ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the impact of the political and legal debates addressed in the previous two chapters on other issues of concern in Muslim societies, including the position of women, sexuality and religious freedom (of both non-Muslims and different Islamic sects), as well as the question of human rights in Islamic contexts. It discusses the contributions of female intellectuals, including self-proclaimed Muslim feminists, to the emancipation of women, engaging traditional religious scholarship on its own terrain, by calling into question patriarchal readings of the Qur’an and traditions of the Prophet or advocating drastic reforms of Islamic law and legal thinking. Traditional interpretations are also challenged in the context of LGBTQ rights by intellectuals venturing beyond received views on sexuality. Extensive coverage is also given to debates about religious diversity and tolerance, identifying between exclusivist, inclusivist and truly pluralist attitudes, both inside the Muslim world and as a subfield of ‘minority fiqh’. In the background of all these issues is the question of Muslim attitudes toward human rights, revolving around the central question whether to accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are insist on reservations as expressed in alternative Islamic Declarations of Human Rights.
