Quranic Ethics and Human Rights: Compatibility or Tension in Contemporary Discourse
Abstract
The significance of its Qur'anic ethics for the modern human rights regime has become one of the most controversial issues of current legal and theological debate. Whereas the Qur'an offered a comprehensive formulation of the moral ideal rooted in human dignity, justice, and compassion, contemporary human rights documents (most notably, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948), are rooted primarily in secular liberal and Enlightenment traditions. Such a dual ancestry has given rise to a long-standing intellectual debate over whether these two paradigms are fundamentally compatible or necessarily in conflict with each other. On the one hand, the values of equality of all human beings as children of Adam, sanctity of life and need for justice, are highlighted in the Qur'an and echo in the universal principles of rights. On the other hand, issues such as freedom of religion, gender equality and prescribed penal sanctions are sources of divergence and challenge arguments of full compatibility. This paper approaches the topic in a critical, comparative spirit, that is, one that is attentive to the convergences and contradictions between Qur'anic ethics and the modern human rights regime. It concludes that although the Qur'an offers a rich moral paradigm that is capable of supporting human rights, it has tended to become hidden by traditions of interpretation and socio-political conditions. Through conversation with both classical exegesis and modern reformist thought, the paper concludes that a contextual hermeneutic is a necessary enterprise because of the gap between the two systems. Finally, although some differences are irreducible, the moral vision of the Qur'an open for a serious engagement with the universal human rights standards in the name of justice and human dignity.
Keywords: Qur’an, human rights, Islamic ethics, universality, cultural relativism, justice, dignity, freedom of religion, gender equality, Cairo Declaration
