ABSTRACT
This chapter accounts for the background of the attitudes, judgements and positions towards extremism and separatism taken by the authorities. The character of questions concerning Human Rights consequently mean that they are non-negotiable. The quotation that the New Testament illustrates the dividing line between spiritual and worldly power. Quite to the contrary Islam was the religion of the conquerors, where the rulers' powers and religion were united from the beginning. The dualism characteristic of Christianity, the right of the oppressed to disobey the powers, did not only lack legitimacy, it was totally absent. From the Western point of view there was furthermore a want of institutional counter-weights in the form of laws issued by legislative assemblies safeguarding individual rights. Islamic law replaced and enjoyed under any condition precedence over indigenous customary law. The individual should be protected against bad government but not against the order of state and law, which was based on divine revelation.
