Islamic Law/Shari'a, Human Rights, Universal Morality and International Relations Author(s): Bassam Tibi Source: Human Rights

Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2 (May, 1994), pp. 277-299 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/762448 Accessed: 17/12/2009 14:57
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HUMAN RIGHTSQUARTERLY

Islamic Law/Shari'a,Human Rights, Universal Morality and InternationalRelations

Bassam Tibi
In our age near the end of the 20th century, recently described as an age of a clash of civilizations,' there is a tremendous need for morality based on a common set of norms and values shared by the entire international community. If the underpinning of this needed international morality is not basically human rights, what else could unite humanity? During the United Nations Human Rights Conference in Vienna, June 1993, those participants-including this author-who are committed to the idea of universal human rights as a basis of international morality, felt disturbed by some presentations by non-Western politicians who contested the universality of this morality. In particular,delegations from Muslim countries were among the leading contesters of the universality of human rights. In Vienna, while human rights activists from Muslim countries-like Iran and the Sudan-were drawing attention to the severe violations of human rights in their own countries (acting in the basement of the Vienna Center, where the NGOs met during the June 1993 UN Conference),
Acknowledgment: Pursuant to the invitation by the Norwegian Institute for Human Rights in Oslo, a rough version of this article was written at Harvard'sCenter for InternationalAffairs in the fall term of 1991. Based on this first draft, a further version was completed at my home university in Gottingen and was presented at the Oslo meeting on Human Rights and Islam, February 1992. This article was developed in the process of rewriting and expanding my radically revised Oslo presentation. This final version was completed at Harvard, fall term 1993. I am grateful to the Volkswagen Foundation for the "Akadamie"grant which facilitated a sabbatical, during which the research for this paper was able to be conducted at Harvardand G6ttingen. I am also grateful to the Harvard University Center for International Affairs, in particular to Professor Joseph Nye, to the Norwegian Institute for Human Rights, and in particular to Tore Lindholm, senior fellow at the host institution and chair of the Oslo symposium. This publication is, in its scope, concept, and wording a different one than the Oslo publication (see note 47). 1. Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?," Foreign Affairs 72:3 (1993): 22-49. Human Rights Quarterly 16 (1994) 277-299 ?1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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ministers of foreign affairs of the very same states convening in the higher floors of the Vienna Center were emphasizing the specific character of their culture against the claim of the universality of human rights. This emphasis seemed to serve as a legitimation of the well-known violations of human rights in these states. The Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke for other Muslim colleagues present when he, in his Vienna presentation, argued that for Muslims human rights can only be derived from the Islamic shari'a. With reference to this contention, this article will focus on the nature of human rights with regard to the emerging conflict between its universality and the cultural-assertive claims of the Islamic shari'a.

1. INTRODUCTION Human rights are individual entitlements that evolved from European modern thought on natural law. Western countries elevated these rights to legal institutional standards. With the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations in 1948 and the covenants of 1966, that went into force in 1976, these rights have now become international law. In this context we are talking about legal rule, domestic and international alike, because rights can only be institutionalized in a legal context. Thus, human rights, democracy, and legal rule are intrinsically interrelated to one another. In the current resurgence of political Islam, however, Muslims relate legal rule exclusively to Islamic divine law, the shari'a, even if they endorse the notion of democracy. Both Muslims and non-Muslims alike who subscribe to democracy agree with Max Weber's view that democratic systems are based on legal rule.2This consensus diminishes, however, when the substance of the legal notions employed is determined. This very substance of international law alienates assertive Muslims from the West and from the international community. LayMuslim fundamentalists and also the traditional Ulema believe that the Islamic shari'a or holy law3 is the exclusive basis for a legal rule acceptable to all Muslims. During my research trip to the Maghreb in winter 1992 and again in spring 1993, Muslim fundamentalists forwarded the view in the course of my lectures and interviews with them that Western democracy is permissive and thus

2. 3.

Max Weber, "Drei Formen der Herrschaft"in Soziologie, Weltgeschichtliche Analysen, Alfred Kroener Verlag, 1964), 151-66. Politik (Stuttgart: On Islamic law, see Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964); see also Ann Elizabeth Mayer, "The Shari'ah:A Methodology or a Body of Substantive Rules?," in Islamic Law and Jurisprudence, ed. Nicholas Heer (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990), 177-98.

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allows its adversaries to undermine it by its own means, whereas the shari'a is superior and pure. No one can assault the shari'a from within, given that it draws clear fault lines between itself and others. This argument resembles the reasoning along the fault lines of conflict between civilizations.4 Algeria's Front Islamique du Salut/FISavowedly attacked the Algerian constitution of February1989 while simultaneously referringto its benefits.5 As FIS deputy chief Abdelkader Haschani said after the election of December 26, 1991, "We won the elections according to their constitution which is not ours, ours is the Qur'an."6The FISwanted power, but not the constitution. Ifthe FIShad come to power, its first measure would have been to professedly abolish the constitution and declare the nizam al-lslami/ Islamic system of government based on the shari'a.7 From an enlightened point of view, the liberal Muslim thinkers like the Sudanese legal scholar Abdullahi An-Na'im and the Egyptian judge Muhammed S. al-Ashmawi plainly state that the application of the shari'a is not desirable because this would only contribute to establishing totalitarian regimes. The one existing in the Sudan is a case in point.8 An-Na'im argues that the shari'a is "not the appropriate vehicle for Islamic self-determination in the present context .... Shari'awas in fact constructed by Muslim jurists .... Although derived
from . . . the Qur'an and Sunna, Shari'a is not divine because it is the

product of human interpretationof those sources."9Where do the fault lines of conflict between the shari'a and the universality of human rights lie? As quoted, An-Na'im speaks of "the present context" as his frame of time. By this notion, An-Na'im refers to contemporary conditions in the world of Islam. These conditions are constrained globally and they create fault lines of conflict. A leading Harvardsociologist, Theda Skocpol, defines

4. 5.

