Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics

Mayer assesses human rights in Islam by comparing Shariah law to international human rights standards. She usefully looks at the commentary of several Islamic scholars, as well as several case studies from countries that have adopted Islamic law, such as Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. She shows the tensions between Islam and human rights, but also how they can (or should) be compatible. For example, she cites several scholars who question whether the Prophet Muhammad ever executed anybody for apostasy, as opposed to mere political treason. Because the book covers so much ground, it can at times be superficial. However, it l paints a reasonably accurate picture of the tensions between the two legal systems and human rights challenges in the Muslim world.

It is astonishing how often Western journalists and commentators are taken in by Muslim statements to the effect that the Qur'an and the shari'a guarantee human rights. The Muslims are perfectly sincere, but what they mean by human rights and what the Universal Declaration and others mean are often very different. Ann Mayer has done a remartkable job of sifting through Islamic Declarations, taking the trouble to compare English-language versions with the Arabic or (in the case of Tabandeh) Persian originals. She concludes that wherever the shari'a has been taken into consideration, it has narrowed and even overridden universal human rights values. In addition, she shows how many Muslim commentators are positively antagonistic to those values, particularly in the fields of women's rights, free speech, and religious freedom (including the rights of religious minorities like the Baha'is or Ahmadis). It's a scholarly work, carefully argued and challenging, and essential to any debate of this issue.

Ms Mayer does a very good job in this book. As correctly the author points out, the most accurate title would have been: "A Comparison of Selected Civil and Political Rights Formulations in International Law and in Actual and Proposed Rights Schemes Purporting to Embody Islamic Principles, with a critical Appraisal of the Latter in Terms of International Law and Islamic Jurisprudence and Relevant State Practice". The Human Rights Schemes meant to embody Islamic Principles and reviewed by the author are: 1) The 1981 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights; 2) "The Draft of the Islamic constitution" published in 1979 on the Azhar journal Majallat al-Azhar; 3) The 1979 Iranian Constitution; 4) The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam presented at the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna; 5) The Basic Law of Saudi Arabia of 1992; 6) A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Sultanhussein Tabandeh; 7) A pamphlet entitled Human Rights in Islam by the religious leader Abu'l A'la Mawdudi. Therefore, the author does not try to extract Human Rights principles from the Qur'an, since she assume that this job could have been done better by Islamic jurists through their human rights scheme. The main thesis is that the premodern shari'a law did not conceive a modern state and therefore its potential abuses against men and women. Shari'a laws were not elaborated with a view to provide institutional mechanisms to deal with cases where governments disregarded Islamic law and oppressed its subjects. Islamic thought stressed not the rights of citizens but their duties to obey God. The implicit assumption is that both ruler and ruled were obedient to God's commands. If this harmony is not satisfied, the Shari'a remains vague in its consequences. Whether the shari'a puts constitutional constraints on governments and safeguards for individual rights is a divisive issue, that in Middle Eastern despotic regimes is solved by recourse to tradition and the good ol' ways. According to Ms Mayer current Human rights schemes with built-in Islamic principles suffer from vagueness and are ineffective in providing real protection to human rights. The main outcome from this state of affairs is a consistent discrimination based on sex and religion. The author does not exclude that a combination of a more democratic environment and more rational interpretations of the Shari'a taking into due account the contemporary reality might generate a more effective outcomes. Without ignoring that each great religion contains important humanistic elements that anticipated our conception of human rights, a Jeffersonian wall of separation between church and state would provide a better and more friendly environment for a real and meaningful protection of rights and freedoms for all men and all women. This book is highly recommended.

Ms. Mayer does the difficult scholarly work needed to shed light on the issue of the Muslim treatment of women. She goes directly to the original sources. It can be fairly said that Ms. Mayer's allows Islamic sources to speak for themselves. Everything is amply documented and footnoted to allow the reader to go to the specific document and confirm Ms. Mayer's statments. Ms. Mayer reveals the differences between the English version and the Arabic translation of the "Islamic" human rights declaration. It is literally a two-faced document, the Arabic version containing limitations and derogations of women, while the English version appears to grant equality. This is the book that Islamic apologists in the Western world need to read. One can hope that someday in the future Islam will reform its treatment of women, but, unfortunately, according to many informed sources there is in effect an upsurge in fundamentalism in the Middle East and elsewhere which is taking Islam in the wrong direction.