Religious Challenges to Human Rights: Bringing Muslims and Christians into Conversation

Laura Alexander, R. Brian Siebeking Conference Paper – Please Do Not Distribute Poynter Center Symposium

Alexander/Siebeking 1

Religious Challenges to Human Rights:

Bring Muslims and Christians into Conversation

Introduction: Christians and Muslims in Dialogue on Human Rights

Questions about the nature of the human being, his or her moral standing in the world, and

what sort of treatment human beings owe to each other have long been integral to diverse

traditions of religious thought. Nevertheless, the adoption of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations in 1948 inspired a flurry of discussion on the

part of the world’s religious intellectuals and organizations regarding the subject of human

rights specifically. In this paper we focus on the Christian and Islamic traditions of religious

thought and their reactions over the past several decades, both to the Universal Declaration

itself and to human rights thinking generally. Religions remain powerful global influences,

with Christians and Muslims comprising over one half of the global population. While it

goes almost without saying that there is enormous diversity among adherents and scholars

in each of these traditions, some significant portion of their members can, in certain

respects, find standard human rights discourse unfamiliar and even hostile. We believe that

attention to their critiques is a necessary and useful step in advancing human rights—that

is, both the conversation around human rights ideals and the application of human rights in

various contexts—globally. We take it that the primary objectives of those who support

human rights include the establishment and maintenance of peace and justice across the

international community, goals shared by the majority of adherents to religious traditions,

though the ways in which diverse groups seek peace and justice may differ. We think these

goals will be best promoted when human rights advocates pursue open dialogue with

religious believers and understand fully the major points of agreement and critique in their

conversations with religious traditions. In this way, human rights advocates and scholars

and adherents within religious traditions both can seek intellectual and ethical ‘bridges’

that can be used to generate more ‘authentic’ modes of discourse for religious communities

in order to achieve positive ‘ground-‐level’ results.



With this imperative in mind, our paper pursues a comparative analysis of critical

assessments by Christians and Muslims to human rights thinking as exemplified by the

UDHR ‘tradition.’ We recognize that many adherents of both the Christian and the Islamic

tradition fully support contemporary notions of human rights. However, many in these

traditions have, at the very least, reservations about whether particular rights named in the

UDHR and other international documents are appropriately understood as universal

human rights, or about the moral anthropology that grounds many contemporary notions

of rights. Thus, our goal is to identify points of common critique as a means both promoting

creative avenues of Christian-‐Muslim dialogue and highlighting aspects and articulations of

standard human rights discourse which appear problematic to some scholars and

practitioners in these religious traditions. Areas in which Christians and Muslim critiques

converge deserve attention by those who support human rights discourse, in light of the

collective influence of these groups. Of particular salience is the opinion of many Muslim—

and some Christian—thinkers that the UDHR, and human rights thinking generally, is a

product of liberal, Western1 understandings of the human being and the values and goals of

human society. Our reflection upon this perception – we do not argue that it is an entirely

accurate one – will help us to draw out the concerns, found in each tradition, that the UDHR

and the approach it reflects are not, in fact, accepted as “universal” by all communities, at

least not in those communities’ articulation and application of the notion of human rights.

Here we will focus on three common strands of the aforementioned critique: (1) the

grounding of human dignity, (2) the scope and nature of religious freedom, and (3) the

complex relationship between individual autonomy and community interests.

The Christian sources we will consider arise largely from the Roman Catholic tradition, for

two reasons. First, the Roman Catholic Church has responded to the UDHR and its

assumptions at considerable length as well as depth of theological thinking. Documents

promulgated by the Catholic hierarchy address clearly both human rights discourse in

general, and our focal points of dignity, religious freedom, and the individual-‐community

1 Here we use the words “liberal” and “Western” broadly, as our focus is on what religious groups and thinkers take to be “liberal, Western” thought. 2 Information on the OIC can be found at http://www.oic-oci.org/oicv2/home/?lan=en [accessed October 2014].



relationship specifically. It is also the case that many of the theological and ethical ideas put

forth in the Catholic documents under discussion share similar critiques to the Islamic

sources we will consider. The same holds for the Protestant thinker whose work we have

included, Oliver O’Donovan, a well-‐respected Anglican scholar of political theology.

O’Donovan’s analysis of the nature of political community approaches, though it does not

precisely mirror, the notion found in the work of many Muslim thinkers of a strong

relationship between a religious tradition and the structures of authority within a nation-‐

state. These two strands of theological thought do not fully reflect the diversity of Christian

thinking about human rights, yet they are paradigmatic for a certain kind of Christian

ethical reflection on individual dignity, freedom, and rights within political communities.

Both register some unease about what they perceive as common liberal interpretations of

dominant ideals regarding individual rights, and both think that the influence of religion on

the individual and the political community is, and ought to be, stronger and more complex

than liberal ideas about human rights often seem to allow.