6. 7. 8.

9.

See Huntington, note 1 above. Bassam Tibi, "Algerien-Die Mar von der abgebrochenen Demokratisierung," Basler Zeitung (March 4, 1992): 3; see also Bassam Tibi, "Dag die Demokratie ein Unglaube ist. Die algerischen Fundamentalisten," FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung 63 (March 14, 1992). I have expanded these two newspaper articles in which I survey my observations in Algeria during the election turmoils of 1991-92 in my most recent book, Die Verschwoerung. Das Trauma arabischer Politick (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1993) (chapter 7 at 161-77 and chapter 11 at 228-41). See the report "Demokratiefeindliche Toene der Wahlsieger," in Neue Zuercher Zeitung (NZZ), January 5/6, 1992 (on file with author). See Muhammad Salim al-'Awwa, Fi al-nizam al-siyasi lil-dawla al-lslamiyya, 6th ed. (Cairo: al-Maktab al-Masri, 1983), 33ff. On the fundamentalist regime in Sudan see Haidar Ibrahim'Ali, Azmat al-lslam al-Siyasi. Al-Jabha al-lslamiyya al-qawmiyya namudhajan (Casablanca: Dar Qurtuba, 1991), and the chapter on Sudan in Bassam Tibi, Die Verschworung (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1993), 191-208. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 185.

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this time framework as a "world time."10We live in an age characterized by globalization that engenders a structure in which nation-states and civilizations interact with one another. This takes place under conditions in which a world government, as a central authority,is missing." An international law exists, but no institution capable of enforcing legal norms worldwide exists. Parallel to this overwhelming globalization, is the fact that existing civilizations and cultures differ substantially in their norms, values, and outlooks as related to the respective world views. The notion of establishing crosscultural foundations for a universal morality shared by all civilizations in the system of international relations becomes more and more a pertinent issue. This article, then, will address human rights issues from the point of view of the discipline of International Relations, while being committed to an interdisciplinary approach which involves international law and cultural anthropology. It seems that human rights cannot be established internationally on the basis of overall universalism but rather on such cross-cultural foundations for a universal morality.'2 This focus is related to the overall context addressed above that human rights lie at the center of establishing cross-cultural foundations in the system of international relations. We have to bear in mind that human rights are a cultural concept that originated in Europe. While this concept is, on the one hand, becoming related to globalization, there exists, on the other hand, no world or universal culture or civilization, despite the need for international morality. II. INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL AND RELATIONS, DIVERSITY, HUMAN RIGHTS:SOME METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR STATINGTHE ISSUE Individual human rights are clearly a cultural concept of morality, European in origin. This concept grew from the notion of natural law and it has been related to real cultural and social processes of individuation that took place in the wake of modernity.13With the adoption of the basic tenets of this
10. 11. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 23. See Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 23ff; see also Christopher Chase-Dunn, Global Formation Structures of the World-Economy (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), 70ff. Tore Lindholm, The Cross-CulturalLegitimacy of Human Rights (Oslo: The Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, 1990); see also F.S.C. Northrop, The Taming of the Nations: A Study of the Cultural Bases of International Policy (Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press, 1990). This is a reprint of the 1952 edition. Modernity has two dimensions: on the one hand, it is a cultural concept, on the other hand, it has a structural-institutionaldimension. Both are not identical nor reducible to

12.

13.

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concept in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, this concept became an international one sponsored by the foremost international institution, the United Nations.14 As already stated, human rights are a cultural concept parallel to the idea that there is and there can be no world culture. In this context the question arises: Is there a sense of international morality related to human rights?Clearly, international relations among the existing nation-states make such morality on international grounds imperative.15 Nevertheless, the international system of states lacks such morality. In analyzing the different prevailing attitudes in divergent cultures towards war (e.g., negative attitudes in the West and favorable ones in Third World countries), leading International Relations scholar K.J.Holsti justifiably raises the question whether we still have one international system or
many, given that prevailing and rival attitudes divide humanity.16 States

grouped during the Cold War as "ThirdWorld," were once considered a model for paving the way for a new and better humanity (e.g., Frantz Fanon's romantic tiers-mondisme).'7 Now these states establish pressure groups within the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva to prevent Western states from enforcing resolutions concerning the condemnation of violations of human rights in their territories. During the UN Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in June 1993 the confrontation between the "ThirdWorld" and the West revolved around the claim of the universality of human rights. Samuel Huntington who, like Holsti, considers the divergent world views of people coming from different cultural set-ups to be one of the sources of conflict in international politics. Given that the three world blocs no longer exist after the end of the Cold War, one can no longer speak of a "ThirdWorld," but rather of civilizations in conflict with one another. In his article, "The Clash of Civilizations?,"

Juergen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. FrederickLawrence,

one another.In this context, I referto culturalmodernityin the sense employed by see Anthony MA:MIT Giddens,The Press,1989). On the otherdimensions, (Cambridge, CA: StanfordUniversityPress, 1990). I relate Consequencesof Modernity(Stanford, overview by Jack Donnelly, human rightsto culturalmodernity.See the informative
Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, United Nations, Divided World: The UN's Role in International Relations, ed. Adam

14.
15. 16.

