The rights of God: Islam, human rights, and comparative ethics

166 Pages·2007·1.19 MB·English

by  Irene Oh

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THE RIGHTS
OF GOD
)
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Advancing Human Rights
Sumner B. Twiss, John Kelsay, Terry Coonan, Series Editors
Editorial Board
Nigel Biggar John Langan, SJ
Stanley Cohen David Little
Michael Davis Dan Maier-Katkin
Mark Ensalaco Juan E. Mendez
Gerrie ter Haar Ann Elizabeth Moore
Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann Michael H. Posner
Simeon Ilesanmi Fernando Teson
Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights
Jutta M. Joachim
Breaking Silence: The Case That Changed the Face of Human Rights
Richard Alan White
For All Peoples and All Nations: The Ecumenical Church and Human Rights
John S. Nurser
Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food
George Kent
Power and Principle: Human Rights Programming in International
Organizations
Joel E. Oestreich
Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study
Todd Landman
The Rights of God: Islam, Human Rights, and Comparative Ethics
Irene Oh
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THE RIGHTS
OF GOD
Islam, Human Rights, and
Comparative Ethics
)
IRENE OH
Georgetown University Press / Washington, D.C.
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As of January 1, 2007, 13-digit ISBN numbers have replaced the 10-digit system.
13-digit 10-digit
Paperback: 978-1-58901-184-7 Paperback: 1-58901-184-8
Cloth: 978-1-58901-185-4 Cloth: 1-58901-185-6
Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. www.press.georgetown.edu
 2007 by Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oh, Irene.
The rights of God : Islam, human rights, and comparative ethics / Irene Oh.
p. cm. — (Advancing human rights)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58901-185-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-58901-184-7
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Islam and civil society. 2. Human rights—Religious aspects—Islam.
3. Islam and humanism. I. Title.
BP173.63.O3 2007
297.2'72—dc22
2007007016
j` This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the
American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library
Materials.
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
First printing
Printed in the United States of America
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CONTENTS
)
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Defining Dialogue 1
1 Conversations about Human Rights and Islam 12
2 Maududi, Qutb, and Soroush:
Humanity and History 36
3 Envisioning Islamic Democracies 55
4 The Free Conscience: “No Compulsion in Religion” 74
5 Toleration . . . and Its Limits 93
Conclusion: Advancing Human Rights Dialogue 112
Notes 119
Glossary of Foreign Words and Phrases 143
Bibliography 145
Index 151
v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
)
A book about conversation and dialogue would not have been possible
without many conversations and dialogues. The Rights of Godwas con-
ceived while I was a graduate student at the University of Virginia,
where I had the good fortune of conversing with a number of inspiring
scholars and teachers. I thank James Childress, Charles Mathewes, Ann
Monius, Aziz Sachedina, and Michael J. Smith especially for their time
and commitment. I must also express my gratitude to John Kelsay, who
has been a generous and insightful mentor, and to Sohail Hashmi for his
guidance and humanity. Liz Bucar, Tal Lewis, Grace Kao, Jonathan
Schofer, and Aaron Stalnaker have offered their friendship, knowledge,
and support. The Center on Religion and Democracy provided me a year
to research and write, as well as an environment that stimulated lively
conversations with a wonderful group of young scholars. Notre Dame’s
Erasmus Institute also enabled me to work on this manuscript while the
work was still in its infancy. Jens Böel at the UNESCO archives in
Paris provided valuable assistance in researching early dialogues about
human rights. The Irmgard Coninx Foundation and Humboldt Univer-
sität provided a forum for discussing shared interests with an interna-
tional group of human rights scholars and activists. I also thank Dexter
Callender, John Fitzgerald, David Graf, Henry Green, David Kling,
Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, Ada Orlando, Ivan Petrella, Jenni
Ratner-Rosenhagen, and Stephen Sapp, all at the University of Miami,
for their true collegiality. Finally, I am thankful for the daily conversa-
tions I have with my husband, James. In acknowledging him for his con-
stant support, I am reminded that there are occasions in life when words
are inadequate to express the depths of gratitude.
vii
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INTRODUCTION
)
Promoting Islam as a defender of human rights is fraught with difficul-