While there are a myriad of Islamic responses to the international human rights regime by

Muslim leaders and intellectuals, three approaches stand out broadly representative on the

topics of human dignity, religious freedom, and communal concerns. The first is

exemplified by Pakistani reformer and founder of the political movement Jamāʿat-‐ī-‐Islāmī,

Abū al-‐Aʿlā Mawdūdī (d. 1979). His Islamist approach accepts the notion of human rights—

in principle—as a fundamental component of a broader project of religious revival and

social transformation, at the same time rejecting the allegedly “liberal” and un-‐Islamic

manner in which many of those rights are formulated in such international documents as

the UDHR. A second response is that of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam

(CDHRI), adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)—an international

organization representing 57 states that claims to be the “collective voice of the Muslim

world.”2 This legal approach is characterized by a concentrated effort to integrate

contemporary international law with traditional concerns of the Sharīʿah. However,

because the Cairo Declaration also shares much of the perspective found in Mawdūdī’s

2 Information on the OIC can be found at http://www.oic-oci.org/oicv2/home/?lan=en [accessed October 2014].



works, we will be expressly drawing upon the former document only to illuminate Islamic

notions of human dignity, which Mawdūdī assumes, but does not address in any detailed

way. Finally, we have included as a major source the work of Abdulaziz Sachedina3 who,

though not as influential as the late Mawdūdī or as authoritative as the OIC Cairo

Declaration, nonetheless represents an important reformist approach, which, drawing

heavily on classical Muʿtazilite theo-‐ethical principles, proposes a reconciliation of Islam

and human rights values through systematic reappraisal of Qurʾānic-‐based theological

ethics.

The Challenge of Foundationless Rights: Religious Grounding of Human Dignity

Arguably the most important conceptual foundation of contemporary human rights theory

is the axiom, as expressed in the language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

that “all members of the human family” have an “inherent dignity”, and that it is by virtue of

this shared human dignity that each person has claims to “inalienable rights” in equal

measure.4 In the interests of ‘universality’ the drafters left the theoretical justification of

this noble clarion intentionally vague, although in Article 1 they appear to affirm that said

dignity is somehow related to a human being’s “endowment” with rationality and moral

capabilities—i.e. “conscience.” Since it is said that human rights are founded upon the

fundamental recognition of the dignity of all, any attempt to examine Christian and Muslim

challenges to the articulation of purportedly universal human rights principles should first

contend with this foundational claim. When it comes to filling out the assertion that, “all

human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,”5 both Christians and Muslims

generally ground human dignity in a conception of human beings as creatures who are

spiritual as well as material, envisioning the human person as, in essence, a moral being,

dignified by his or her special creation and relationship with God. In this part of the paper,

we will compare the Roman Catholic document Dignitatis Humanae with discussions of

human rights found in the Cairo Declaration and the work of Abdulaziz Sachedina, in order 3 Sachedina has written at length on Islamic theological ethics, politics, and human rights, for instance in The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism and Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights. 4 UDHR, Preamble. 5 UDHR, Article 1.



to draw out the texts’ common assertion that human dignity is inextricably bound to the

moral character of human beings.

Christianity:

The document Dignitatis Humanae was produced by the Second Vatican Council seventeen

years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is categorized

by the Council as a “Declaration on Religious Freedom.” This is the Roman Catholic

hierarchy’s most thoroughgoing work on the nature of human dignity and how it relates to

human rights and freedoms. Throughout the document, the Council approves of what it

sees as the increasing sense, in all people, of the “dignity of the human person.”6 It heartily

supports the concern for dignity found in the UDHR and proposes no critique of the way it

is used in the document.

Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic tradition, and certainly this particular document, must go

on to clarify and fill out the concept of “dignity” theologically. In Dignitatis Humanae,

dignity is tied not just to the fact of being human but to universal human capacities and

obligations. Human beings have reason and free will, as well as what the Council calls the

“privilege” of “bear[ing] personal responsibility.”7 And it is precisely because human

dignity is wrapped up with these capacities that, to quote, “all men should be at once

impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth.” In fact, this is

precisely why religious freedom is a human right – because people cannot fulfill their

obligations to seek religious truth when they are unduly pressured to believe certain

things, or compelled to act religiously in certain ways. So human dignity provides a basis

for rights, but human dignity itself is wrapped up in obligations. In contrast, while the

UDHR mentions that human beings have duties to their communities, it neither specifies

these duties nor explicitly labels them moral duties.

6 Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae, section 1, paragraph 1. 7 DH section 2, paragraph 3.



Furthermore, in Dignitatis Humanae, the Council asserts that while human beings have a

right to seek religious truth free from coercion and pressure, there is, of course, a particular

religious, and moral, truth to be found if it the search is conducted rightly. That is, human

beings most properly express our inherent dignity by seeking the right truth and fulfilling

the right moral obligations. The document states, “the highest norm of human life is the

divine law – eternal, objective, and universal – whereby God orders, directs and governs

the entire universe and all the ways of the human community.”8 Since human beings are

created by God to participate in divine law, the Council claims, with proper intention and

guidance we can understand something of God’s truth. It is because God creates human

beings for participation in truth, and specifically in the truth of God’s moral order, that we

have a duty, and therefore a right,9 to seek truth freely. Human dignity, then, is located in

the capacities by which human beings can come to recognize the truth of God and God’s

law. And these truths, the Council predictably claims, are taught by the Church itself. Even if

no one should be coerced into following the teachings of the Church, the Council does of

course think that a proper search for truth will lead anyone who undertakes it to the

theological and moral understanding found in the Roman Catholic Church itself.