1989). Lessthan a Roar," in Morethan a Whimper, "TheUN and HumanRights: TomJ. Farer,
Terry Nardin, Law, Morality, and the Relations of States (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

The Clarendon Roberts and BenedictKingsbury (Oxford: Press,1988), 95-138. Press,1983), 27-48. University

17.

1989 (Cambridge: Press,1991), 304-05. University Cambridge thirdworldism,is Frantz The classic ideologyof tiers-mondisme, Fanon,Lesdamn6sde la terre (Paris:FrancoisMaspero, 1968), reprintedand translatedin a variety of La A forcefulcritique of this ideologycan now be foundin AlainFinkielkraut, languages. Editions Defaitede la Pens6e(Paris: 1987). Gallimard,

See Kalevi J. Holsti, Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order 1648-

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Samuel Huntington has brought this conflict to the fore. Indeed, the article aroused a great dispute. Huntington responds to his critics by pointing to this very "confrontation at the Vienna Human Rights Conference between the West . . . and a coalition of Islamic and Confucian states rejecting Western universalism."18 Will this confrontation determine the future paraof international relations? This article presents the morality of human digm as an element of rights convergence, a bridge between clashing civilizations, so it can be accepted as international morality. Despite the real clash between civilizations, we still live in an international system of states creating in part an international society. To be sure, an international system is not identical to international society. When the primeval system of states emerged as the first international system in history, after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the then existing community of states was exclusively European and thus an international society. With World War II and the overall processes of decolonization, this system was expanded to comprise the entire world19 and to assume more diversity. Despite this diversity, the system of law that had regulated the earlier European system of states has become in the course of globalization a system of international law. As the Oxford law scholar H.L.A. Hart notes, "It has never been doubted that when a new, independent state emerges into existence ... it is bound by the general obligations of international law.... Here the attempt to rest the new state's international obligations on a 'tacit' or 'inferred' consent seems wholly threadbare."20 This very notion applies among others to the "tacit" consent by the "ThirdWorld" states regarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This consent has, in reality, no corresponding appropriations in most of these non-Western states. In our age of the "revolt against the West"21and the "clash of civilizations,"22the missing cultural underpinning of this consent comes to the surface. The Islamic countries, the subject of this article, are at the forefront of these contesting states. To develop a firm grasp of the overall context of the issues addressed, we have to relate the reality of the non-Western states not honoring human rights norms to the other reality of non-existing cross-cultural foundations for human rights. To establish the appropriate grounds for investigating the problems related to it, we must place human rights in our globalized yet

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Samuel P. Huntington, "If Not Civilizations, What?," Foreign Affairs, 72: 3 (1993): 188; see also Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?," note 1 above. The Expansion of InternationalSociety, ed. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1984), 11 7-213. H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, 2nd ed. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1961), 221. Bull, "The Revolt Against the West," in Bull and Watson, note 19 above. Huntington, notes 1 and 18 above.

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culturally fragmented world. To understand this, we must distinguish between the international system and international society. The late Hedley Bull, who thoroughly grappled with the addressed distinctions, defines the international system of states as a system of interaction among units organized as sovereign states, on the one hand. On the other hand, however, an international society only exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interestsand commonvalues,forma society in the sense thatthey conceive themselvesto be
bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another .... An

international society in this sense presupposesan international system, but an international society.23 systemmay exist that is not an international

Do we have such an international society with regardto human rights?Does the lack of "a common set of rules" related to the acceptance of universal human rights mean consequently that there exists no international society? As stated, the prevailing common values and rules in the current international society, to which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the covenants of 1966 belong, are European in origin. The current surge of culturally self-assertive movements in non-Western countries is characterized by the hallmark for which Bull once coined the term "The Revolt [of the Third World] against the West."24Islamic fundamentalism25 is the most prolific variety of this phenomenon. In the area of international law, one can observe a great resentment towards the West despite the fact that most countries earlier grouped as "Third World" comply, however not full-heartedly to international law norms. In his introduction to international law, Michael Akehurst rightly notes: "Third World states often feel that international law sacrifices their interests to the interests of Western states."26 To be sure, some Western states, in particular the US, had earlier exploited international human rights law "for Cold War propaganda purposes."27It is also true that the United States in its raison d'etat-oriented policy mostly acts as a "source of human rights violations, rather than as a

23. 24. 25.

26. 27.

Bull, note 11 above, 13-14. Bull, note 19 above, 217-28. See William Montgomery Watt, Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity (London: Routledge, 1988); Youssef M. Choueiri, Islamic Fundamentalism (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990); Bassam Tibi, "The World View of Sunni Arab Fundamentalists," in Fundamentalisms and Society, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 73-102. Michael Akehurst, A Modern Introduction to International Law, 6th ed. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1987), 21. Richard Falk, "Refocusing the Struggle for Human Rights: The Foreign Policy Illusion," Harvard Human Rights Journal 4 (1991): 63.

