Islam and Human Rights

Islam and Human Rights Mission interests in “turning the world upside down” must grasp the significance of Islam, its political-religious system, and its own human rights concerns. by David Bentley obert Qambar Ali, age 44, a Kuwaiti ious discrimination. Modern Islamic a wide range of human activities from R convert to Christ, became the Human Rights documents, 1981 and prayer and eating habits to warfare. focal point of international concern early 1990, reveal an attitude attributable to the A guiding principle of the nearly fifty this year. His series of trials for apos- Hadith. This article closes with sug- nations that form the Islamic crescent tasy before the Islamic Shi’a court of his gestions for further understanding of ways is that the whole world consists of two home country was well covered by of making meaningful mission con- houses, dar al-islam, (house of peace the Arab press while the Kuwaiti govern- tacts with Muslims. where Shari’a is settled) and dar al-harb, ment deftly rebuffed global appeals Muslim Majority Nations (house of war where Islamic law is including letters from members of the not yet instituted). In the 50 nations of the world where United States Congress. To the Chris- The Christian worldview Muslims form the majority popula- tians in the West, Robert’s death sentence includes some thoughts of freedom, jus- tion, the perceptions of Christian evangel- for abandoning Islam is a clear viola- ical activities vary significantly. Gen- tice, and equality that emerged as a tion of international human and religious part of the message of the first century erally, however, there is a profound rights and raises questions about the church. Although the term “human distrust of both the missionary and reasons for the recently fought war for the rights” does not appear in the Bible there the government departments who are defense of Kuwait following the 1990 responsible for allowing the mission- are the cries of a minority faith aspir- Iraqi invasion. ing to be tolerated by the major players in aries into their country. Often it is the In the same week of Robert’s the Roman empire. A few centuries sentence of death,similar reports government of an Asian or Middle later when Christianity became the offi- appeared: East country that faces the brunt of the attack when Muslims begin to perse- cial religion, it assumed the power of Surabaya, Indonesia: Ten churches were a majority religion. Along with this torched by mobs of Muslims in broad cute Christians. power, the medieval church fre- daylight endangering worshipers gather- Contemporary missions are not ing for Sunday services.1 unlike the events that Paul and Silas quently ceased to concern itself with Cairo, Egypt: A secular magazine many of the aspects of human rights exposes the practice of forcing Christian faced when they evoked the wrath of such as justice for the minorities. Today teenage girls to adopt Islam after the religious leaders in Thessalonica (Acts the orthodox churches in Russia are “arranged” marriages and incidents of 17:1-9). The Jews accused the first rape.2 Christian apostles in a civil court of “turn- making the same claims that they repre- Khartoum, Sudan: Two US reporters for sent the established faith of the Rus- a Baltimore newspaper buy a couple of ing the world upside down.” The Jew- sian population and are working through slave boys who can recall their early life ish leaders almost succeeded in bringing in southern Sudan.3 the Roman authorities into the fray the political system to restrain evan- Incidents similar to these occur when the synagogue charged Paul and gelicals and other voices of dissent. far too often across the Islamic crescent, Silas with making Jesus another king Persecution and Treason stretching from North Africa to South in place of Caesar. Jason was among An example of a minority which was Asia, as multiple cases of religious perse- those who were assessed a fine but successful in overcoming persecution cution and intolerance go unreported. later was allowed to go free. to achieve majority status, only to become This article will be limited to some of the An early important lesson for the persecutors, is reflected in a single root causes of violations of human Christians to understand is that the con- word in the Quran. When the first Mus- and religious rights of non-Muslims cept of mosque-state separation is for- lims were a persecuted minority and within this vast swath of humanity. eign to Islamic law, to the Shari’a, which denied access to the Meccan holy place Muslim persecution of Christians as well is considered superior to any human the word fitnah clearly meant ‘perse- as other religious groups, including laws. Missions to Muslims cannot over- cution’. Later, when the Muslims became Muslim sects, can be traced to the Quran, look the importance that all Muslims the dominant majority, fitnah