Human Rights & Islam

While the Western world only began speaking of human rights in the 17th century, Islam introduced this notion 10 centuries earlier.

But today, there is a common argument, made especially in Islamophobic rhetoric, that Islam on the whole is antithetical to modern secular notions of human rights. Whether it is through the lens of the rights of women in Islam, and the oppression of women in the Muslim world, or through cited components of the Shari'ah, regarding issues such as adultery and apostasy, critics of Islam contend that the religion is inherently opposed to the sanctity of the individual, and the protection of their basic human rights.

This documentary investigates the extent to which the modern secular conception of rights, that is revered by the world today, is compatible with Islamic values. Are the two inherently at odds with each other or is there room for reconciliation?

Today, human rights is most commonly associated with the international commitment to them in the form of the United Declaration of Human Rights. This document was established and adopted by the UN in 1948 and set its primary goal as the advancement and protection of the basic rights of the individual. It moved beyond the preservation of the rights of states from other states, and placed limits on the state's power over its citizens. After the atrocities of the Nazi regime in Germany, the world became concerned with ensuring that the freedom, respect, and dignity of individuals are maintained universally.

Human rights really came about into the international system with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was following the Second World War. And they were put into a place partly to ensure that the atrocities of the Second World War don't happen again. To ensure that other regions of the world don't go through what Europe went through at that particular time. And the aim of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is really to constrain the power of states.

Up until then, the only rights that were existing in the world were about the rights that states had towards each other, so not to violate their sovereignty, and to ensure stability in the world. But now, with the Declaration of Human Rights, it is about individual power against states. That individuals can be protected from violations by states. So it really was a significant change.

The starting point for the discussion on the compatibility of Islam with human rights lies in the very definition of the term. There exists some fundamental contrasts in the ways that human rights is defined within Western academia as well as Islam. The UN defines human rights as those rights which are inherent in our state of nature and without which we cannot live as human beings. Human rights are seen as belonging to every individual and do not depend on the specifics of the individual or the relationship between the holder and the grantor of rights.

Rights generally, certainly thinking about human rights generally, are really based on these particular themes and ideas, big concepts like personal freedom, to be able to be free to make your own choices in life, and to plan out a life that you want to live, the idea of self-autonomy. Also, I think another big theme is equality, the moral equality of each and every human being, and therefore that each and every human being on the earth should have human rights. It is also tied into ideas of dignity that each of us have, really by virtue of being born as a human. And again, that is an idea of universal moral equality. I see those all as tied in together, freedom, equality and dignity. And that is what I basically would say that is the most generally regarded definition of human rights.

Human rights in Islam stems from two foundational principles, dignity and equality. Dignity is a fundamental right of every human being, merely by virtue of his or her humanity. Contrary to the Western conception on rights, Islam places less emphasis on self-determination and the autonomy of the individual, and more on the individual's prescribed role and status in the community, to ensure the protection and development of society as a whole. It views human dignity in terms of the individual's duty to God and obligation to one's community.

Human beings are granted rights in the religious, legal, economic, social, and political spheres which are based on that which Allah deems is in the best interest of mankind. Unlike modern secular rights, Islam views rights as God-given and enforced by God, which means they are divine and perfect.

Every human being who has been created by God has rights. Rights means things that he requires and he needs to continue his life, to thrive, to function, to lead a life of purposefulness. So anything that he needs is considered the right, natural right. Such as the right to live, the right to learn, the right to work, the right to speak, the right to marry, the right to have relationships with others. These are rights, essential rights. Everything that helps any human being, be it Muslim or non-Muslim, any human being who has been created by God, anything he needs is called rights. He needs them to progress, and to live, and to produce, and to be a responsible person in the society. Therefore, the society has to provide these rights for him. And in the Islamic faith, these rights are sanctified, preserved, and protected.

The human rights discourse in the Western world began many years prior to the founding of the UDHR. The basic principles that it sought to uphold would arrive from an amalgamation of Christian ideas, natural law, Roman law, and Enlightenment values. The early understandings of what is now known as secular rights began with strong religious underpinnings. As Thomas Jefferson declared in 1779: "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Although it was considered that these only applied to white men.