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world leader devoted to their elimination."28It is, however, utterly wrong to infer from this accurate observation of Western policies without any other further reasoning, as Muslim fundamentalists mostly do, that the concept of human rights itself is questionable. There is a great need to establish crosscultural foundations for human rights as a basis of international morality while freeing them from policy abuses. For this reason these rights have to be discussed on proper methodological grounds within the framework of the discipline of International Relations. This work has to be completed aside from the polemics of non-Western states against deplorable Western policies, for example in Bosnia. After the Vienna Human Rights Conference in June 1993, the foreign ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)convened in Singapore in July 1993 to turn the tables on the European states by denouncing the European Community's policy which tolerates human rights violations on its own continent, i.e., in Bosnia.29 It is a problem for those interested in the study of human rights to see that most scholars of InternationalRelations confine their analysis to dealing with political security issues and global economics. Those, however, who are concerned with civilizations and thus with establishing cross-cultural foundations and universally accepted norms and values such as human rights are aware of the fact that the international system brings people of culturally different outlooks to interact with one another in a conflicting manner. The reason for this is the lack of a general substantive (i.e., not tacit in the sense addressed by Hart) consensus on norms and values for the interaction among nations. Thus, those scholars realize the need for cultural analysis in International Relations. While there is a need for unity on human rights standards on an international level,30 the implementation of these rights takes place in multicultural contexts that have to be taken into account. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is a unique Muslim law scholar who equally stresses his Islamic identity and his adherence to international human rights standards, thus highlighting the interplay between the specifics of the civilization of Islam and the globalization of human rights standards in our current world. AnNa'im is aware of the Europeanorigins of the modern concept of individual human rights and acknowledges the conflict between the call for an implementation of the Islamic shari'a and the universally accepted human
28. 29. 30. Edward S. Herman, "The United States Versus Human Rights in the Third World," Harvard Human RightsJournal, 4 (1991): 85. Michael Richardson, "Asians, Turning Tables, Denounce EC on Bosnia," International Herald Tribune, 28 July 1993, 2, col. 2. See the illuminating chapter, "Human rights in international society" in the book by the late R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 92-108 (particularly99-105).

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rights standards. In pointing out the "cultural interdependence" in our world, An-Na'im considers the enforcement of human rights in the Muslim thus not merely the world to be a "legitimate concern of all humankind,"31 business of Muslims themselves, even though they are the prime audience of his work. It is true that only Muslims could pursue and accomplish the urgently needed task of what An-Na'im calls "a drastic reform of Islamic law."32However, violations of human rights in the Muslim world must be condemned and dealt with internationally, for "humanity can no longer disclaim responsibility for the fate of human beings in any part of the world."33 This article focuses on the global dimension of human rights law, and in particular its incompatibility with the Islamic shari'a in our current historical period. The call of Islamic fundamentalists for the implementation of this very shari'a law leads to contesting secular international morality and thus contributes to the clash between civilizations ratherthan to building bridges between them.

FRAGMENTATION III. ISLAMAND HUMAN RIGHTS:CULTURAL VERSUSGLOBALIZATION As earlier pointed out, our current world is characterized by globalization on all structural levels. However, this globalization does not apply to the cultural terrain, i.e. to norms, values, and world views. The globalization of structures does not correspond with the respective normative standardization. It is imperative not to confuse these two different levels of analysis. It is common sense to argue that shared legal frameworks are required to establish a stable legal underpinning for a world order on common grounds that makes living under conditions of globalization bearable. Yet, legal frameworks are based on specific cultural norms and values. In a situation characterized by the simultaneity of structural globalization and cultural fragmentation there is an urgent need for establishing globally shared legal frameworks on cross-cultural foundations. The question is how to reach this universal morality despite the existing cultural diversity, i.e., despite the fact that the international system is not an international society in the sense Globalization did not contribute to the emergence of a determined earlier.34

31. 32. 33. 34.

An-Na'im, note 9 above, 187. Ibid., 185. Ibid. A broad conceptual elaboration of this approach with a reference to Islam is included in Bassam Tibi, Die fundamentalistische Herausforderung. Der Islam und die Weltpolitik (Munich: C.H. Beck Press, 1992), 57-99 (Chapter III).