Islam:

Since the adoption of the UDHR in 1948 there have been a number of attempts by Muslim

leaders, intellectuals, and institutions to formulate an ‘Islamic’ response, though none as

seemingly authoritative as the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI)

adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 1990, which has been

described as the embodiment of “current codified Islamic human rights standards

recognized by Muslim States.”10 Where the UDHR sought international consensus by

avoiding overt philosophical justifications for its claims to human dignity and rights, the

Cairo Declaration explicitly situates itself within the Islamic legal and theological traditions

and their particularistic claims, much as Dinitatis Humanae draws on the claims of the 8 DH section 3, paragraph 1. 9 DH section 3, paragraph 1. 10 Mashood A. Baderin, International Human Rights and Islamic Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 48.



Christian tradition. As such the declaration affirms, “fundamental rights and universal

freedoms in Islam are an integral part of the Islamic religion” as “binding divine

commandments” whose neglecting or violating constitutes “an abominable sin.”11 While

respect for human rights finds support, primarily, under God’s commands, it is further

accentuated by Islam’s theological anthropology.

Accordingly, the Cairo Declaration emphasizes three fundamental and interrelated

teachings concerning the human being’s unique status: (1) the unity of human creation

through Adam (cf. Q 4:1), (2) the vice-‐regency of humanity on earth (cf. Q 2:30), and (3) the

moral perfectibility of human nature.12 The first two ‘doctrines of dignity’ are also

intimately related to humanity’s fundamental interiority vis-‐à-‐vis God—i.e. a position of

servanthood. Moreover, it is this condition of created subordination wherein the equality of

human dignity is located by the authors of the Cairo Declaration, who state in Article 1:

(a) All human beings form one family whose members are united by

submission to God and descent from Adam. All men are equal in terms of basic

human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities…13

Yet, some Muslim thinkers, such as Abdulaziz Sachedina, believe that Islam provides a

more sophisticated, anthropocentric view of the inherent dignity of the human being,

grounded in his or her constitution as a rational moral agent. Reading the Qurʾān he

identifies the theo-‐ethical concept of fiṭrah—the “innate nature” of a human being, the

locus of conscience and universal moral reasoning—as central to Islam’s grounding of

human dignity and rights.14 In the words of Qur’ān 30:30: “So set your purpose for religion,

a human by nature upright—God’s original [nature] upon which He created humankind.”15

Accordingly, a human being’s value is not established merely by virtue of his or her 11 CDHRI, Preamble. 12 CDHRI, Annex to Res. No. 49/19-P, Preamble, Article 1. 13 CDHR, Article 1. 14 Abdulaziz Sachedina, Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 50; also see Abdulaziz Sachedina, The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 70-73, 84-85. 15 Sachedina, Human Rights, 50; Islamic Roots, 71. Sachedina’s own translation. Arberry has: “So set thy face to the religion, a man of pure faith—God’s original upon which He originated mankind.”



created-‐ness or due to his or her role as God’s representative on earth (khalīfah), but is

most essentially rooted in a specially endowed “noble nature” (karam).16 Sachedina further

identifies that element of God’s nature (fiṭrat Allāh) that He shares with humanity, namely

moral cognition of universal principles (al-‐maʿrūf).17 As Sachedina explains,

Islamic religious thought is based on the human ability to know right from

wrong. Through God’s special endowment for all humanity, each and every

person on earth is endowed with a nature (fiṭra), the receptacle for intuitive

reason, that guides humanity to its spiritual and moral well-‐being. On this

notion of divine endowment, moral cognition is innate to human nature and

gives human beings the capability to discern [natural] moral law.18

Sachedina considers this universal moral intuition to be a form of “natural religion” (dīn al-‐

fiṭrah), broadly parallel to an Augustinian notion reflected in Roman Catholic tradition,19

which—though informing and complemented by Islamic revelation—remains an

independent, a priori source of divine guidance.20 It is on the basis the fiṭrah—that, “all

human beings are to be treated equally and held equally accountable to God.”21 Although

Sachedina considers human beings to be free agents whose ultimate ethical standing—i.e.

in God’s judgment—is based on moral action, it is important to point out that such

performance is not the grounds for ascribing inherent dignity and fundamental rights,

which is only based on one’s innate capacity to discover right and wrong through proper 16 Sachedina, Human Rights, 50. It is perhaps unsurprising to find more than a passing similarity in this interpretation to the Judeo-Christian principle of the Imago Dei, a teaching shared with Islam, as evidenced in various hadith reports—if not as consistently developed. For a good history of this tradition as well as an analysis of its contemporary interpretation and use by Muslims thinkers see, Lutz Ritcher-Bernburg, “‘God Created Adam in His Likeness’ in the Muslim Tradition,” in The Quest for a Common Humanity: Human Dignity and Otherness in the Religious Traditions of Mediterranean (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 67-82. 17 Concerning the latter idea Sachedina explains: “I [use] the term al-maʿrūf, meaning the ‘well-known,’ ‘generally recognized,’ and even ‘universally accepted,’ to designate the moral prescription that no human being with sound reason can fail to recognize” (Islamic Roots, 88). 18 Sachedina, Human Rights, 52. For Sachedina this understanding of the fiṭrah’s moral intuitionism—rooted in classical Muʿtazilite theology—is Islam’s answer to the natural law of the Catholic tradition. See Abdulaziz Sachedina, “Freedom of Conscience and Religion in the Qur’an,” in Human Rights and the Conflict of Cultures: Western and Islamic Perspectives on Religious Liberty (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 64. Also see Sachedina, Islamic Roots, 83. 19 Sachedina, Islamic Roots, 43, note 35. 20 Ibid., 71-72. 21 Ibid., 88.



rational reflection.22 In other words, although moral and religious piety (taqwá) may be

necessary for full human flourishing, ‘Islamicly,’ it is not necessary to engender basic

respect for inherent human dignity.23 Again, here Sachedina would be in agreement with

the Catholic tradition in locating human dignity in moral capacities.