The idea of human rights didn't come about just in the Universal Declarations. There is historical traditions, political traditions, and philosophical traditions. And we can trace them back to Roman origins, and also to Christian thinking, with the idea of natural law and natural rights, that as humans, we are given certain rights by divine authority. So that was the first real idea of rights. But what that did, was give the monarch a particular power, because they claimed to be divinely put in the place of monarch, and therefore had certain rights that other human beings didn't. So what happened then, was we had the rights revolutions in France and America in the 18th century.

And that's when the rights of man came to the fore. This idea that, as citizens, we have rights. And again, it was about individuals against the state. Ensuring that individuals had certain rights and that the state was curtailed in what they could do towards their citizens. Now, what is interesting about that period is while you had the French and the Americans fighting for their rights, they were ignoring slavery, they were ignoring the rights of people under colonisation. Also, women were not included in the idea of rights of man and non-Western countries. So really at that time, the idea of Western rights probably solidified given the exclusions that were prevalent. So even though they were talking about revolutionary rights, it was at the same time excluding other peoples around the world.

While the Western world only began speaking of rights and translating Christian religious laws and ideas into a material body of rights in the 17th century, the religion of Islam introduced this centuries earlier.

Islam laid down some of the universal rights for humanity at large, which are to be observed and respected under all circumstances. Whether a person is resident within the territory of an Islamic government or outside it.

The Qur'an states, "Oh you who believe. Be maintainers, as witnesses for the sake of Allah, of justice. And ill feeling for a people should never lead you to be unfair. Be fair, that is nearer to God consciousness, and be wary of Allah. Allah is indeed well aware of what you do"(5:8). Chapter 5 Verse 8 . The Qur'an affirms fundamental rights which all human beings ought to possess, because they are so deeply rooted in our humanness that their denial or violation is equivalent to a negation or degradation of that which makes us human. From the perspective of the Qur'an, these rights came into existence when we did. They were created as we were by God in order that our human potential could be actualised.

The Qur'an is replete with verses that speaks of human rights. First one speaks about the right to live and not to be harassed, not to be killed, not to be destroyed. "Man qatala nafsan", this is in Chapter 5. "Man qatala nafsan bi ghairi nafsin aw fasadi fi 'l-ardhi fa ka annama qatala an-nasa jami’an" (5:32). If a person assaults one soul as if he assaulted the entire humanity. The right to live, right for life, this is the most important thing.

There is the right of religion, to worship the way you like. "La ikraha fi 'd-Deen", Chapter number 2. "La ikraha fi 'd-Deeni qad tabiyana ar-rushdu min al-ghayy" (2:256). There is no coercion in choosing a religion. In choosing a religion, there is no coercion. You have the right to worship. The right of having religious establishments, churches, synagogues, temples. "Wa lawla dafa'aw Allahi an-nasa ba'dahum bi ba'din, la 'uddimat sawami'u wa bi'a wa salawatun wa masajidu, yudhkaru fiha ismu Allahi kathira" (22:40) [And had there not been Allah's repelling some people by others, certainly there would have been pulled down cloisters and churches and synagogues and mosques in which Allah's name is much remembered].

The right to establish them, according to your religious beliefs. The right to marry the person that you like. It is mentioned in the Qur'an Chapter 30, Surah Ar-Rum, Verse 21. "Wa min Ayatihi an khalaqalakum min anfusikum azwaja litaskunu ilaiha" (30:21). The right to live healthy, to have healthcare, to have physical exercise, dietary rules, things that you must eat, eat healthy. "Qulu washrabu wa la tasrifu" (7:31)[ drink and be not extravagant]. These are human rights .

The right to establish political parties, political activities, to be engaged in the society. The Qur'an encourages men and women to be engaged in ruling their societies. The right for women to be free to function in their societies. Women's rights, children's rights, minority's rights. Minority's rights are protected in the Qur'an. The rights to own, to work, the work that suits you, the right for education and learning and excelling. So the Holy Qur'an is replete with rights that pertain to men and women.