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world civilization. In particular, in the legal domain of human rights it is becoming more urgent to ponder seriously on these perennial issues. Thus, there is a need to go beyond the well-known rhetorical condemnations of human rights violations in non-Western societies and address the substance of the cultural patterns underlying and supporting these violations. Given that the human rights concept is Western in origin while universal in its ethical and legal claims, the foremost question then is whether this concept can be established legally on cross-cultural foundations and thus accepted by Muslims. A basic obstacle is that non-Western cultures are politically hostile to the West. This political drive is often disguised as a claim to cultural authenticity. In fact, no discussion of human rights concerns in the countries of the former Third World can be pursued without placing this question at the forefront. Human rights concerns become a delicate issue when the acknowledgement of their secular and ethical-universal claims are related to the example of the foremost nonWestern civilization, i.e., to Islam and its legal concepts and frameworks described as shari'a. The Muslim reformer An-Na'im does not evade this question. He operates on the premise that Islam is in substance compatible with Western human rights legal norms if interpreted accordingly. To support this contention he refers, on the general level, to the elasticity of Islam and to its capability to accommodate various interpretations equally favorable or hostile to human rights. On specific grounds, An-Na'im points to the work of his mentor, the Sudanese legal reformer Mahmoud M. Taha (who was sentenced to death without a trial and executed by the toppled Sudanese dictator al-Numairi in 1985), in which Taha finds an Islamic acceptance of An-Na'im is human rights and develops a liberal understanding of Islam.35 aware, however, of the reverse general trend sweeping the world of Islam. This trend runs counter to his professedly normative effort to see the compatibility of Islam and human rights.Aside from the minority of Muslims who accept human rights in their full substance, it is sad to see the majority of Muslims divided. Among them are those who openly reject the concept of human rights as based on alien Western notions or as a conspiracy against Islam, and those who take pains to establish a specifically Islamic human rights scheme within an ideological framework devoid of a legal reform in Islam. Some Western authors avoid any critique of contemporary Islam to escape the fashionable blame related to the invective of "Orientalism."36
35. 36. See generally Mohamed Mahmoud Taha, The Second Message of Islam, trans. and intro. by A. A. An-Na'im (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987). The concept of the critique of Orientalism has been introduced by Edward Said in his broadly received book on this subject (see note 67 below). Said himself simply wanted

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However, an honest scholar, despite his sympathy for an enlightened Islam, must acknowledge that Islamic efforts conceal serious disparities between establishing Islamic human rights schemes and international human rights. The difference between those Muslims who reject human rights legal norms as Western and those who seek to establish specifically and exclusively Islamic human rights schemes is not one between a party hostile to these rights and another that embraces them. At the end, both parties are not favorable to the substance of human rights. The hostility of political Islam vis-a-vis substantive human rights indicates the politicization of the addressed cultural fragmentation of humanity. In her book on Islam and human rights, Ann E. Mayer states that those Islamic authors who are at pains to establish specific Islamic human rights schemes "are reluctant to state openly that following Islamic criteria entails departures from the norms of international law."37 As in the case of other non-Western cultures that are confronted with universal values and norms of cultural modernity38on the one hand, and with the global political and economic dominance of the West on the other, it can also be observed in Islam that anti-Western attitudes make their hallmark. In this context I have coined the term "defensive-cultural attitudes."39 To properly understand this overall trend in non-Western societies, foremost the Islamic ones, it is important to impart the notion of culture to both disciplines involved-International Law and International Relations-because human rights concepts are legal as well as cultural concepts. The linkage between international relations and the claim for universal, in the sense of cross-cultural, validity of international human rights law standards is based on the principles of cosmopolitan justice. As TerryNardin puts it, these principles "have tended to be expressed in terms of the idea of internationally protected human rights. The idea of human rights follows directly from the ideal of a universal human commu-

37.

38. 39.

to criticize the prejudiced and biased views of the Orient by Westerners to which he alludes as "orientalization of the Orient." Thus, to Said, the "Orient" is an intellectual construction by the West. Although Said has a real point to make, many of those who adopted his concept of orientalism distorted his meaning into a cliche or a catchword with which they mostly practice a kind of censorship. For instance, the treatment of human rights issues and the critique of their violation by despotic regimes in the Middle Eastentail the risk of being criticized for displaying an attitude of "orientalism."See note 67 and the critique on Said by al-Azm and Tibi cited therein. Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 198; see also Bassam Tibi, "Universality of Human Rights and Authenticity of non-Western Cultures, Islam, and the Western Concept of Human Rights," Harvard Human RightsJournal 5 (Spring 1992): 221-26. See Habermas, note 13 above. Bassam Tibi, The Crisis of Modern Islam, trans. Judith von Sivers (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988), 1-8.

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nity.... "40 In order to take this most important insight into account, we need to go beyond rigid concepts in the study of international law as well as beyond the prevailing concern in the study of international relations (focusing exclusively on either political economy, or political and military security). In this context the concept of culture and civilization-formerly neglected in International Studies-becomes pivotal41for unravelling the earlier addressed simultaneity of structural globalization and cultural fragmentation in our modern world. Underlying the contested universal claim of legal norms and values corresponding with globalization (i.e., international law) is the process for which the late Hedley Bull coined the already quoted term "The Revolt against the West."42 Only unbiased cultural dialog and inter-cultural communication43 not subjected to policy concerns44could contribute to overcoming these cultural fragmentation-related obstacles and avoid the politicization of clashes between civilizations. Students of human rights who are not familiar with these debates acknowledge, however, that the political and cultural power of the prevailing cultural nationalism and related resentment of the dominance of Western civilization are obstacles. Indeed, the resentment towards Western values and legal norms cannot simply be confined to the resentment against the political dominance of the West. It is also related to substantial differences between cultural modernity and pre-modern values and norms of non-Western societies. In other words, it is related to the politicization of the existing cultural fragmentation. These cultural differences may explain the Muslim hostility to human rights. At this point, it is important to draw from these observations what is required from Muslims if they were to fully embrace the valid standards of international human rights law. This is also a major effort of An-Na'im's inquiry cited earlier. Aside from the underlying need for legal reform in Islam, Muslims are basically required to distinguish between the dominance of the West and the universality of international human rights law standards. It is possible to criticize one aspect (hegemonic

40. 41.

42. 43. 44.