ties. Many advocates of human rights readily point out the numerous
examples of humanitarian failures carried out in the name of Islam: the
Taliban in Afghanistan, female genital mutilation in Africa, the penal
code in Saudi Arabia, genocide in Darfur, and the September 11 attacks
in the United States. As a result, human rights proponents are often
tempted to blame Islam, if not religion generally, for human rights viola-
tions. The avoidance of Islam and religion in human rights dialogue pre-
sents a serious problem for the advancement of universal human rights,
however.
Separating religious belief from human rights requires that we
undertake the impossible task of distinguishing an important source of
our ethical values from ethical norms themselves. For many people, the
validity of human rights stems from a foundational belief in God and the
dignity that God imparts to every human being. Although the founda-
tions of human rights may be debated, human rights scholars cannot eas-
ily dismiss the potential that foundational beliefs, including Islam, hold
in advancing human rights agendas. After all, approximately one billion
inhabitants of this earth identify themselves as Muslim. To ignore the
values of Islam would be to deny the voices of one-fifth of the world’s
population in determining what should be “universal” human rights.
Unfortunately, human rights theorists are frequently at odds when
attempting to engage in discourse with religious thinkers. This discom-
fort with discussing religion arises not only as a result of religiously
motivated violations of human rights but also because of structural dif-
ferences among the modes of discourse relevant to human rights. These
differences include the disciplinary dominance of human rights as legal
or political discourse, Western liberal paradigms that assert the privatiza-
tion of foundational belief, and the interdisciplinary boundaries between
religion and human rights theory. Thomas Pogge observes, for example,
that the shift away from religion to politics as the appropriate sphere for
1
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2 Introduction
human rights discourse can be attributed to the shift in conceptions of
morality based in natural law and duties to that of rights.1Using the reli-
gious language of natural law and duties in human rights discussions
appears antiquated and inappropriate in this day and age. John Rawls,
although acknowledging that persons belonging to pluralistic societies
often subscribe to foundational beliefs, asserts nonetheless that in public
discourse on political values, religious language should be limited to
that which “reasonable” persons may endorse.2 Persons who use reli-
gious ideas in public debates on human rights may seem unreasonable to
those who do not share those beliefs. Michael Ignatieff argues that the
prima facie human capacity to empathize serves as a much better basis
for human rights compared to the capricious nature of religious tradi-
tions. Such theoretical tensions hinder what should be fruitful exchanges
between human rights theorists and religious thinkers.3
COMPARATIVE RELIGIOUS ETHICS
I propose comparative religious ethics as a method for bringing religious
thought into the fold of human rights theory. A relatively new field in
the academic study of religion, comparative religious ethics seeks to
understand ethical values across religions and cultures. A comparative
effort here is particularly fruitful because “Western” human rights theo-
rists from North America and Western Europe struggle to understand the
human rights violations found in “non-Western” Islamic societies of the
Middle East and Southeast Asia.4Comparative religious ethics provides
a methodological structure for difficult but necessary interreligious and
cross-cultural conversations about human rights and Islam.
Admittedly, the “pleasant trope of ‘conversation’” that often accom-
panies a comparative enterprise can appear oddly misplaced, given the
harshreality of human cruelty and suffering that characterizes much of
human rights study. Conversation and “dialogue,” the latter of which,
despite its more serious connotation, is used interchangeably with the
former, are nonetheless necessary if one attempts to undertake the task
of understanding another person, culture, or tradition.5
As Charles Taylor asserts, any “adequate account of human action
must make the agents more understandable.” The dialogical model aids
with understanding persons from different traditions and cultures than
one’s own because it recognizes those persons as agents like oneself,
“i.e., beings who act, have purposes, desires.”6To understand others as
agents requires that we view them as possessing self-understanding
rather than unilaterally categorize them as mere objects of study. In
acknowledging others as self-understanding humans, we need not neces-