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Human Dignity and the Future of Human Rights Debate in
Islamic World
Ebrahim Azadegan
Sharif University of Technology
13 OCT 2016
Utrecht
Introduction
• Main Problem: while we can find some valuable textual
support for even the modern conception of human
dignity in Islam but different established views toward
the way we ought to respect the value of humanity per
se has gotten human right discourse traditionally
unconsidered throughout the Islamic world.
• The root of the problem, I suggest, is neither in
different views or conceptions toward human dignity
as many contemporary thinkers suggest, nor in the
right-oriented versus duty-oriented world-view but it
lies in the methodology concerning the way we ought
to respect for humanity.
Two Conceptions of Human dignity
• Islamic Conception: Matter of degree state, potential
to be developed through faith and good actions. God is
the source of Dignity.
In the Islamic tradition the central emphasis is on
human duties not on human rights. We ought to
respect others’ rights because it is our duty to act
according to God’s command that we ought to respect
others’ rights.
• Modern Conception: Actual state in which human
rights are what mater, and then the concept of human
dignity would come to support the intuition behind the
appraised rights.
Four ways open to Muslim thinkers
• Modern intellectuals try to deny the traditional conceptions and
embrace a secular understanding of the basis for human rights.
• Puritans on the other hand completely deny any need to such a
conception and see it as Eurocentric imported conception, which
has to be rejected.
• Apologetics thinkers suggest that we have to establish some kind of
Islamic human rights convention in contrast with universal
declaration or European convention on human rights.
• Islamic intellectuals in the middle of these debates try to find a
resolution for the problem by confirming the universal human
rights on the basis of Islamic rational teachings.
The structure of paper
• First, some re-interpretation of Islamic texts in
order to define the Islamic conception of human
dignity
• Second, I shall examine and compare this concept
with Wolterstorff’s recent views on JudeoChristian conception of human dignity
• Islamic conception of human dignity is not
interest-independent
• On what is the source of so called challenge
between Islam and human rights
• Kantian resolution for the so called problem
God is the source of dignity
• God is the source of dignity and is the most
honored being:
• “My Lord is self-sufficient and honored
bountiful” (Q 27:40)
• “Recite thou, and thy Lord is the most
honored generous” (Q 96:3)
• “Blessed is the name of your Lord, the owner
of majesty and honored generosity” (Q 55:78)
God and human soul
• God’s inspired holy Spirit is the origin of human dignity:
• “Recall what time thy Lord said Unto the angels: verily I am about to
create a human being from clay; (71) Then when I have formed him
and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down before him prostrate”
(Q 38:71-2)and (Q 15:27-8).
• “And We bestowed dignity on the children of Adam and provided
them with rides on the land and in the sea, and provided them with
a variety of good things and made them much superior to many of
those whom We have created.” (Q 17:70)
• “So, set your face to the way of faith uprightly, this (way) being the
nature designed by God on which He has created the mankind.
There is no change in God’s creation. That is the straightway, but
most of the people do not know.” (Q 30:30)
“I breathed into him of My spirit”
• Faith in Islam is the way toward God. Human soul is
immediately, internally and in its nature is a relationship
with God. This esoteric way towards God is the way of love.
As we go through this path we become more perfect to the
extent that a perfect human being becomes himself or
herself a God’s caliph or successor in the world.
• It is noteworthy that divine own spirit according to the
Quran is Jesus Christ. “The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was
only a messenger of God, and His word which He conveyed
unto Mary, and a spirit from Him” (Q 4:171).
• According to a Shia’ interpretation of this verse (Q 4:171)
the path of love towards God (velayah) is an esoteric path
which goes through caliphs of God as His spirit.
Islamic Conception of HD
• ICHD: All human beings regardless of their
capacities or functions have divinely inspired
human soul that is the ground of universal and
ineradicable dignity, which can be improved
through the path of love.
