the eventual post-WWII modern human rights law.

~aym

New views on human personhood were introduced which conflicted with traditional concepts of personhood as formulated by other world religions, including Christian denominations as Catholicism. But
it was especially Islam which became to be viewed as conflicting…

~aym

…or as completely non-compatible with post-WWII human rights discourse. There are generally several main ‘concerns’ which define the claimed non-compatibility:

This perceived non-compatibility generated both incriminating and apologetic discourse which
for the majority can be described as mainly superficial. These comparative discourses lead either to anachronistic or simplistic approaches.

~aym

Whereby the vast heritage of Islamic thought is simply replaced by inconsistent referencing of Islamic sources or Muslim activity serving to prove (i.e. apologetics) or disprove (i.e. incriminating) that Islam is compatible with human rights as they are recognized today.

~aym

.@jeroen_vlug and I are working on a chapter on human rights for the Oxford Handbook on Islamic Reform where we are mapping this recent intellectual history and the different responses within Islamic thought to the development of modern human rights.

~aym

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