A majour development in human rights took place during the Enlightenment period in Europe between the 17th and 19th centuries. There was an emergence of secular thinkers who began conceiving the notion of the secular individual with freedoms and liberties transcending religion. Evidently, the discourse on rights evolved over a long period in history to finally materialise into the UDHR after the Second World War. But these rights were not only discussed years earlier within the Qur'an, but were actualised and implemented by Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, under his government.

He set out laws and rules which sought to uphold the dignity and honour of every individual who lived under his government, both the Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Pre Islamic Arabian society was riven with tribal interfighting and law and order were difficult to maintain. In such a state, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, defended the rights of the oppressed of the society, and those who were granted a lower social status such as women, non-Arabs and slaves.

When the Prophet came to that society, the society was upside down. Society was mired in corruption, in injustice, in oppression, in inhumanity. The Prophet struggled a lot over 23 years of his life. And he still could not transform that society and make them the best people. He still could not. Some people are under the illusion that he changed the society 180%. No, some of them were changed, but the vast majority, they could not change. It takes generations to change, not a few weeks or a few months or a few years.

So he was emphasizing the rights of minorities, children, women, slaves. He worked very hard to emancipate the slaves, the weak, the oppressed, the hungry. In all of his actions and sayings, he was a teaching leader, an example. Every single day, he presents many examples to his community and others as to how to treat those who have been disadvantaged and neglected. And so, people started to learn and things started to change. And the Muslims, at the end of his life, you could see a lot of progress, but I would not call it the ideal state, the ideal society, because much had to be done to transform the hearts and the minds and the souls of the people.

While there is much overlap between human rights in Islam and the Western conception of rights, the debate of compatibility seems to arise when speaking about Islam and human rights. To what extent is Islamic law accommodative of the idea of modern secular rights, when some of its laws appear to challenge the articles which form the UDHR?

The history of human rights in Islam is much older than the human rights in the Western countries in Europe, because the charter on human rights was produced by the United Nations only 70 years ago, not that long. Whereas the Qur'an and the Bible, and the Torah, these are divine scriptures. They spoke about human rights and human dignity. However, we lagged behind because it was only a theory. Most of the governments who came after the Prophet, most of the rulers, and the political establishment that dominated the Muslim life and Muslim history, was corrupt itself.

We have a saying that states: "An-Nasu 'ala dini mulukihim". People look up to their leaders, political leaders. They are touched by them, affected by them, influenced by them. So if they look at the leaders being corrupt, then people are not going to learn. People are going to learn corruption. This is a main reason why Muslim countries are behind, especially when it comes to human rights, because of their political leadership.

Some people say that the history of human rights is Western, and white, and serves certain types of people more, as I have just said. But when you really delve into the whole ideas of human rights, they are in many ways universal, coming from universal moral principles, that can be derived from lots of different religions, as well as lots of different cultures, which may not be massively religious. But these moral ideas and moral ethical ways of living: human flourishing, human dignity, and how to live a good life and live well.

So many people see that this can be compatible with religious viewpoints and with all different types of religion, including Islam. Other people would say that very religious, maybe ultra religious, fundamentalist, or evangelical types of interpretations of certain religions, really focus on almost like faith in God, placing your life into his hands. In many ways, that could be seen to be almost a contrast to the idea of human rights. If it is supposed to be focused on a person having their own free will, making their own choices, living the life they want, and maybe changing their mind as well. And of course, freedom to have a religion, or not, is a very strong human right, and it is one of the most fundamental human rights. That idea to be free to think and feel and believe what you decide yourself.

So if that fits with one's interpretation of Islam, whoever that individual person may be, then they can be reconciled in that way. So I think that the main conflicts come when people perhaps interpret Islam in a way that says this is this is how you have to behave, this is how you have to live. You are placing yourself completely into God's hands, but we are here on Earth, so we have interpreted it in certain ways. And these are the rules, if you like. And then those rules, in some way are in conflict with the human rights that are set out in the international treaties and international documents. And those treaties and documents as well are supposed to filter down into national constitutions and national laws and be interpreted in that way as well.

I think in some ways there's a conflict between human rights and Islamic culture and Islamic countries. In other ways, I think there is not a contradiction. When there is a contradiction, partly is in the linking of democracy with human rights. And not all Islamic countries are democratic and do not see it necessarily as a value worth upholding. And therefore, there is an automatic contradiction in that regard. There is also contradictions in how people have interpreted human rights. So not necessarily in the fundamentals of human rights, but how it is implemented in different cultures.