Freedom of or for Religion: Genuine Freedom as the Pursuit of Moral Truth

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of

thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change one’s religion or

belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to

manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance” (Article 18).

In discussions of Islamic thought, in particular, few human rights issues have proven to be

as contentious as that of the nature and scope of religious freedom. Many Muslim critics,

such as Mawdūdī and the authors of the OIC Cairo Declaration, argue that freedom of

conscience and religion either are not universal human rights or that such freedoms do not

mean what liberal interpreters think they mean—although Sachedina represents a notable

exception to this common refrain. Christian thinkers tend unanimously to support the

UDHR’s call for non-‐coercion of individuals in religious matters, but as we will see, Catholic

teaching does share certain concerns with its Muslim interlocutors, including the concern

that religious freedom be properly exercised in the search for truth and that a freedom

divorced from truth is morally corrupting.

Christianity:

As we have seen, Dignitatis Humanae is generally friendly toward the language and

concepts used in the UDHR. It agrees that all people have a “right” to freedom of religion

22 Ibid., 76, 85-86; Sachedina, “Freedom of Conscience,” 62. 23 For example, in distinguishing the human being’s natural faculty of moral cognition (fiṭrah) from its fully developed “keen, spiritual [and] moral consciousness and motivation” which leads to practice (taqwá) Sachedina contends: “[The] rejection of revelatory guidance [and subsequent piety]… does not necessarily deprive conscience [i.e. fiṭrah] of its cognitive capacity and practical impact” (Islamic Roots, 85-86).



and defines that freedom as lack of coercion, whether from a state, a religious body, or

some other group. However, it also states that the Roman Catholic Church’s commitment to

freedom of religion changes nothing about traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duties

of human beings and societies. It further argues that true freedom of religion and

conscience, in combination with a genuine personal search for truth, will lead any person of

good will to a particular truth: that is, the truth about God, and God’s ordering of creation

and human life, as taught by the Church.

The Catholic hierarchy is concerned to emphasize that while coercion in matters of religion

is always wrong, there is nevertheless objective religious and moral truth which all people

should properly seek. This concern is particularly strong in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor

from Pope John Paul II. In this encyclical, the Pope denounces what he sees as

contemporary abuse of the notion of “freedom” to the detriment of truth. While Veritatis

Splendor echoes Dignitatis Humanae in condemning any coercion in religious and moral

matters, the focus here has shifted, from the strong embrace of freedom of religion in

Dignitatis Humanae to the need for a proper understanding of freedom in Veritatis Splendor.

Instead of following the Vatican Council in using the concerns of the UDHR as a touching-‐off

point, John Paul II challenges the way the UDHR, and notions of freedom generally, have

been received in contemporary Western societies.

Veritatis Splendor was written in 1993 and seeks to address the problem of “an overall and

systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine, on the basis of certain

anthropological and ethical presuppositions.”24 The document notes that “people today

have a particularly strong sense of freedom.”25 In itself, this is not understood as wrong. In

fact, to quote John Paul, “the heightened sense of the dignity of the human person…and of

the respect due to the journey of conscience, certainly represents one of the positive

achievements of modern culture.”26 However, John Paul believes that there are ways of

respecting freedom and free conscience that are appropriate, and ways that are not. Some

24 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, section 4, paragraph 2. 25 VS section 31, paragraph 2. 26 VS section 31, paragraph 3.



contemporary ways of thinking, he claims, exalt freedom as an absolute value, in fact as the

source of values.27 This excessive elevation of freedom is both a cause and a symptom of

the loss of belief in universal truth. People no longer believe that there is a good toward

which all people should strive, nor a truth that all people can recognize. This leads to “a

radically subjectivistic conception of moral judgment,”28 in which each person simply

follows his or her own whims when it comes to the moral life. Veritatis Splendor claims that

an incorrect understanding of moral truth and an incorrect understanding of freedom go

hand in hand.

What the pope considers genuine freedom is freedom as a manifestation of God’s image in

human beings, which leads each person to seek God’s truth. Human freedom is necessary

for each person to be able to conduct the search for truth fruitfully. Hence the pope claims

that there is a “fundamental dependence of freedom upon truth.” And since the moral law is

an expression of God’s truth, Veritatis Splendor ties freedom irrevocably to obedience to

God’s moral law. Human beings are free “inasmuch as [we] can understand and accept

God’s commands…. Human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfillment precisely

in the acceptance of [the moral law given by God].”29 This is a very different interpretation

of “freedom of religion” than what we might call a standard liberal interpretation in which

each person should do what seems best to her religiously and morally. Here true freedom

of religion is both dependent upon and leads to a particular truth about what is good and

morally right.