would but the Hadith, i.e., the traditional place in establishing a just political order be defined as ‘treason’ and ‘sedition’. The acts and sayings of the Prophet Muham- based upon Shari’a in order to main- phrase can also be translated as ‘sub- mad, is more inclined to cause relig- tain a state of purity and readiness for version’ which is an act that is worse than INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FRONTIER MISSIONS, VOL 13:3 JULY-SEPT. 1996 156 Islam and Human Rights ‘killing and slaughtering’ according to the modern rational, logical mind....” She of Islamic militant fundamentalism today. Quran. added, A wider community exists which They ask thee [Muhammad] concern- The fundamentalists want to replace is also interested in religious freedom for ing fighting in the prohibited month. democracy with theocracy and to all. This community exists apart from Say: “Fighting therein is a grave impose old theocratic laws instead of the secularists and officials of national (offense); But graver is it in the sight modern secular laws on the members of God to prevent access to the path of of their own society, not on other dis- governments but often they are found Allah to deny Him, to prevent access tant powerful states which they con- in these two entities. They hold an affinity sider their enemies.5 to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its with Christian missionaries about members. Subversion (fitnah) is Isma’il al-Farouki is another dis- greater than killing. (2:217) 4 human rights that are universal when it sonant voice from within the Islamic com- comes to an understanding of human Christianity evolved into “Chris- munity who was a victim of a US worth as expressed in the Universal tendom” over three to four centuries while inner city murder ten years ago. Rather Human Rights Declaration. “All Islam took only Muhammad’s life- than accuse a disparate group within human beings are born free and equal in time, between 609 to 632 AD, to evolve Islam as a cause of the human rights vio- dignity and rights.”7 To the secular- from a persecuted handful in Mecca lations, as did Taslima with the funda- ists these “rights and freedoms” are often to the persecuting majority led by a “com- mentalists, he saw the impact of Western described as “inherent” and “inaliena- mander of the faithful” in the last ten imperialism on Islam as the culprit. ble”, but for those within the Hebraic- years in Medina. The primary advocates Christian tradition the declaration of of human rights, who naturally When politics get so intermingled with Christian mission, what sort of situa- human rights created as we are in the include voices for religious rights, are tion would you expect if total religious “image of God” is more than an ade- found among the non-orthodox freedom were allowed? Give us the quate definition. Muslims reject this Gen- minorities and “liberal” Muslims. They, assurance that political involvement in mission will cease, and that power pol- esis precept as it violates their con- like Christian evangelists, face an itics will no longer intrude, then the cepts of monotheism wherein God has no aroused Islam that has been inappropri- principles of religious freedom would partners. ately named “fundamentalists”. The be approved by every sensible Muslim on earth. We Muslims are at the word itself sprang out of the early twenti- Islamic Human Rights receiving end of the line injustice. We eth century conflicts within Protes- haven’t emerged yet from two centu- The Muslim majority nations, tantism when the “Fundamentalists” ries of colonizations.6 however, have come up with their own refused to accept the liberal view of Secularists, Christian Alliances Declarations of Human Rights which the place of Christian Scriptures. Muslims Are these secularists such as the Ban- in the end support Islam but insist that today believe that the Quran is the gladesh Taslima ready to defend men there are some principles that the uncreated word of God, thus making the and women who are caught between the framers felt were “universal” that are overwhelmingly majority of Muslims religious and civil authorities on the beyond laws and codes that men have fundamentalists. The term here refers to a issues facing minority Christians, established. fringe group who would replace any women, evangelism, and rights of The 1981 Islamic Declaration of opposition, Islamic or non-Islamic, secu- converts? The evidence of this once hap- Human Rights Preamble, as is the case lar or religious, with their narrow pening comes from Turkey where the with other human rights documents, view of applying Islamic law, Shari’a, up leftist lawyers guilds helped the Turkish is a statement of principles without any to and including the use of violence believers who were under attack by force of statutory law.

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