So if we take wearing the veil as one of the clear examples of how human rights has created debates between Islamic culture and Western culture. Particularly amongst the feminist movement, there was this idea that the veil is a patriarchal imposition that it inhibits women's individual autonomy. However, in doing that, what they haven't necessarily understood is the choice that Islamic women should have. And human rights is supposedly about choice. It's about not imposing certain rules or beliefs on others. But that is where a contradiction does arise. In that if a country or a religion is imposing a particular way of being, that does contradict what is essentially a secular theology of human rights, this idea of individual autonomy and individual freedom and therefore, there is a contradiction there.

Secular human rights are built on the fundamental principle of self autonomy, offering all individuals the freedom of choice and expression. Under the article of the UDHR, which offers this right, it sanctions expression that might offend, shock or disturb, but prohibits insults, abusive attacks and hate speech. Some critics see this as a clash with Islamic law, which places restrictions on blasphemy and describes punishment for speech that is deemed offensive to the religion and can lead to social disorder.

The events in Paris in 2015, with the killing of a group of journalists, a police officer, and members of the Jewish community in France, sparked global debate about free speech and the right to offend within the discourse of human rights and Islam. The attack came as a response to Charlie Hebdo's highly controversial drawings of the Prophet Muhammad, which were deemed offensive by Muslims across the globe. The Yemeni branch of Al-Qa'ida claimed responsibility for the attack, raising questions about Islam as a whole and its alleged lack of tolerance for the freedom of expression.

Charlie Hebdo. Charlie Weekly is about controversy. One of a tiny handful of media organisations on the planet not afraid to satirise Islam, including publishing images of Muhammad expressly forbidden by Islam. Firebombed in 2011 after its Shari'a edition, listed Muhammad as editor in chief. An earlier magazine had Muhammad on the cover in tears, wailing, "It's hard to be loved by jerks." It is channel 4 News policy not to show these cartoons. It is a left-wing, secular, very ballsy, anti-racist magazine. It landbastes all religions, all ideas, all minorities and majorities. It is a typically robust French publication in a way.

There is an unfair targeting of Islam and the Muslim community in general because it is part of the agenda to demonise Muslims, and make one and a half billion people in the world as really bad, bad, bad, bad people. We know there is this agenda and it has been around with us for a long time until we have come to the level where it is now, has become almost established that you are a Muslim, you have a hijab, automatically people think of you that you are a troublemaker, mass murder and whatnot, which we are not. And we all know that. And those who are saying these things are also aware of this very well.

Let's look at just freedom of speech and the UK law alone and see what it means. Does it mean for me to come up with lies and insult people in print? It means if I do that, if I just go and, if I go and print an article about you, calling you all kinds of things, that are not in you. That is my freedom of speech to say what I like, isn't it? But no, the law says that's called defamation, libel and slander. You would be entitled from me to apology and perhaps damages and compensation to you for injuring your reputation. So you are just an ordinary human being. And if I am not allowed to diss you in that way, surely I shouldn't be dissing the divine and its laws. Do you see what I am saying?

People of the Abrahamic faith know very well that it is deeply offensive to hear negative things about your faith. We don't go around dissing people and say, for example, people who don't worship God altogether. We don't go around dissing them and calling them names. What gives them the right to go and call us names in return, and call it freedom of speech?

There is gross abuse of freedom of speech at the moment. On the one hand, it has taken the right to do as you like, to defame people, to demonize people, to undermine people, to do whatever you like. That is not freedom of speech. That is just rude and abusive behavior, and it needs to be contained. Whereas freedom of speech, for me to sit down and logically criticise something, or express my view about something, that amounts to freedom of speech.

Suppression and repression are not acceptable according to the teachings of Islam. And Islamic law, based on the Holy Qur'an and prophetic tradition, upholds the right to freedom of expression, but restricts it when it results in hindering the cause of unearthing truth, or is offensive and hurtful. The Qur'an teaches that one should express oneself through gentleness, courtesy, and calmness. It upholds and maintains the right to freedom of religion, speech, and expression when done in a decent way.