Islam:

Abū al-‐Aʿlā Mawdūdī’s assessment of the freedom of religion and conscience is uniquely

problematic for international human rights standards. According to his well-‐known

pamphlet Human Rights in Islam, religious freedom is not found within the limited range of

what he terms “basic human rights”—e.g. life, security, equality, etc.—which belong to a

27 VS section 32, paragraph 1. 28 VS section 32, paragraph 1. 29 VS section 35, paragraph 2.



human being “simply because he is a human being;”30 rather, it is one of the, “rights of

citizens in an Islamic State.” In stipulating this religio-‐political provenance Mawdūdī

ensures that it is the state’s interpretation and application of Islamic law—as well as one’s

status under that law—which determines the nature and scope of this and other rights of

Islamic citizenship. Accordingly, Mawdūdī argues, “Islam… gives the right to freedom of

conscience and conviction to its citizens in an Islamic State,” citing as his proof text Q

2:256: “No compulsion is there in religion.”31 For Mawdūdī this succinct principle is all that

is necessary to affirm Islam’s commitment to the “freedom of conscience and conviction,”

but, interestingly, this commitment only holds regarding treatment for non-‐Muslims.

Elsewhere Mawdūdī pithily confirms the traditional prohibition of apostasy, stating, “As

regards Muslims, none of them will be allowed to change creed,”32 which clearly implies the

legitimacy of compulsion for the sake of ensuring Muslim fidelity.

These issues are not, however, Mawdūdī’s only concern in discussing religious freedom.

Freedom of religion in an “Islamic State” also entails the “right” of believers not to have

their religious convictions offended or publically mocked. This emphasis on the “protection

of religious sentiments” might be more accurately described as ‘freedom for religion’ rather

than ‘freedom of religion.’ Moreover, this emphasis on the inviolable sanctity of one’s

beliefs entails significant limitations of others’ freedom of expression. Mawdūdī justifies

such restriction on the grounds that free expression is not, in his view, an absolute or non-‐

derogable right, but actually an obligation to engage in the socio-‐ethical task of

“commanding the right and forbidding the wrong” (Cf. Q. 9:71).33 This moralistic frame—

also shared by the Cairo Declaration—characterizes not only freedom of expression, but all

of Mawdūdī’s rights of Islamic citizenship, and emphasizes the degree to which he

understands human rights as essentially religious duties whose ultimate purpose is create a

30 Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, Human Rights in Islam (Lahore: Islamic Publications Ltd., 1977), 14. 31 Ahmed Said Khan’s translation has: “There should be no coercion in the matter of faith.” 32 Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, The Islamic Law and Constitution (Lahore: Islamic Publication Ltd., 1960), 318. Although he does not expressly endorse the classical punishment—death—at this juncture, there can be little doubt as to his support. 33 Mawdūdī, Human Rights, 28.



just—that is, an ‘Islamic’—social order.34 In other words, Mawdūdī does not accept that

modern notions of human rights—such as freedom of expression—are goods in and of

themselves, which is not dissimilar from the Catholic understanding that the right to

freedom of religion is not an end-‐in-‐itself but a means whereby people can seek truth.

Where Mawdūdī’s approach to the issue of religious freedom—and the associated right of

free expression—focuses on accommodating it to traditional ethical and legal principles,

Abdulaziz Sachedina advocates a complete reevaluation of the Islamic position in line with

the value of religious pluralism which he believes to be central to the universality of the

Qurʾān’s message. While Sachedina is not deaf to traditionalists’ concerns that religious

freedom, grounded in an acceptance of pluralism, seems to violate the exclusive claim to

truth upon which Muslim religiosity is based, he rejects the necessary dichotomization of

this framing.35 Fealty to the exclusive character of religious truth claims need not be

incompatible with a respect for, and protection of, a religious pluralism that considers the

individual conscience sacrosanct. Duly, he locates a number of proof texts that seem to

imply a divine sanction for religious and cultural pluralism36—one of which—Q 2:62—even

articulates a vision of soteriological inclusivism:37

Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians, and those

Sabaeans, whoso believes in God and the Last Day, and works

righteousness—their wage awaits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be

on them, neither shall they sorrow.

34 More will be said in the next section about the relationship between the individual and the community as it pertains to an Islamic assessment of human rights. 35 See Sachedina Human Rights, 188-92, 196-9. 36 For example, Q. 2:213 – The people were one community; then God sent forth the Prophets, good tidings to bear and warning, and He sent down with them the Book with the truth, that He might decide the people touching their differences (Islamic Roots, 22); Q. 49:13 - O mankind, We have created you male and female, and appointed you races and tribes, that you may know one another. Surely the noblest among you in the sight of God is the most godfearing of you. God is All-knowing, All-aware (Islamic Roots, 27, 73); Q. 109:1-5 - Say: “O unbelievers, I serve not what you serve and you are not serving what I serve, nor am I serving what you have served, neither are you serving what I serve. To you your religion, and to me my religion!” (Islamic Roots, 36). 37 Sachedina, Islamic Roots, 27-28. Sachedina finds support for his interpretation of this verse as confirming reward for certain non-Muslim groups in the commentaries of the Sunnī Rashīd Riḍā and the Shīʿī ‘Allāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī (IR, 33-35; HR, 204).