Wolterstorff’s theistic conception of
HD
• WTCHD: All human beings regardless of their
capacities or functions have been honored by
divine love of attachment that is the ground of
animal-transcendence and ineradicable dignity.
• It is clear that this conception of human dignity is
extrinsic, ineradicable property. It is also animal
transcending if God would have not bestowed
this love toward other subsisted beings.
Two Objections to WTCHD
• Jordan Wessling (2014):Wloterstorff’s theory falls prey
to a sort of Euthyphro dilemma. Either God loves all
human beings necessarily or contingently. If He loves
them necessarily there should be some worth and
valued nature in human beings that necessitates such a
love. So this intrinsic value can be the source of dignity
and so we do not need to appeal to any theistic
account in support of human dignity. On the other
hand, if divine love is contingent then one cannot show
the animal-transcendence or even ineradicable
features of human dignity which Wolterstorff
emphasizes that every account of human dignity has to
accommodate.
Tasioulas Objection
• John Tasioulas (2013): even by Wolterstorff’s own
reckoning, and bracketing the contestable
assumption of God’s existence, [his account]
grounds very few human rights. So few, indeed,
that there is genuine question whether he is
addressing the same subject matter as the
mainstream human rights culture, since there are
certain interests fulfillment of which could
enhance our wellbeing but, in Wlotersorffian sort
of accounts human rights can be inferred from a
conception of human dignity that is completely
indifferent or careless about to those interests.
Human interests and human dignity
• Duty-oriented morality that supports an interestindependent theory of human rights cannot accommodate
a method by which one can infer the standard human rights
from norms of morality in general.
• So it seems that while in order to find a suitable account for
grounding human rights appealing to the concept of human
dignity seems necessary however this grounding relation
does not in any way sufficient for establishing and declaring
a full schedule of basic and universal human rights.
• We need to appeal to basic and impartial human interests
to reach to a true and satisfactory theory of human rights.
So I accept Tasioulas objection to WTCHD which in par can
be leveled against ICHD as well.
Respect for human interests
• Raz defines that one has a right if and only if
she can have rights, and, other things being
equal, an aspect of her well-being (her
interest) is a sufficient reason for holding
some other person(s) to be under a duty (Raz
1986, 168).
Islam and human interests
• Unfortunately this urged relation between
human well-being-related interests and
respect for humanity has not been
emphasized in Islamic traditional culture,
which dominated by duty-oriented world-view
of jurisprudence.
Respect for Human interests in the
Quran
• “See you not that God has subjected to you (mankind)
all that are on the earth, and the ships that sail through
the sea by His Command? He withholds the heaven
from falling on the earth except by His Leave. Verily,
God is, for mankind, full of Kindness, Most Merciful” (Q
22:64).
• “God gave you (mankind) of all you asked for, and if
you count the blessings of God never will you be able
to count them” (Q 14:33). God has vouchsafed unto us
some of everything we asked Him, and typically we
asked Him our worldly or mundane requirements and
interests in addition to otherworldly blessedness.
Divine love and human freedom
• We human beings by going through the path of love which is the
path we were designed and created upon it can become nearer to
our Lord and come into the love relationship with Him and so with
our neighbors and in a more general interpretation to all God’s
creatures including the environment.
• However love requires freedom of choice. Nobody can force
another one to love him, and it is true also for God.
• human beings as the most suitable creature for coming to the path
of divine love has been bestowed by a degree of libertarian freewill
• Also all of God’s creatures between the earth and heaven have
been delivered by some sort of freedom. “Then He rose over
towards the heaven when it was smoke, and said to it and to the
earth: ‘Come both of you willingly or unwillingly.’ They both said:
‘We come, willingly’ (Q 41:11).
Human rights in contemporary Islam
• “a comparison of the underpinning of
historical Islam and those of human rights
conventions reveals that the difference
between these two systems is deep and
fundamental. Accepting one entails the
rejection of other, unless one chooses to
believe in both in a superficial way by shutting
one’s eyes to their conflicting roots” (Kadivar
2009, 51).
