Portal: Islam and Human Rights: Difference between revisions
[checked revision] | [checked revision] |
No edit summary |
|||
(8 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
While some modern Islamic scholars have struggled to reconcile | While some modern Islamic scholars have struggled to reconcile Islamic and modern, largely Western notions of human rights, the majority of traditional Islamic scholars today have generally defied what they perceive as an attempt at intellectual colonialism. The conflict between modern human rights doctrine and Islamic law can, for the most part, be understood as a product of their extreme historical and contextual distance. Whereas Islamic law was formulated in the harsh, unpredictable, and austere environment of 7th-9th century Arabia, modern Human rights doctrine is generally traced back to the European Enlightenment, starting especially with the English philosopher John Locke's ideas of ''natural rights'' in the 17th century. | ||
==Women== | ==Women== | ||
Islamic scriptures generally employ the masculine pronoun in Arabic, which is used to refer to both men and women. On occasion, the scriptures diverge from this standard, inclusive usage, and comment specifically on men or women. The perspective taken by Islamic scriptures on women is of special interest in recent times due to frequent collision with modern values. | |||
<div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | <div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | ||
<div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | |||
{{PortalArticle|title=Islam and Women|image=Muslim-usa.jpg|summary=|description=Islamic law and doctrine holds women to be inferior to men in many respects, including in their intellect, their ability to serve as witnesses on topics other than female biology, ability to handle wealth, and ability to operate independently in society, among other things. While modernist Islamic movements have attempted to reconcile Islam with feminism, mainstream orthodox thought remains strictly antithetical. With some adjustments, Islamic law enshrines the gender norms of 7th century Arabia.}}{{PortalArticle|title=Rape in Islamic Law|summary=|image=Crimean-slave-trade.png|description=Rape, known in Islamic law as ''zina bil-ikrah'' or ''zina bil-jabr'' (literally "fornication by force"), is generally defined by Muslim jurists as forced intercourse by a man with a woman who is not his wife or slave and without her consent. As with enslaved females, according to Islamic law, married women are required to oblige their husbands sexual advances - raping one's wife is permissible. The concept of "rape" is thus deemed to be equally non-existent in the contexts of both marriage and slavery.}} | {{PortalArticle|title=Islam and Women|image=Muslim-usa.jpg|summary=|description=Islamic law and doctrine holds women to be inferior to men in many respects, including in their intellect, their ability to serve as witnesses on topics other than female biology, ability to handle wealth, and ability to operate independently in society, among other things. While modernist Islamic movements have attempted to reconcile Islam with feminism, mainstream orthodox thought remains strictly antithetical. With some adjustments, Islamic law enshrines the gender norms of 7th century Arabia.}}{{PortalArticle|title=Rape in Islamic Law|summary=|image=Crimean-slave-trade.png|description=Rape, known in Islamic law as ''zina bil-ikrah'' or ''zina bil-jabr'' (literally "fornication by force"), is generally defined by Muslim jurists as forced intercourse by a man with a woman who is not his wife or slave and without her consent. As with enslaved females, according to Islamic law, married women are required to oblige their husbands sexual advances - raping one's wife is permissible. The concept of "rape" is thus deemed to be equally non-existent in the contexts of both marriage and slavery.}} | ||
</div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | </div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | ||
Line 13: | Line 14: | ||
*[[Forced Marriage]] | *[[Forced Marriage]] | ||
*[[Hijab]] | *[[Hijab]] | ||
*[[Wife Beating in Islamic Law]] | |||
{{col-float-break|width=25em}} | {{col-float-break|width=25em}} | ||
*[[Women in Islamic Law]] | |||
*[[Child Marriage in the Muslim World]] | *[[Child Marriage in the Muslim World]] | ||
*[[Child Marriage in the Qur'an]] | *[[Child Marriage in the Qur'an]] | ||
Line 19: | Line 22: | ||
*[[Islamic Attire and Health]] | *[[Islamic Attire and Health]] | ||
*[[Thighing|Thighing Children]] | *[[Thighing|Thighing Children]] | ||
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law]] | |||
*[[Polygamy in Islamic Law]] | |||
{{col-float-end}} | {{col-float-end}} | ||
==Religious Minorities== | ==Religious Minorities== | ||
Islamic law permits the residence of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians (the three groups constituting the People of The Book) in the Islamic caliphate, or state, provided they accept the legal, social, and financial subjugation (the Dhimma system) whose explicit aim, as mentioned in the Quran, is their humiliation viz-a-viz the Muslims. Traditionally, per Islamic scriptures, polytheists and persons of non-Abrahamic faiths were deemed unsuitable for residence in Islamic lands and would have either to convert or face execution following military defeat. Historically, however, the challenge of implementing such policies against large numbers of polytheists (following, for instance, the Islamic conquest of Hindu lands) brought Islamic scholars and political leaders to arrange compromises and additional constraints whereby certain polytheists could live as Dhimmis. The persecution of non-Muslim minorities and unorthodox Muslim sects in Muslim-majority countries continues today. | |||