Within the Qur'an, there is no text that forbids the freedom of expression, limits it to certain extent, or suppresses it. Rather, the Qur'an encourages people to discuss matters openly, protest, accept ideas, or reject them, and bring about all pretexts, and evidences that might be available to contest Islamic teachings.

One of the most widely criticised aspects of the Islamic faith when it comes to rights, especially in the Western world, is its alleged suppression of women, and the lack of freedom that is afforded to them in comparison to men. They say that under Shari'a law, Muslim women are granted a subordinate legal status with regard to inheritance, divorce, and witnessing in court. The obligatory dress code, which is prescribed for women, is also interpreted as a breach of their freedom of choice. The Shari'a is therefore accused by critics of failing to honour the right of equality guaranteed under the UDHR.

While this can partially be ascribed to a misinterpretation of Islam's laws, an incorrect understanding of them, and the flawed implementation of these laws under Islamic governments, what is largely overlooked is that many countries, who claim to uphold values of equality and justice claim to advocate the liberation of women, and take pride in their devotion to international human rights law, are themselves not free from double standards in the implementation of these rights.

In France, women are now officially banned from wearing full-face veils in public, after controversial law came into effect. While the government says the move is aimed at helping Muslims adapt to the local community, critics accuse President Sarkozy of persecuting Islam to win back votes from the right. But in a country with Europe's biggest Muslim population, the law risks igniting social tensions. As Daniel Bushel reports.

She has just become a criminal. From today, a new French law bans covering your face in public. It is designed to make Muslim women integrate in society. But the softly spoken single mum says it has had the opposite effect. "My friends have simply stopped going out at all". The new rulings made some scared to speak out, but many vow not to change the way they dress. The move undermines what the French Republic stands for, says this businessman. He pledges to pay the €150 fine for anyone who continues to wear a veil and is taking the dispute further. "We are suing France in the European Court of Human Rights. It is about freedom of expression."

The banning of the Islamic veil of different forms across European countries over the last few decades has opened a contemporary discussion on the position of women in both Islam and the West in relation to human rights.

In 2011, the French government passed a law instigating a ban on the full face veil. While the full face veil is not Islamically a mandatory part of the hijab, many Muslim women choose to wear the veil as a symbol of their faith and devotion to God. The ban on the veil sparked contention and protest regarding the country's evident violation of international human rights law, which allows for the freedom of expression as well as the freedom to manifest one's religion in practice, worship and observance.

However, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the ban in France and other European countries under the pretext of maintaining the general principle of secularism. The contradiction in legislating such a ban is evident. One of the aims of this law was to act as a countermeasure to Islamic veiling, which is perceived as a breach of women's right to freedom and is seen as symbolising a threat to the very notion of human rights. But in attempting to liberate women whose rights are supposedly restricted by religion, the outlawing of the full face veil violates the veiled women's right to choose how she dresses, expresses herself, and practice her practises her religion, which are all rights afforded to her within the articles of the UDHR.

Islamic judicial law is another aspect of the Islamic faith which has been heavily criticised by defenders of human rights. Under the Shari'a, a criminal who has been convicted on charges of murder, is to be punished with a death penalty. In contrast, Article 5 of the UDHR speaks of the rights not to be tortured or subject to any cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment. The death penalty is described as an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity, and due to its being irrevocable and given that criminal justice systems are open to error, the death penalty may be inflicted on the innocent.

However, in Islam, the circumstances under which the death penalty is carried out are exceptional. Shari'a law has a high burden of proof, which means punishment should be averted if any suspicion or doubt arises. It is considered preferable to err in granting a pardon, than to err in inflicting punishment. Therefore, for any offence that cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the court should find in favour of the defendant. This equates to the established legal maxim presumption of innocence, which is a key element of the right to fair trial in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The death penalty. Okay, on the one hand, we have a right to life, and we are saying that we will do everything. This is in the UDHR. We have the right to life and we need to preserve that. So how do we uphold that right to life? We uphold that right to life by criminalising those who take away that life without reasonable cause. And Islam says, if you kill one person, it's as if you have killed the whole of humanity [Ref to 5:32]. So it is preserving the right to life. You see that is in the Qur'an.

