Is Islam Compatible with Modern Human Rights?

Islam and human rights; are they in conflict or can they be combined? Can one be a Muslim and believe in the text of Islam, which critics say is not free from discrimination and gender and religious inequalities, while also adhering to the principles of human rights? Mehrdad Darvishpour, a sociologist, answers this question negatively. He states that wherever religion has expanded, human rights have become more limited. In contrast, Daryush Mohammadpour, a political science graduate from Westminster University in London, argues: "A Muslim can remain a Muslim and also be committed to human rights." Let us begin this week's discussion with Mr. Darvishpour. When religious scholars speak of human rights, do they mean the same thing that human rights have in today's discourse? Some believe that we do not have human rights in Islam, and that Islam and human rights cannot coexist. What is your opinion? Mehrdad Darvishpour: Some believe that Islam is fundamentally in conflict with human rights, that human rights are a Western concept, or that God's rights take precedence, and that human rights undermine the foundation of religious values. Others believe that human rights and Islam can be reconciled and are not in conflict. However, in my opinion, there are very few religious figures who have a clear and explicit view like Mr. Shabestari, who openly states that there cannot be Islamic human rights. Human rights are created by humans and should be regulated based on that; they should not belong to or be contingent upon any specific religion. Those who support a particular religion should Christianize or atheize human rights! Human rights are human rights. Personally, I think Mr. Shabestari's view is more realistic compared to other groups, and as a secular person, I believe that any attempt to reconcile human rights with religion leads to the regression of human rights. It is the duty of all religious intellectuals, whether in Islam or other religions, to try to adapt themselves to human rights. Mr. Mohammadpour, you heard Mr. Darvishpour's remarks. Some even believe that human rights in Islam are more advanced and in a better state compared to Judaism and Christianity and other religions. Where do you stand in this regard? Daryush Mohammadpour: When we talk about Islam, we do not have Islam; Islam is an abstract and mental concept. We have Muslims. The same goes for human rights. When you say we have human rights, we refer to a concept. It is true that when we say Islam, Islam has a history and historical plurality, texts, hadiths, verses, and the Quran, and all the things that make up the history of Muslim civilization. In addition, human rights also have their own core texts, the most famous and established of which is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These also require implementation. When you say human rights, human rights do not have legs. Human rights must be executed and implemented by someone. Now the main question is under what conditions a Muslim can embrace human rights and not see a conflict between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and his religious frameworks. This question has a positive answer; under certain conditions, you can show that Muslims—regardless of which Muslim they are—can accept these foundations. This means recognizing the dignity of that person and not placing God against them, allowing God to violate that person's rights. This God did not come down from the sky; this God emerges through our language and speech. This is what Mr. Darvishpour calls interpretation and reading. My point is that you do not have just one or two interpretations. You are inevitably required to interpret. There is no such thing as a text existing there. You can find a person who values human rights and is a Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or non-religious, and conversely, you can find a person who is Christian, Muslim, or secular and democratic who violates human rights. We cannot say that human rights are disreputable. I would like to return to Mr. Darvishpour to see if he has a response for you, but I also have the question: when Mr. Mohammadpour says there is no text, is this really similar to what critics say prevents the combination of religion and human rights? For example, when we say regardless of religion, gender... for example, in religion, we have the discussion of heresy and disbelief. Someone who is recognized as a disbeliever and denies God and the Prophet has their right to life taken away, which is one of the first human rights. How can we reconcile these? Darvishpour: The flaw in the discussion is that, firstly, human rights as a memorandum of understanding do not derive from divine laws or a divine text. It can even be supplemented today, and human rights can even be completed or additional articles can be added. This is an agreement that human reason and conscience have reached in dialogue with each other. The fact that even countries that have signed it implement it to varying degrees or that this or that presidency or leader shows how much adherence to human rights does not undermine the principle of human rights. Our discussion is that as soon as you try to combine human rights with religion, it creates problems because religion, like ideology, has certain interests. Interests that try to make laws and norms subordinate to them, and depending on whether we have a liberal or fanatic interpretation of religion, these laws can be subject to change. The Meccan verses of Islam and the Quran are full of emphasis on violence, retaliation, murder, and gender discrimination. Therefore, we encounter serious complications when we try to create a type of reconciliation. Mr. Mohammadpour, you say that the text cannot be central, but how can a Muslim who follows the religion defend the discrimination present in the religious text while also respecting human rights? How can you explain this? Mohammadpour: The problem with the story is that we summarize all Muslims and Islam into one book and one jurisprudence. Are all Muslims jurisprudence-centered in their lives? Throughout the history of Muslims, we have had philosophy, mysticism, and humanists... The