<div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | <div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | ||
<div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | |||
{{PortalArticle|summary=|image=Broken cross.jpg|description=The word Dhimma in modern parlance refers to the non-Muslim persons permitted to live under the Islamic regime (The Caliphate), namely those of Abrahamic faiths, as well as the system of financial, legal, and social subjugation that must be brought to bear over them so as to bring about their humiliation, as instructed by the Quran. Included in this system are the practices of ''Zunar'' (yellow-badge practices) and ''Jizyah'' (non-Muslim tax).|title=Dhimma}}{{PortalArticle|summary=|description=The Jizyah is the tax imposed by the Islamic regime, or caliphate, upon the non-Muslims permitted to live under its reign, namely those of Abrahamic faiths. The Jizya tax is intended as a form of humiliation, as stated in the Quran, whereby non-Muslims are financially incentivized to convert to Islam. Conquered non-Muslim peoples are given the choice between conversion, mass execution and enslavement, and paying the Jizyah. The Jizyah is four times the Zakah Tax, imposed upon Muslim.|image=Collecting Jizyah.jpg|title=Jizyah}} | {{PortalArticle|summary=|image=Broken cross.jpg|description=The word Dhimma in modern parlance refers to the non-Muslim persons permitted to live under the Islamic regime (The Caliphate), namely those of Abrahamic faiths, as well as the system of financial, legal, and social subjugation that must be brought to bear over them so as to bring about their humiliation, as instructed by the Quran. Included in this system are the practices of ''Zunar'' (yellow-badge practices) and ''Jizyah'' (non-Muslim tax).|title=Dhimma}}{{PortalArticle|summary=|description=The Jizyah is the tax imposed by the Islamic regime, or caliphate, upon the non-Muslims permitted to live under its reign, namely those of Abrahamic faiths. The Jizya tax is intended as a form of humiliation, as stated in the Quran, whereby non-Muslims are financially incentivized to convert to Islam. Conquered non-Muslim peoples are given the choice between conversion, mass execution and enslavement, and paying the Jizyah. The Jizyah is four times the Zakah Tax, imposed upon Muslim.|image=Collecting Jizyah.jpg|title=Jizyah}} | ||
</div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | </div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | ||
Line 39: | Line 45: | ||
==Freedom of Conscience== | ==Freedom of Conscience== | ||
Traditional Islamic legal scholars overwhelmingly agreed that blasphemers and apostates should be put to death. Most also demanded the death penalty for practicing homosexuals. Religion-critical perspectives were outlawed under the former set of laws, as pronouncing a disagreement with scriptures amounted to apostasy or, at least, heresy, as in much of the pre-modern European world. Similar attitudes prevail in Muslim-majority lands today, with nearly a dozen Muslim-majority countries placing the death penalty on apostasy and/or blasphemy and several more punishing those crimes with imprisonment, fines, and various forms of civil death. | |||
<div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | <div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | ||
<div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | |||
{{PortalArticle|image=KFR.jpg|title=Kafir (Infidel)|description=In Islamic terminology, a kāfir is a disbeliever, or someone who rejects or does not believe in Allah as the one and only God and Muhammad as the final messenger of Allah. In the context of Islamic scriptures, "kafir" is the broadest, all encompassing category of non-Muslim, which includes all other sub-categories, such as ''mushriqun'', or polytheists, ''dahriyah'', or those who deny the existence of any gods outright, as well as those who would today identify as agnostics or who are simply ignorant of religious figments.|summary=}}{{PortalArticle|title=Islam and Apostasy|summary=|image=The Hadd for the Murtad.jpg|description=Apostasy is a serious offense in Islam. Rejecting any part of Islamic doctrine, whether derived from the Quran or from what are held by Islamic scholars to be incontrovertibly reliable hadith, amounts to apostasy. The punishment for apostasy as prescribed by Muhammad and as delineated in all four schools of Islamic law is execution. In Sahih Bukhari, for instance, it is recorded that “Allah's Apostle said, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him'”.}} | {{PortalArticle|image=KFR.jpg|title=Kafir (Infidel)|description=In Islamic terminology, a kāfir is a disbeliever, or someone who rejects or does not believe in Allah as the one and only God and Muhammad as the final messenger of Allah. In the context of Islamic scriptures, "kafir" is the broadest, all encompassing category of non-Muslim, which includes all other sub-categories, such as ''mushriqun'', or polytheists, ''dahriyah'', or those who deny the existence of any gods outright, as well as those who would today identify as agnostics or who are simply ignorant of religious figments.