ABSTRACT
Various factors and circumstances deterred the production of human rights within an Islamic framework, which meant that Islamic human rights schemes only came into being well after the emergence of international human rights law. The individualism characteristic of Western civilization was a fundamental ingredient in the development of civil and political rights. The modern system of human rights set forth in international law requires translation into rights provisions in national constitutions and laws in order to afford effective legal guarantees for those rights. The reactions of Muslims to modern constitutionalism, which clearly came to the Middle East as a legal transplant from the West, have historically run the gamut from enthusiastic endorsement to hostile rejection. Cultural nationalists want to show that Islam and Middle Eastern culture possess institutions comparable to those in the West and that they are equally "advanced". Liberationist projects draw on the resistance and emancipatory traditions that are equally present in every human culture.