Now, you are saying someone has murdered, and this is the farce that we are having to live with, say, for example, in jurisdictions like the UK or the US or other countries who have taken these man-made, plastic laws, a little too seriously. And what they do is they tell you, Oh, right to life means that even someone who has committed a heinous crime such as mass murder shouldn't be executed. Well, I disagree with that. I think where someone has come out deliberately, wanting to kill another person and history and evidence proves it. Serial killers, they kill once, they kill twice, they kill three times. So what are the options available to you to deal with these rampant murderers? Do you keep them in prison, and get society to pay for their living at a huge cost, for a long time? We don't know how long they're going to live. Why do you have to do that?

You must know from the start that the taking of a life of another human being is so serious that yours will have to be taken. That has a much better deterrent effect than to say that I am just going to take you to prison and then give you right to vote. And then I am going to get you television. You are going to have a walking exercise thing. Excuse me, this is a serial mass murder. This is a killer. He is a murder. And it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury with evidence.

And if someone's guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, with a properly constituted court, uncorrupted, it is very important because I will give you examples of American courts where lots of innocent people go to death row. Lots of innocent people receive sentences so crazy that it is impossible. 400 years in prison, 500 in some states, that's so ridiculous. Some people have been falsely accused, especially the black community tend to suffer a lot because of this behaviour. There is planting of evidence by corrupt coppers and things like that.

So let's assume that we have a fair system that is free of this corruption. And then you have a proper, legal, constituted court, that carries out a trial and the trial is fair. There is no challenging to any of its procedural and legal steps. Then I believe it is fine to have execution for a murderer. I don't think it is right for society to bear the burden of having to maintain this killer in addition to having to suffer the loss of their loved ones.

Though, for human rights activists, the UDHR is a sacred document and is seen as a symbol of progression from a state of widespread barbarity, and injustice, the universality of the document has been criticised by many. It is argued that by claiming human rights are universal, the UDHR ignores and undermines cultural differences that exist between societies in different parts of the world. Furthermore, while the UDHR claims to offer rights to all peoples across the world, in practical terms, to what extent does it succeed at upholding those rights?

The history of human rights comes out of European Enlightenment period, European philosophical traditions, scholars such as Kant and Hobbes, and therefore it presents one particular way of viewing the world. And we know that there's many different ways of viewing the world. There's many different traditions and different cultures. And the question is, if where human rights came out of a particular Western tradition, can they accommodate these other cultures and these other traditions? So that's one of the critiques towards the Western centric view of human rights.

One of the other positions is that the Universal Declaration was created by a select group of people, that do not represent everyone. It has been shown that it wasn't just Western countries that were involved in the formulation of the Declaration of Human Rights, but we can see that they were elites of the countries that they came from, and therefore they didn't represent all the voices, all the cultures and all the traditions.

And another criticism of human rights being Western centric is that they came with the liberal moment of America. They came to the fore with American hegemony and liberal internationalism. And human rights, if they are to be protected, requires intervention. If we are saying that human rights are there to protect states from violating the rights of their people, then it requires someone to stop that. So one of the other criticism is that it has enabled continued Western imperialism, or neo-imperialism, by using this language that was developed in the Western traditions to intervene into other countries, into the affairs of other countries.

I am very concerned about the UDHR. We tend to give it more weight than it's worth. For a starter, it has distinctly colonial air to it, that it assumes a position of superiority to the rest of the peoples of the world. There isn't a mechanism of enforcement of it consistently everywhere in the world. There is a tendency to use it as a political chip to whip other countries that we don't like their doings. We just go, Human Rights Record is bad. No, I'm sorry. You have a court in Strasbourg. Will a man or a woman from, say, a remote village in Zambia, going to be able to uphold her rights in here? Does she? Really? Not really!

The other criticism, and it comes is that human rights are in it strictly linked to liberal ideas and to democracy. And not all countries around the world, or all traditions, abide by those particular ways of thinking. Now, the liberal way of thinking says that they represent moral progress. It is a better way of structuring the world. But that in itself has language of colonialism, and this idea of the West saving other countries from treating their people unfairly. So there's lots of ways in which we can see that human rights has been, if not created by the Western world, then definitely incorporated in the Western way of structuring the international system.