While Sachedina admits that the Qurʾān also contains verses that point in the direction of

Islamic absolutism (cf. 3:85),38 such notions of theological exclusivity should not be

interpreted to deny tolerance and freedom to others in practice.39 This is because—as

mentioned before—he finds the Qurʾān expressing the view that all human beings share an

innate capacity (fiṭrah) for moral reasoning. Here we find an important point of contact

with the Roman Catholic tradition of natural law. While “this natural guidance can be

strengthened through prophetic revelation,” the acceptance or rejection of such divine

direction remains a privilege of the individual conscience;40 it cannot be compelled (cf.

2:256). In fact, coerced ‘belief’—especially in the context of prohibiting apostasy—cannot

be considered authentic faith, but is, in fact, hypocrisy,41 a disposition severely condemned

by the Qurʾān. Thus, Sachedina concludes that the established condemnation of apostasy

(irtidād) as a capital offense “runs counter to both the letter and spirit of the Koran.”42

There is a tension, he admits, between respect for the personal freedom of the fiṭrah-‐

endowed human being and Islam’s communal aim of creating a just social order in

submission to God; nonetheless, insofar as the exercising of an individual’s freedom of

conscience poses no serious threat to the stability of public life, the coercive power of the

state, which is justified in terms of punishing political treason and maintaining public

morals, is unwarranted in the case of private belief.43

Individual Rights and Social Obligations: The Politics of Moral Community

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is, almost exclusively, a declaration of

individual rights. The framers of the document were rightly concerned about the

oppression and suffering that social groups—or, in any case, powerful leaders of social

38 Sachedina himself interprets this verse to read “islām” as submission to God in a general sense, not as referring strictly to “Islam,” the historical religion established in 7th century Arabia (See Islamic Roots, 39). 39 Sachedina, Human Rights, 202. 40 Ibid., 195; Sachedina, Islamic Roots, 85. On this point Muslims who embrace Ashʿarī theology would vehemently disagree. 41 Sachedina, “Freedom of Conscience,” 79. 42 Sachedina, Islamic Roots, 97. 43 See Sachedina, “Freedom of Conscience,” 76-83. Elsewhere Sachedina notes that while the broad consensus among Muslim jurists—Sunnī and Shīʿī—has been to deny Muslims the right to change their religion, the prominent Ayatollah Muntaẓirī was a notable exception (Human Rights, 188).



groups—can cause individuals, and “human dignity” in this document reads as the dignity

of individuals. Only near the end of the document, in an ancillary way, does the UDHR state

that “everyone has duties to the community.” The UDHR also states that individual rights

and freedoms are only limited by respect for the rights and freedoms of others and “of

meeting the just requirements of public morality, public order and the general welfare in a

democratic society.”44 So the framers of the UDHR left some room for considerations of

public and communal concerns as checks on the potential tyranny of individual rights—but

only in a particular kind of political order. This perceived bias against the claims and

responsibility of community interests in pursuit of the common good is one of the major

challenges that emerges in Christian and Islamic critical assessments of standard human

rights discourse. While generally amenable to the individual freedoms expressed in the

UDHR, both Christian and Muslim approaches not only place a greater emphasis on the role

of the community in the spiritual and moral formation of the human person, but may also

advocate for the transformation of social order in line with the “truths of faith.”45

Christianity:

Very few, probably no, contemporary Christian thinkers would argue that an individual

should be coerced into refraining from changing or manifesting her individual beliefs or

opinions. However, Christian thinking about freedom of religion within religious, social,

and political communities is less wholeheartedly focused on the freedom of individuals

than is the language of the UDHR. If we consider again the perspective of the Catholic

hierarchy, Dignitatis Humanae states clearly that the rights of individuals to religious

freedom should be protected. However, the document does include a caveat for public

order, and it also emphasizes that religious communities should not be hindered in their

expression and public teaching about their faith.46 Communities, the Vatican Council writes,

should be allowed to teach and to advocate for their particular vision of what is religiously

true and good for all human beings.

44 UDHR, Article 29. 45 VS section 26, paragraph 2. 46 DH section 4, paragraphs 2-3.



Nor does the Council think that religious communities should be free to speak in public

only on questions of salvation or morality. Dignitatis Humanae sees nothing wrong with

religious communities’ advocating publicly for a particular social and political order. To

quote the Council, “it comes within the meaning of religious freedom that religious

communities should not be prohibited from freely undertaking to show the special value of

their doctrine in what concerns the organization of society and the inspiration of the whole

of human activity.”47 As long as they do not seek to coerce others, religious communities

can advocate for specific public and political arrangements based on their own doctrines.

More recently, in Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI argues that God must have a place

in the public realm and that the “truths of faith” must be brought to bear on public life if

political communities are to develop properly and treat their members well. This way of

thinking again contests a stereotypically liberal interpretation of religious freedom in

which religious communities have little room to put forth arguments about what is best

politically for a society.

Nor is the Roman Catholic discussion of religious freedom willing to rule out that a

religious tradition might sometimes be enmeshed with political power in a community,

much more closely than traditional liberal understandings of good politics would allow.

Despite its commitments to non-‐coercion and religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae

provides for “peculiar circumstances among peoples” in which “special civil recognition”

might be given “to one religious community in the constitutional order of society.”48 The

Council can envision a circumstance in which the very constitution of a government might

recognize one religious tradition above others. Here, the particular circumstances of a

community of people take a certain kind of precedence over notions of individual freedom

that require separation of religion from government.