Nardin, note 15 above, 274. See Bassam Tibi, Islam and the CulturalAccommodation of Social Change, trans. Clare Krojzl (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990). To be sure: I am not using culture and civilization interchangeably. In my understanding, culture is always locally constrained social production of meaning, while a civilization combines a set of similar and related local cultures in a civilizing process. There exists a variety of Islamic cultures, however, only one Islamic civilization. On this see Bassam Tibi, "The Interplay between Social and Cultural Change: The Case of Germany and the Middle East,"in Arab Civilization Challenges and Responses, ed. George N. Atiyeh and IbrahimM. Oweiss (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988), 166-82. Bull, note 21 above, 217ff. See Handbook of International and Intercultural Communication, ed. Molefi Kete Asante and William B. Gudykunst (London: Sage Publications, 1989). See Falk, note 27 above, 47-67, and Herman, note 28 above, 85-104.

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rule) while accepting the other (the achievements of cultural modernity). Confusing both aspects can only contribute to a further politicization of the clash between Western and Islamic civilizations. Human rights standards should be based on universal legal norms and ethical values underlying universal morality and ought not to be confused with political power and hegemonic rule. This statement cannot be questioned if one refers to the well-known double standards of Western governments criticized earlier.45In their often extremely selective application of human rights concepts, Western governments do a great disservice to the human rights they are rhetorically defending.46 That the desired universality of human rights is not undergirded by a respective world civilization shared by all of humanity supports the need for underpinning a universal morality on cross-cultural grounds. SYSTEMIN ISLAM MODERNITYAND THE CULTURAL IV. CULTURAL RIGHTS OF HUMAN IN THE LIGHT If Muslims are to embrace international human rights law standards fullheartedly, they need to achieve cultural-religious reforms in Islam-not as faith but as a cultural and legal system.47In fact, Islam is a distinct cultural system in which the collective, not the individual, lies at the center of the respective world view. The concept of human rights, as Mayer rightfully stresses, is "individualistic"in the sense "thatit generally expresses claims of a part against the whole."48The part pointed out by Mayer is the individual who lives in a civil society and the whole is the state as an overall political structure. Islam makes no such distinction. In Islamic doctrine, the individual is considered a limb of a collectivity, which is the umma/community of believers. Furthermore, rights are entitlements and are different from duties. In Islam, Muslims, as believers, have duties/fara'id vis-a-vis the community/umma, but no individual rights in the sense of entitlements.49

45.
46.

Ibid.
See Holly Burkhalter, "Bargaining Away Human Rights: The Bush Administration's Human Rights Policy Toward Iraq and China," Harvard Human RightsJournal 4 (1991): 105-16; see also Estelina Dallett and Seth Rosenthal, "Human Rights Issues in United States Foreign Policy," ibid., 117-27. See Islamic Law Reform and Human Rights, ed. Tore Lindholm and Kari Vogt (Oslo: Nordic Human Rights Publications, 1993); see also Bassam Tibi, note 41 above, 59-75, where Islam is conceptualized as a cultural system of which Islamic law/shari'a is interpreted as an essential component. Mayer, note 37 above, 44. See Mohammad 'Imara, Al-lslam wa huquq al-insan. Darurat la huquq (Islam and Human Rights, Obligations, not Rights) (Cairo: Dar al Shuruq, 1989); see also note 56 below in which the most influential work of al-Ghazali is referenced. It is ironic that this

47.

48. 49.

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Establishing human rights in Islam as individual rights seems to be necessary to introduce the concept of rights and to shift away from the concept of duties. To achieve this, drastic religious-cultural reforms are required. In fact, it is not simply a reform, but ratherthe accommodation of cultural modernity50in Islam. In fact, cultural modernity is an inherent part of the concept of individual human rights, in that it introduces the principle of subjectivity for determining man to be a free individual. This concept underpins the processes of individuation in the development of modern civil society. With adherence to the discussed requirements for establishing a human rights tradition in Islam, this cultural system can become consonant with international human rights law as a universal framework. Currently,efforts pursued by leading Islamic authorities (such as the late A. Mawdudi), institutions (al-Azhar), and movements (such as the London-based Islamic Council responsible for wording the content of "The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights")are viewed as decisive Islamic contributions to establishing human rights schemes in Islam. A closer look at these efforts leads to a shattering and disillusioning realization. The Islamization programs supported by these self-professed and alleged exponents of specifically Islamic human rights schemes repudiate rather than embrace the standards of international human rights law. The legal scholar, Ann Mayer, provides an analysis of these efforts and concludes that "[t]he Islamic schemes do not offer protection for what international law deems fundamental rights. . . "5' Mayer also finds that Muslim authorities on human This rights "have no sure grasp of what the concerns of human rights are."52 conclusion is supported by substantial analysis of the basic Islamic documents on human rights. At issue is the area of conflict between international human rights law standards and what is conceived to be Islamic human rights schemes. In my terminology, it is a basic conflict between cultural

50. 51. 52.

fundamentalist sheikh al-Ghazali who is considered to be the Islamic authority on human rights after the publication of the above referenced book, in June 1993 issued a Fetwa (religious decree) in which he authorizes killing every Muslim who publicly subscribes to suspending the shari'a. This Fetwa was given in a testimony during the trial of the killers of the Egyptianwriter FarajFuda who was assassinated for having published books supporting secular views. The Fetwa of the Egyptian Sheikh al-Ghazali was used later also by Algerian fundamentalists to legitimize their killing of intellectuals like the sociologist Mohammed Boukhobza and the essayist Taher Jaout. (In 1993, twelve leading Algerian intellectuals were slain.) These references support the view forwarded in this article pertaining to the crucial conflict between human rights standards and the shari'a. The al-Ghazali Fetwa described herein was published in part in al-Hayat (Arabic newspaper published in London) on June 23, 1993 (on file with the author). See Habermas, note 13 above; see also Tibi, note 41 above. Mayer, note 37 above, 68. Ibid., 71.

