Islamic Human Rights Discourse and Hermeneutics of Continuity

Abstract

After World War II the United Nations developed new international law constructs in cooperation with the majority of the world’s nations, which were mainly based on a Western hermeneutic of rights. This international humanistic project provided new anthropological constructs which were seen as compatible or non-compatible, by Muslims or non-Muslims, with Islam. When analyzing these discussions on Islam and human rights discourse into a typology they can provide insights where compatibility and non-compatibility lies, and where possible reinterpretation is needed. Within the typology, two forms of discourses can be discerned: Islamic human rights discourse as the internal Muslim discourse on human rights and the external ‘Islam and human rights’ discourse which emerged together with the modern human rights regimes. By analyzing the different elements of what constitutes Islam and human rights discourse we can derive new understandings and strategies in how to engage a modern Islamic human rights discourse and constitute an Islamic science of human rights ( ʿilm al-ḥuqūq ) which provides a hermeneutics of continuity between Islam and modern human rights and overcomes both apologetics and othering.