|summary=}}{{PortalArticle|title=Islam and Apostasy|summary=|image=The Hadd for the Murtad.jpg|description=Apostasy is a serious offense in Islam. Rejecting any part of Islamic doctrine, whether derived from the Quran or from what are held by Islamic scholars to be incontrovertibly reliable hadith, amounts to apostasy. The punishment for apostasy as prescribed by Muhammad and as delineated in all four schools of Islamic law is execution. In Sahih Bukhari, for instance, it is recorded that “Allah's Apostle said, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him'”.}} | ||
</div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | </div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | ||
Line 46: | Line 53: | ||
</div> | </div> | ||
</div> | </div> | ||
==Corporal punishment== | ==Corporal punishment== | ||
Several forms of corporal punishment feature in Islamic law. Crimes for which punishments are not explicitly prescribed in scripture can earn a discretionary corporal punishment so long as it does not exceed the least-severe corporal punishment prescribed by scripture. This upper limit is 80 lashes according to some scholars and 40 lashes according to others. Scriptural punishments include crucifixion, stoning to death, execution by other means, various amputations, and lashings. | |||
<div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | <div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | ||
<div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | |||
{{PortalArticle|title=Islam and Violence|summary=|image=Islamic-violence.jpeg|description=Islamic law sanctions several forms of physical violence in domestic, civil, and international contexts, ranging from unprovoked imperial Jihad, to wife-beating, to amputations. While a few modern Islamic scholars have challenged the legality of imperial violence, a smaller minority that also of domestic violence, and yet smaller minority that of civil violence, the overwhelming majority of Islamic scholars today embrace the tradition of Islamic violence in all three respects.}}{{PortalArticle|image=Hands-cut.jpg|description=Various forms of amputation are prescribed as punishments in Islamic law, drawing on the Quran in particular, which instructs the delimbing of thieves as well as those who 'spread mischief in the Earth' (variously interpreted as everything from political corruption to promoting atheism). Muslim-majority implement these punishments even today, most notably Saudi Arabia and Iran.|title=Amputation in Islamic Law|summary=}} | {{PortalArticle|title=Islam and Violence|summary=|image=Islamic-violence.jpeg|description=Islamic law sanctions several forms of physical violence in domestic, civil, and international contexts, ranging from unprovoked imperial Jihad, to wife-beating, to amputations. While a few modern Islamic scholars have challenged the legality of imperial violence, a smaller minority that also of domestic violence, and yet smaller minority that of civil violence, the overwhelming majority of Islamic scholars today embrace the tradition of Islamic violence in all three respects.}}{{PortalArticle|image=Hands-cut.jpg|description=Various forms of amputation are prescribed as punishments in Islamic law, drawing on the Quran in particular, which instructs the delimbing of thieves as well as those who 'spread mischief in the Earth' (variously interpreted as everything from political corruption to promoting atheism). Muslim-majority implement these punishments even today, most notably Saudi Arabia and Iran.|title=Amputation in Islamic Law|summary=}} | ||
</div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | </div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | ||
Line 63: | Line 72: | ||
==Modern movements and events== | ==Modern movements and events== | ||
The sharp contrast between still-practiced Islamic law and modern norms of human rights has brought the archaisms of Islamic law to achieve considerable public attention. International controversies surrounding intentional and unintentional acts of blasphemy against Islam have become commonplace in the twenty first century, the first major harbinger of these events being the supreme leader of Iran's call for the killing of the British novelist Salman Rushdie in 1989 for a book that was deemed blasphemous. | |||
<div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | <div class="articleSummaryColumnsWrapper"> | ||
<div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | |||