Any review of the UDHR or any consideration of a future forum for the international community to have something that is fair and consistent, something that doesn't discriminate or distinguish between, say, for example, the state of Russia and the state of Zambia? Do you see what I'm saying? Applying consistently the rules to them simply because one is nuclear armed, therefore it gets priority, and the other one is not therefore, never is heard of, no one knows what's going on there with them. I don't accept that. I think that is what is wrong with the UN. It is one thing to give us equality and rights and everything, but it is actually unequal, and inappropriate, and unjust, in its performance in relation to third-world countries. That's why I find it. Perhaps I agree with the commentator's argument that it is forum for colonialism for the rest of the world. Any future consideration of reform or anything, I strongly recommend it be done with close attention being paid to the Treaty of Imam Zayn Al-'Abidin, alayhi as-salam, like I said, anything that has a divine connection with it, has a divine blessing, and has a better chances of enforcement, application, and consistency and that kind of thing.

Unfortunately, the role of Islam has been erased from the history of human rights. And instead, the movement for human rights has often been presented as a mission to civilise the Muslim world. Contemporary human rights discourse often views Islam as an enemy of human rights, the cause of wars and human rights violations, and as an obstacle to individual freedom. However, there have been many examples and documents in Islamic history, that have emphasised the rights of the human being, centuries prior to the introduction of the notion to the Western world.

The Treatise on Rights, known in Arabic as "Risalat Al-Huquq", written by Ali Ibn al-Husayn [Zayn Al-'Abidin], is an example of such a document.

The Imam Ali Ibn al-Husayn Zayn Al-'Abidin, alayhi as-salam, he produced this document, the "Treaties Of Rights", 1,400 years ago. He spoke about at least 50 rights of people upon us, beginning from the right of your soul upon you, your parents, your father, your mother, your teacher, your neighbour, your son, your leader, your co-worker, and even the rights of your limbs upon you, your own limbs. They have rights upon you to preserve them, to protect them, to utilize them in the best manner. These were teachings for the community, and directives for his disciples and his friends and all the people. Some people were really touched by these rights and others, they cared less about it and they did not pay attention to it. But these are one of the treasures, really treasures that have been produced by Ali Ibn al-Husayn Zayn Al-'Abidin.

Both the Muslim and Western worlds acknowledge the need for upholding the rights of the human being in order to ensure a peaceful and harmonious society. Based on this, are Islamic rights and modern secular rights, as implemented in the world today, compatible with each other?

Often, rights get you so far because if I have got rights, so have you, so has everyone individually. But we live in a society. So always, I think I see rights as being an issue that's to do with the protection of the individual and individual freedom within a society which can protect minorities, though, as well as just an individual person, and can protect groups, and certain communities who may be a minority within a wider community. So it is making sure that the state behaves in certain ways or is not allowed to behave in other ways. But there are therefore going to be conflicts between the different rights holders, if you like.

So if someone says that their right to be gay is fundamental to their identity, and to their way of life, and intrinsic to them as a human being, and another person says, well, being gay and practising in that sense, is against our religious beliefs and is not permitted, then there's a conflict, right? But the person, if you like, or the group who are saying that you are not allowed to have that form of sexuality would generally under international human rights law not win, if you like, if there is a contest. So it's often that there has to be some balancing that is going on. But when it comes down to really fundamental core rights, I think that they do the balancing, but they have to come out, if you like, in favour of the protection of those core values to make sure they are really enshrined.

From the very inception of the UDHR, the International Human Rights Discourse has revolved around one important issue. Can the Declaration's values truly be universal?

Though the UDHR claims universality, it excludes the experiences of the non-Western world, shaping a framework on human rights that disregards plurality, and inevitably clashes with other cultural and religious conceptions of human rights.

Based on this, can Islam and the modern secular conception of human rights be reconciled? While Islam is supportive of a universal framework of rights which ensures that the dignity and integrity of individuals is upheld worldwide, the success of the UDHR at achieving this is limited.