fact that we say the combination of religion and human rights creates problems is obvious. We are not discussing this. We are saying that the pre-modern legal jurisprudential system that humans created over time has become a series of things and contracts that have become law and legal systems, and this has been shaped by human conflicts and debates. If we read the history of jurisprudence and theology, this human aspect of the story becomes clear. Therefore, my point is not that you should reconcile jurisprudence with human rights or human rights with jurisprudence. It is obvious that we do not do this. My question is whether you can remain a Muslim and respect human rights? The answer is yes. To remain a Muslim and respect human rights, you must abandon the law of apostasy. If you abandon this concept of apostasy, does that make you non-Muslim? My answer is no because you have so many different Muslims who do not believe in these things. You have so many Muslims who advocate for gender equality and consider themselves Muslims, and their wives do not wear hijabs... But Mr. Mohammadpour, even this type of Muslim, when it comes to inheritance and testimony, men and women are not equal. When it comes to divorce and custody, men and women are not equal? Mohammadpour: Where? See, your point is completely correct. In some places, there is a jurisprudential and legal space that is pre-modern, and we did not have such things in the pre-modern world, and there is a very thick Orientalist color behind the story. This law and rational technology, according to Max Weber, is something that specifically goes into the Western space, and Easterners, because they have God and religion, cannot reach this. You can only reach it if you completely abandon these. The same path we take has a name; it is called the theory of modernization. It is a single theory. Someone says I am a Muslim; I believe in these overarching principles, and I do not need to believe that a woman receives less inheritance. I give equal inheritance to women, just as some do, and they consider themselves Muslims... Yes, these individual and personal decisions are another matter. I am talking about a man deciding to confront the issue of gender inequality... Mohammadpour: No! It is not individual. My point is that you reduce this to the individual. When I talk about the plurality and diversity of the Islamic community, you should list for me... When you talk about plurality, I say to you, is the text of the Quran not the same for all these Muslims? And how can you explain human rights in the text of the Quran? This is a question I have been asking from the beginning and have not received an answer. Mohammadpour: Your answer is that you set it aside and say that a certain Quranic verse that makes such a claim is time-bound, and you have no obligation to go do this. A very valuable example is Rashid Ghannouchi in Tunisia. Go read the Tunisian constitution. When Rashid Ghannouchi can do this, why can't others? Did others come from Mars? When others reach the Quran, do they suddenly become zombies? In the introduction to the book 'The Formation of the Secular World,' Talal Asad makes exactly this argument and says this misconception that Muslims, because they have God and the Quran and hadith, inevitably become anti-human rights individuals is erroneous. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted and formed, the first countries to sign the declaration were Muslims. The United States was among the last. What does this tell us? Mr. Darvishpour, if you have a response to Mr. Mohammadpour's remarks, we will hear it, and then I have another question for you. Darvishpour: Yes. My emphasis is actually on the point that the plurality we are talking about is real, both in the Islamic world and in the secular world. A secular person is not necessarily democratic and a supporter of human rights. We have China, which is completely secular and does not recognize human rights at all. The fact that a country has signed it does not matter at all. Practical commitment to human rights is another discussion. Whether these have been signed or not is another thing. The Islamic Republic has never retracted its signature from the human rights charter that was signed back in 1948, but it is one of the countries that systematically violates human rights. Therefore, in my opinion, instead of trying to bypass a serious discussion with irrelevant comparisons... My question is, after all the discussions we have had, Mr. Mohammadpour believes that there is no barrier between religion and human rights. Our discussion is not whether we should reconcile these or not. The discussion is whether this is even possible or not? For example, Islam places great emphasis on justice. Is this justice the same as what is referred to as equality in human rights? Darvishpour: Yes, the concepts of equality and equity are two different concepts. One means equality, and the other means fairness. What is used in Islam is actually meant to be fairness, not equality. Justice in the sense of fairness is a completely subjective concept; for example, suppose someone thinks that if they retaliate, it is fair; they think that if a woman has half the right to testify or inherits, that is fair. The meaning of fairness in no way prevents the violation of equality in this subjective sense that many Islamists express, while equality is a very clear legal concept. That is, regardless of what religion one has and regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic characteristics, etc., one is entitled to equal rights before the law, and therefore using vague, interpretable, and ambiguous concepts like fairness, which everyone can have their own meaning of, can never replace a clear concept like equality of rights, which the human rights declaration is among its foundations. Mr. Mohammadpour, we see that Mr. Darvishpour's view is close to what you are saying; that is, it is interpretative, and different groups of Muslims in different geographies follow Islam in various ways, and they may think that there is some ambiguity in the interpretation, including that the concept of justice in Islam is not a clear concept, but equality has specific indicators.