{{PortalArticle|image=Hangrushdie.jpg|description=In what became known as The Rushdie Affair or The Satanic Verses Controversy in 1988, the British novelist Salman Rushdie published a novel which in drawing on the Satanic Verses incident from Muhammad's life so incensed large parts of the Muslim world as to compel international protests and a death sentence in the form of a fatwa from the then Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Numerous deaths followed.|title=The Rushdie Affair|summary=}}{{PortalArticle|image=Everybody Draw Muhammad Day - May 20th.jpg|summary=|title=Everybody Draw Mohammed Day|description=Everybody Draw Muhammad Day began when, on May 20th, 2010, cartoonist Molly Norris responded to death threats directed at follow cartoonists who had drawn Muhammad by suggesting that if everyone drew Muhammad, then Jihadists would be dumbfounded about who to kill. Subjected to threats herself, Norris later recanted, but her idea lives on.}} | {{PortalArticle|image=Hangrushdie.jpg|description=In what became known as The Rushdie Affair or The Satanic Verses Controversy in 1988, the British novelist Salman Rushdie published a novel which in drawing on the Satanic Verses incident from Muhammad's life so incensed large parts of the Muslim world as to compel international protests and a death sentence in the form of a fatwa from the then Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Numerous deaths followed.|title=The Rushdie Affair|summary=}}{{PortalArticle|image=Everybody Draw Muhammad Day - May 20th.jpg|summary=|title=Everybody Draw Mohammed Day|description=Everybody Draw Muhammad Day began when, on May 20th, 2010, cartoonist Molly Norris responded to death threats directed at follow cartoonists who had drawn Muhammad by suggesting that if everyone drew Muhammad, then Jihadists would be dumbfounded about who to kill. Subjected to threats herself, Norris later recanted, but her idea lives on.}} | ||
</div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> | </div><div class="articleSummaryColumn"> |
Revision as of 19:18, 27 March 2021
While some modern Islamic scholars have struggled to reconcile Islamic and modern, largely Western notions of human rights, the majority of traditional Islamic scholars today have generally defied what they perceive as an attempt at intellectual colonialism. The conflict between modern human rights doctrine and Islamic law can, for the most part, be understood as a product of their extreme historical and contextual distance. Whereas Islamic law was formulated in the harsh, unpredictable, and austere environment of 7th-9th century Arabia, modern Human rights doctrine is generally traced back to the European Enlightenment, starting especially with the English philosopher John Locke's ideas of natural rights in the 17th century.
Women
Islamic scriptures generally employ the masculine pronoun in Arabic, which is used to refer to both men and women. On occasion, the scriptures diverge from this standard, inclusive usage, and comment specifically on men or women. The perspective taken by Islamic scriptures on women is of special interest in recent times due to frequent collision with modern values.
Other articles in this section
Religious Minorities
Islamic law permits the residence of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians (the three groups constituting the People of The Book) in the Islamic caliphate, or state, provided they accept the legal, social, and financial subjugation (the Dhimma system) whose explicit aim, as mentioned in the Quran, is their humiliation viz-a-viz the Muslims. Traditionally, per Islamic scriptures, polytheists and persons of non-Abrahamic faiths were deemed unsuitable for residence in Islamic lands and would have either to convert or face execution following military defeat. Historically, however, the challenge of implementing such policies against large numbers of polytheists (following, for instance, the Islamic conquest of Hindu lands) brought Islamic scholars and political leaders to arrange compromises and additional constraints whereby certain polytheists could live as Dhimmis. The persecution of non-Muslim minorities and unorthodox Muslim sects in Muslim-majority countries continues today.
Other articles in this section
Freedom of Conscience
Traditional Islamic legal scholars overwhelmingly agreed that blasphemers and apostates should be put to death. Most also demanded the death penalty for practicing homosexuals. Religion-critical perspectives were outlawed under the former set of laws, as pronouncing a disagreement with scriptures amounted to apostasy or, at least, heresy, as in much of the pre-modern European world. Similar attitudes prevail in Muslim-majority lands today, with nearly a dozen Muslim-majority countries placing the death penalty on apostasy and/or blasphemy and several more punishing those crimes with imprisonment, fines, and various forms of civil death.
Corporal punishment
Several forms of corporal punishment feature in Islamic law. Crimes for which punishments are not explicitly prescribed in scripture can earn a discretionary corporal punishment so long as it does not exceed the least-severe corporal punishment prescribed by scripture. This upper limit is 80 lashes according to some scholars and 40 lashes according to others. Scriptural punishments include crucifixion, stoning to death, execution by other means, various amputations, and lashings.
Other articles in this section
Modern movements and events
The sharp contrast between still-practiced Islamic law and modern norms of human rights has brought the archaisms of Islamic law to achieve considerable public attention. International controversies surrounding intentional and unintentional acts of blasphemy against Islam have become commonplace in the twenty first century, the first major harbinger of these events being the supreme leader of Iran's call for the killing of the British novelist Salman Rushdie in 1989 for a book that was deemed blasphemous.