ABSTRACT
The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) was formulated and adopted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference largely as a response to what was seen as concerns about human rights as they were articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). At the time of the UDHR’s ratification in 1948, no Islamic countries voted against it. Saudi Arabia abstained, while Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, and Turkey all voted in favor of the UDHR. However, over the following several decades, political sensibilities and even regimes changed dramatically throughout much of the Islamic world. In particular, the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the late 1970s led to a broad resurgence of attention to Shari’ah, or Islamic law—that is, law (regulation of people’s behavior) based on sacred Islamic scripture, with the result that civil law is understood as legitimate only to the extent that it conforms to (or at least does not contradict) sacred law. The UDHR, say many Islamic critics, essentially has a Western, and particularly Judeo-Christian, understanding of human rights. It fails to take into account religious, social, and cultural differences. Humans, hence human rights, are properly understood only in such contexts. More importantly, for these Islamic critics, Shari’ah represents the true word of God, and so, human relations—including human rights—must be understood relative to it. The fact that the political representatives from Islamic countries did not vote against the UDHR in 1948 does not negate these facts. They should have voted against it, say these critics, and to the extent that the UDHR is not consistent with Shari’ah, Islamic countries are under no obligation to support or abide by the UDHR. Instead, they say, the CDHRI represents the more appropriate view of human rights.