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modernity and pre-modern doctrines.53Among the elements of this conflict is the incompatibility of the restrictions on the individual in Islam with the notion of individual freedom in cultural modernity. Islamic authors do not see the relationship of the individual and the state as being an adverse one. They view the individual as a limb of an organic collectivity. Discrimination against women and non-Muslims and restrictions on the rights and freedom of women are utterly unacceptable by common international human rights law standards, but are commonplace in Islam. In addition, Islamization programs relegate religious minorities such as dhimmis to a second class status.54 Islamic human rights schemes are "evasive on the question of protections for freedom of religion .... They also evince a general lack of sympathy for the idea of freedom of religion .. ."55 In short, one cannot be sure whether Islamic rights schemes, as they are based on pre-modern doctrines, are addressing universal human rights or are just talking about the rights of Muslims, yet in the meaning of the duties of believers. These schemes are ambivalent about human rights and they become apologetic when, contraryto all historical evidence, they claim that while contesting the Islam was the very first in establishing human rights,56 Western origin of the concept. In their schemes Islamic authors provide a concept devoid of the substance of individual human rights. V. ISLAMAND HUMAN RIGHTS:A CONFLICTBETWEEN AND LOCALCULTURES? OR GLOBALCIVILIZATION CIVILIZATIONS? A CLASH BETWEEN This section, after outlining the structure and the major concerns of an inquiry into Islam and human rights, discusses some specific questions. The first question is whether it is justified to judge the non-Western cultural

53. 54.

55. 56.

See Tibi, notes 39, 41, and 47 above. Islamic doctrine, unlike the views expressed by contemporary Islamic fundamentalists, recognizes Christians and Jews as believers, though assigns to them the status of protected minorities. The pact of protection and tolerance of jews and Christians is called dhimma and those benefitting from it are ahl al-dhimma (people of the pact) or dhimmis. As Bernard Lewis explains, "By the terms of the dhimma, these communities were accorded a certain status, provided that they unequivocally recognized the primacy of Islam and the supremacy of the Muslims. This recognition was expressed in the payment of the poll tax and obedience to a series of restrictionsdefined in detail by the holy law." Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 21. Mayer, note 37 above, 186. This is for instance the claim of the well-known Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, Huquq al-insan bain ta'alim al-lslam wa'l'ilan al-umam al-muttahidah (Human Rights between the Teaching of Islam and the UN-Declaration), 3rd printing (Cairo: 1984), 7; see also note 49 above.

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system of Islam by standards emanating from Western civilization, as is the case in international human rights law. There are many ways to deal with this question. As quoted earlier, Samuel Huntington views the conflict between Islam and international human rights standards to be an indication of a clash between civilizations. From the point of view of this article, it is rather a conflict between a local cultural world view and a standard related to civilizational morality and to the globalized civilizing process.57 Islamic civilization unites a variety of local cultures spread throughout Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe (8 million Muslims in the Balkans). Despite its stretch worldwide, Islamic civilization did not reach the global level that European expansion has in modern times. The globalization processes that have accompanied this expansion resulted in the creation of an international standard of cultural modernity and a world time related to it to which all civilizations of the world are exposed. Since the Greek legacy and its adoption by Muslim Hellenism, a tradition has been established which views rational knowledge as universal and as a standard for all of humanity. Not until the globalization of the standard of cultural modernity could one say that this tradition had become a global one. In our time, knowledge is human knowledge-which comprises the knowledge about human rights as entitlements of the individual. This is the background for my proposition in this article. I propose, therefore, to relate this universal human standard of knowledge to a standard of morality in which universal human rights are embedded. If this hypothesis applies, then it is correct to judge the cultural system of Islam by universal standards. In my view, scholarly knowledge is universally valid and not confined to a specific culture or a regional civilization. I disagree with the fashionable approach of the cultural-anthropologization of knowledge which disregards the notion of universal-scientific knowledge.58Thus, I concur fully with Max Weber's view that modern Western science is the only universally valid standard humanity has ever known.59From this I infer that it is justifiable to judge Islam in terms emanating from cultural modernity, being a source of modern universal knowledge. If the premise that international human rights standards based on

57.

58. 59.

See both volumes of The Civilizing Process by Norbert Elias, and translated by Edmund Jephcott. The first volume is subtitled The History of Manners (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978) and the second, Power and Civility (New York:Pantheon Books, 1982); see also Tibi, note 39 above, 23-31; and Tibi, note 41 above. I employ this notion for the study of Islam. See my forthcoming article "Culture and Knowledge: The Notion of Islamization of Knowledge as a Postmodern Project?" in Theory, Culture and Society, Explorations in Critical Social Science (London: Sage Publications, 1994). Max Weber, Soziologie, Wetgeschichtliche Analysen, Politik (Stuttgart:Alfred Kroener Verlag, 1964), 340-42.