Meanwhile, the work of Oliver O’Donovan paints a picture of what has happened, and might

happen again, when the Christian church’s mission has shaped the particular

47 DH section 4, paragraph 4. 48 DH section 6, paragraph 4.



circumstances of a political community by converting many to Christianity, including

political authorities. O’Donovan is an Anglican theologian who is more comfortable with

the possibility of state-‐supported establishment of religion than, I would venture to say,

most Americans, and certainly more so than dedicated liberal thinkers. Like the Roman

Catholic hierarchy, he clearly states that force should not be used to coerce people into

holding particular religious ideas. But in his work The Desire of Nations, he argues that

when political authorities have been converted to Christianity, those authorities may

rightly ask how they should act as Christians within their positions of power, including how

they can ethically lend support to the church’s mission. O’Donovan asserts that if and when

the church’s evangelizing mission to the world is successful, it may well happen that entire

political communities are converted to Christianity – as was the case, for instance, in

Europe in the medieval period. The ruling authorities of such communities, who

presumably have been converted to Christianity as well, then have the option of deciding

how they might facilitate the mission of the church. O’Donovan writes, “the state cannot

pursue the mission of the church, for it is not consecrated to that task and its weapons of

coercion are not fitted for it.”49 But the state may help the church along, possibly by

“establishing” some form of the Christian church as an official religious body within the

state, or by recognizing the church in other ways. To quote again, “recognition implies

some respect on the part of the rulers for the church’s leaders, and a willingness to listen to

them as they explain the church’s tasks and seek assistance.” Certainly, he says, political

leaders ought not to give the church simply whatever it asks for, and O’Donovan later

asserts that authorities must always remain open to changes in the way they recognize the

church and whether they do so at all. For our purposes, though, he gives voice to a possible

Christian understanding of the political community as especially supportive of one

particular religious tradition. For O’Donovan, a political community could be made up of

Christians who are guided by the teaching of the Christian church and who help facilitate

the church’s mission, including through official political channels.

Islam:

49 Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 217.



As previously mentioned, Mawdūdī’s “Islamic approach” to human rights is characterized

by a categorical division into a bare minimum of “basic human rights” and a more

expansive class of “rights of citizens in an Islamic State”—e.g. freedoms of expression,

association, conscience, civic participation, etc. These two groups of rights fundamentally

differ in their grounding; that is to say, while “basic human rights” are ascribed to a person

“simply because he is a human being,”50 the extension and application of the “rights of

citizens in an Islamic State” are based on the individual’s membership in either the

community of “Muslims” or that of “non-‐Muslims,” as specified in Islamic law. In other

words, much of what the UDHR and its related covenants would recognize as universal

human rights, due to every person by virtue of their common human dignity, are for

Mawdūdī qualified by one’s communal identity, specifically religious affiliation and nation-‐

state jurisdiction.51 This means that an individual possesses such rights—as defined by

Islamic citizenship—only with and through his or her communal identities.

The understanding of these individual rights as grounded in, and applied through, group

membership is further clarified and reinforced by Mawdūdī’s framing of individual rights

as deriving from religio-‐social duties, and, in some cases, as the duties themselves—e.g. “the

right to the safety of life”—is, in Mawdūdī’s description, an injunction to help those in need.

This observation reveals the functional role human rights plays in his vision of Islam as

force of social transformation. Insofar as he understands the Islamic state as an enforceable

moral community whose purpose is the temporal establishment of God’s justice as

embodied in the general obligation “to command the right and forbid the wrong”52 (a view

50 Mawdūdī, Human Rights, 14. 51 In terms of the latter, Mawdūdī adopts a uniquely broad notion of the jurisdiction of an Islamic state over Muslims; that is: “A Muslim ipso facto becomes the citizen of an Islamic state as soon as he sets his foot on its territory with the intent to live there and thus enjoy equal rights of citizenship along with those who acquire its citizenship by birth (Human Rights, 8). No similar naturalization process is afforded to non-Muslims, though those who already find themselves “living within the boundaries of an Islamic state” automatically fall within its jurisdiction and consequently have “certain rights” which “must necessarily form part of the Islamic constitution” (Human Rights, 9). For more detail on the rights and restrictions of non-Muslims in an Islamic state see Mawdūdī, The Islamic Law and Constitution, 293-321. 52 Mawdūdī forcefully distinguishes the moral orientation of the Islamic state from the aims of other polities: “…the main objectives of an Islamic State are to enforce and implement with all the resources of its organised power that reformatory program which Islam has given for the betterment of mankind. Mere establishment of peace, mere



shared by the Cairo Declaration) then human rights—their protection or violation—serve

as a litmus test of sorts for the veracity of a state’s claim to be truly “Islamic.” Where the

genuine Islamic state will uphold the human rights of its citizens, in accordance with their

respective communal identities and duties, the false Islamic state53 seeks “to corrupt and

morally degrade and debase the people…”54 In sum, the relevance of the notion human

rights, for Mawdūdī, is intimately tied to the supporting function they play in legitimizing

the “Islamic state” as the means by which Muslim communities are transformed into the

moral social order commanded by God. While this approach is not the exactly same as that

of the Roman Catholic documents, there is a general parallel to the Catholic assumption

that a just state will protect human rights.