Modernist Intellectuals
• [C]omplete freedom has two elements: moral
freedom and bodily freedom. The guardians of
Islam have taken our moral freedom away,
making us ... subject to their own will in moral
issues.... The nations of the East, because of
the advent of the Arabs' religion and their
domination over Asia, have lost [their]
complete freedom at once, and are deprived
of the joy of equality and the blessing of
human rights (Akhondzadeh)
Apologetics
• “As far as my knowledge goes the Westerners had
no concept of human rights and civic rights
before the seventeenth century.”
• “On the other hand it hurts one's feelings that
Muslims are in possession of such a splendid and
comprehensive system of law and yet they look
forward for guidance to those leaders of the West
who could not have dreamed of attaining those
heights of truth and justice which was achieved a
long time ago” Abul ala Maududi: Pakistani and
Indian
Puritans
• Salafi-Wahabi movements which nowadays
become the dominant theological force in
Saudi Arabia and some other states which get
support from there, resist the influence of
modernism and Westernization by escaping
toward establishment of pure Shari’a laws in
Islamic states. This purified religion wahhabies
sought for is an Islam free from so called
corruptions of mysticism, Shism and
rationalism.
Islamic Intellectualism
• The religious-intellectual movement
emphasizes on reasonableness and moral
depth of Islam and in the same time try to
reconcile between the moral interpretation of
Shari’a laws and human rights normative
demands.
Middle way
• Reconciliation between Islamic apologetics
and intellectuals
• The resolution is based on the one hand on
the acceptance of obeying God’s commands
and laws and on the other hand on the
affirmation of human freedom of action and
human interests which are essential in the
process of self-enrichment.
Kantian Resolution
• “To secure one’s own happiness is a duty, at least indirectly;
for discontent with one’s condition, under a pressure of
many anxieties and amidst unsatisfied wants, might easily
become a great temptation to transgression of duty” (Kant
(GK) 15).
• Of course the desire for this end (happiness) should not
influence one’s will to obey the duty. Then one will act
according to duty and for the sake of respecting for law
alone however the result is the desired happiness.
• “It is in this manner, undoubtedly, that we are to
understand those passages of Scripture also in which we
are commanded to love our neighbor, even our enemy”
(Ibid.)
Kantian Resolution
• Accordingly I think for Islamic intellectualist it
is not necessary to push in favor of changing
the duty oriented world-view to right oriented
one which brings too much resistance. In a
duty oriented world we can show that respect
for our neighbor’s interests and happiness is
our religious duty which so emphasized in the
Quran and in Hadiths of the prophet.
Kantian Resolution
• If the ideal of highest good has been actualized in the kingdom of
end (Summum Bonum) each person’s wellbeing-related interests
and happiness will become proportionate to the person’s virtue or
moral worth. This is the realm in which all possible ends
congregate. This ideal is necessary condition of morality insofar as it
is possible only through human freedom. Since free rational being
from all sorts of inclinations which has the autonomy to authorize
universal laws must consider itself as having an impartial point of
view: in which all the maxims of one’s will are universal laws. To
have an impartial point of view one has to have a view toward an
ideal of the kingdom of ends. But on the other side of the coin “this
end can be nothing but the subject of all possible ends, since this is
also the subject of a possible absolutely good will (Kant 2005, 55)”
which is God’s will alone.
Conclusion
• Accordingly these Kantian thoughts can provide us a
resource for evaluating our progress toward being a
moral and religious person. If our religious commander
asks us to act in a way that some people will be treated
as a means toward an end even holy one, our moral
judgment should prevent us from such action, not only
because it is immoral to treat rational beings as a
means but also because it is absolutely in conflict with
the Holy Good’s will who always respects human
beings as His caliphs or children. The role of religion,
then, is to foster norms and values that constitute an
ethical religious community.
Thank you for your attention