Where to Go from Here?
In this chapter, many pages have been dedicated to a review of current approaches to Islam and human rights. The reason such detail was given to this review is that it captures how this topic is currently being dealt with and puts the contemporary discussion in its contemporary frameworks. Two of three approaches basically call for the abandoning of the religion of Islam as it has been understood and practiced for centuries. The third approach seeks a very unimpressive combination of Islam and human rights. In fact, this author very much agrees with Ignatieff’s view when he wrote,

There have been recurrent attempts, including Islamic Declarations of Human Rights, to reconcile Islamic and Western traditions by putting more emphasis on family duty and religious devotion, and by drawing on distinctively Islamic traditions of religious and ethnic toleration. But these attempts at syncretic fusion between Islam and the West have never been entirely successful: agreement by the parties actually trades away what is vital to each side. The resulting consensus is bland and unconvincing.

The author’s approach here is that Islam is something completely independent of the contemporary human rights movement. The sources and foundations for each are completely different and independent. Thus, it is unreasonable to expect that one will somehow be completely compatible with the other. Furthermore, even comparing the two is very difficult because one is virtually comparing the proverbial oranges and apples (although some effort of comparison will be made here).

It is very important for both sides of the issue to understand exactly what the other side is. The reality is that the human rights movement makes some very great and bold claims for itself. Islam also makes some very great and bold claims for itself. Many times these claims are about the same issues but the conclusions are very different, if not completely contradictory. In this day and age, one has to be honest and open about such philosophical differences.

It will be shown that the philosophy and premises of the human rights movement differ from that of Islam. This brings up a very simple point: Why would Muslims try to fit Islam into a system that is not Islam? Certainly Muslim scholars do not do this with Christianity and Judaism—they do not try to prove that the two of them are completely compatible. However, perhaps due to some inferiority complex that started when Western nations colonized much of the Western world, many Muslims have bought into this idea that human rights—like Western civilization and Western science previously—are a godsend and they feel that they must prove that there is no conflict between human rights and Islam.

The argument here is not one of cultural relativism but it is in fact questioning the very basis of the human rights platform.Even from a secular perspective this critique is valid and crucial. It questions what this movement has to offer to Islam. This does not mean that everything that human rights proponents argue for is unacceptable. Indeed, Islam does endorse and support many of the same concepts, as shall be touched upon later. However, Islam must never be confused with the secular, manmade philosophy/ideology that constitutes the contemporary human rights movement.

In fact, this author can even state his premise in stronger terms. In the preceding pages, the difficulties of completely reconciling the current theories of human rights with Islamic Law have been expounded. In all three approaches, Islamic Law is somehow requested to come up to the standards or at least be acceptable in the light of contemporary human rights theory. However, a key question has not yet been addressed: Why must Islam be held accountable to the claims of human rights theory? In other words, what is there in human rights theory that makes it so strong or such an unquestionable purveyor of truth that even religions are demanded to come up to its standards? Is there something so “right” about human rights theory that this is not even an acceptable question to ask? Or, is this simply a repeat of the “white man’s burden” in which the people of the West feel they have to rescue the Muslims?

This work will take a very different approach to the current issue. It will demonstrate that Islam is not in need of the human rights ideology. This will be concluded not in some arrogant fashion by simply saying that Islam is the guidance from God and that human thinking can never reach the greatness of God’s system—although that is definitely what a Muslim believes. Here the approach shall be different. Herein, the critique at which the human rights movement projects at Islam will be used to demonstrate that the human rights platform is actually flawed, self-contradictory and logically inconsistent.

This does not mean that Islam is opposed to “human rights.” Indeed, Islam supports and defends numerous “human rights,” as shall be noted. Neither does this mean that there is nothing good or important about the human rights platform. However, it does mean that, like all other man-made systems, the human rights platform as it is currently envisioned by so many today cannot bring to humankind what the true religion of God can bring.