Even Sachedina, who generally supports the international human rights regime as is,

remains concerned that its discourse is “thoroughly individualistic,”55 based on the idea of

a fully autonomous self, dislocated from both transcendent moorings and communitarian

concerns.56 As with Catholic ethical thought, he argues that Islam rejects such self-‐centered

notions of the human self and its agency, stressing, rather, the social context of identity

formation whereby community membership, with its corresponding public obligations,

grounds one’s personhood.57 Despite this apparent philosophical difference, Sachedina

considers the Islamic conception of the human person as a free moral agent, according to

his or her innate “noble nature” (fiṭrah), able to support a form of rights-‐bearing

individualism—but one that is necessarily community-‐oriented in response to its social

and moral responsibilities.58 Intriguingly, in searching for a means of balancing the

protection of national frontiers, mere endeavour to raise the standard of living of the common man do form its ultimate, nor do they constitute the characteristics which distinguish the Islamic state from the non-Islamic states. Its distinction lies in the fact that it has to encourage and popularise those good practices which Islam desires humanity to adopt and to discourage, eradicate and crush with full force all those evils of which Islam aims to purge mankind” (The Islamic Law and Constitution, 248). 53 Mawdūdī levels this condemnation at his native Pakistan (See Human Rights, 29). 54 Mawdūdī, Human Rights, 29. 55 Ibid., 147. 56 Ibid., 149. 57 Ibid., 151. 58 Sachedina, Human Rights, 154. Also, “The function of the fiṭra is to provide moral direction to individual and social activity by interrelating this and the next world in such a way that human religiousity finds expression in the perfection of public order and institutions” (Islamic Roots, 82).



freedom of individual rights and the constraints of communal obligations—both of which

are authentically Islamic concerns—Sachedina opts for a surprising solution: secularity.

To be more precise, Sachedina refers to a de facto “functional secularity” in Islam, in order

to distinguish it from a harsh laïcité notion that strives to remove all religious influences

and concerns from the discourse and administration of public life.59 What makes such a

position unexpected is that traditionally Islam is thought to eschew the type of

public/private distinction that provides the foundation for secularism in practice.60 Yet,

Sachedina contends that while Islam does make certain ethical claims on individuals

concerning their relations with others and the larger society, which are subject to public

and government scrutiny in pursuit of the common good, those made with respect to

personal spirituality and inner convictions are intentionally unenforceable.61 The classical

legal model that Sachedina references as the basis of this “default” secularity is the division

of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) into those topics which deal with inter-‐human relations

(muʿāmalāt) and those which concern divine-‐human relations (ʿibadāt).62 Accordingly, this

approach allows Sachedina to preserve a robust hearing for Muslim religious convictions in

the public space of muʿāmalāt interactions, while at the same time demarcating an

inviolable private sphere of personal thought, faith, and action (ʿibadāt).63 In short,

Sachedina’s “Islamic secularity” inverses the liberal standard: the ‘public’ becomes

religious, while the ‘private’ is made secular.64 While not expressed in the same way, this

notion may share some common ground with the work of Christian thinkers who argue for

a greater role for religious voices in the public debate about political justice and order. 59 Sachedina, Islamic Roots, 77. 60 See Sachedina, Human Rights, 153; Islamic Roots, 82 – “The Koranic vision of an ideal order is not based on the separation of private and public; rather, it is an integrated path that requires the perfection of both to render human struggle in this world soteriologically efficacious.” 61 Sachedina, Human Rights, 153. 62 See Ibid., 44; 152-158. It is worth pointing out that this close identification of the sharīʿ concepts of muʿāmalāt and ʿibadāt with the Western liberal traditions spheres of ‘public’ and ‘private,’ respectively, is an unacknowledged creative rereading on Sachedina’s part. While in their classical usages muʿāmalāt and ʿibadāt are indeed distinguished by the parties that they involve—i.e. human-human v. God-human—both are categories of the Sharīʿa and so pertain to the same sphere of jurisdiction. In addition, ʿibadāt more properly refers to the jurisprudence of public ritual rather than private belief. 63 Sachedina, Islamic Roots, 98 64 On this point, Sachedina elsewhere refers to the “secularity of the fiṭra,” since “the fiṭra sits in judgment to determine the moral value of human action but avoids judging the rightness of wrongness of human faith” (Islamic Roots, 82).



Conclusion: Continuing the Conversation

In conclusion, let us state categorically that we support the promotion and protection of

human rights. But so does every one of the critical voices we have reviewed in this paper,

with the exception of O’Donovan, who nevertheless supports what we consider to be the

objectives of human rights – namely, justice and peace. In that sense, the human rights

project is a singular success; for even when religious thinkers reject the articulation and/or

application of certain rights as conflicting with their traditional values, they very rarely

reject the idea and ideal of human rights altogether. Human rights advocates should take

heart that this discourse is fertile common ground between themselves and religious

traditions; likewise, it promotes creative internal dialogue across and within those

traditions. Our analysis of these traditions shows that many Christian and Muslim

intellectuals view the UDHR and related human rights considerations not as a finished

product but as an invitation for dialogue on the common good. The resources of

Christianity and Islam have much to say in such a conversation. Finally, seizing the

invitation to dialogue with religious traditions—which may at times require

reconsideration of certain conventional human rights assumptions—is likely to be the only

means of developing the kind of authentically religious discourse necessary to enlist local

Christian and Muslim leaders to promote the cause of universal human dignity and rights in

their communities, nations, and around the world.

Religious Challenges to Human Rights: Bringing Muslims and Christians into Conversation

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