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universal morality ought to be established in Islam is valid, then the second question is related to the constraints and obstacles in the way of the cultural accommodation of cultural modernity by Muslims. It has become traditional wisdom to view human rights violations almost exclusively as the result of oppressive regimes, i.e., as being primarily political in nature. In other words, cultural constraints are either overlooked or not given due importance in analyses. Given that democracy has classical Greek roots and is a political culture that has unfolded in the West, it is correct to note that this culture has not yet become universal.60 Thinking in Western terms contributes to overlooking contradicting cultural and civilizational standards in non-Western societies in which democratic values are not honored. Last but not least, one must ask what ought to be done to make Muslims speak the language of human rights in their own tongue?61 The following explores how these impending questions can be addressed in order to discuss the remedy that ought to be prescribed for coping with the predicament of Islam and international human rights law standards in the present system of international relations. Global civilization can be viewed to be a cross-cultural endeavor supportive of transforming the international system into an international society.62 In embracing the universal morality growing from global civilizational standards, barriers in the way of establishing human rights globally may be overcome by local cultures. Based on the work of Norbert Elias, I have made an effort63to conceptualize the globalization of "the civilizing process"64for advancing the argument that humanity could share common standards. Human rights ought to be part and parcel of these standards. The following discussion is determined by the observation that the bulk of authors of Islamic human rights schemes produce rights provisions that are inadequate by the standards of international human rights related to universal morality. The failure to meet these standards is not attributable solely to the human rights author's own failing in the task of interpreting Islamic requirements. For this reason, I strongly disagree with Ann Mayer's

60.

61.

62. 63. 64.

Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave, Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), argues that a global third wave of democratization is taking place in our present. In his recent article on "Clash of Civilizations," see note 1 above, Huntington is less optimistic. In a contribution published in a comparative undertaking I recently suggested inquiring into this issue and pondering it on a global level. Bassam Tibi, "The European Tradition of Human Rights and the Culture of Islam," in Human Rights in Africa, ed. Abdullahi A. An-Na'im and Francis Deng (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute, 1990), 104-32. Bull, note 11 above. See Tibi, notes 39 and 41 above. See note 57 above.

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view that "the stakes in the battle over human rights standards are ultimately political."65 I want to examine this view on the grounds that there are definitely cultural obstacles in the way of establishing human rights standards in Muslim countries. To begin with, our world time is related to a process for which Norbert Elias-as quoted earlier-coined the term "the civilizing process."66In this context, the question arises whether local cultures and regional civilizations that have not yet been globalized can be treated as islands isolated from their global environment. Despite the distinct character of discrete local cultures and regional civilizations, there must be some grounds for universally valid comparisons that facilitate drawing general conclusions. The need for generally accepted norms, rules, and procedures for conflict resolution among nations undergirds the necessity to go beyond specific frameworks confined to the study of local cultures. In the terrain of human rights, no one could contest this need while maintaining acceptable universal standards of morality and law. Anthropologists and area studies scholars who are preoccupied with the cultural specificity of their field seem to fail to develop a proper understanding of the issue addressed. Particularlyin the study of the world of Islam, the critique of Orientalism, which seemed to have justifiable grounds at the outset of that debate, has now become an obscure concept not worth wasting time on. From the point of view of this concept of Orientalism no criticism, be it of despotic regimes ruling the Middle East, of fundamentalism, or of the Islamic pre-modern view of the world, can go unscathed without being disputed to be an expression of Orientalism.67The field of human rights is no exception. In fact, those who are supposed to subscribe to or are susceptible to Orientalism claim that the "Orient"is different from the West. Ann Mayer makes the point that the critique of Orientalism in the domain of human rights runs into the same scheme, i.e., in accepting "the quintessentially Orientalist notion that the concepts and categories employed in the West to understand societies and cultures are irrelevant and Middle Easternersand Muslims also condemn inapplicable in the East."68 critical comparisons and believe to see in them "sinister political objectives." In my view the defaulting of both parties and of the culturalanthropologist school of cultural relativism is accurate and justified. In other
65. 66. 67. Mayer, note 37 above, 211. See note 57 above. See Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House, 1979). On the international debate on this issue see Bassam Tibi, "Orient und Okzident. Anmerkungen zur Orientalismus-Debatte," in Neue Politische Literatur,29 (1984): 267-86; see also the critique of Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, Dhihniyyat al-tahrim (The Mentality of Taboo) (London: El-Rayyis Books, 1993), 17-85. Mayer, note 37 above, 9.

68.

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words, comparisons on universal grounds and knowledge, as is the case in international human rights law, are acceptable and must be admitted. The realities of structural globalization in international relations provides a sound basis for these comparisons and calls into question all concepts of cultural relativism, foremost their application in the study of human rights.69 Having argued in this manner, a subtlety in the study of the Islamic culture needs to be honored. The assumption that there exists a monolithic Islamic cultural standard is utterly wrong. In cultural terms, Islam can be found in a diversity of local cultures, however, a sweeping generalization of this observation leads to overlooking the basic elements of Islamic civilization. Muslims, despite their cultural diversity, really share standards of this civilization and have in common a world view related to it. Scholars who exclusively stress the diversity of Islam often ignore that Muslims, be they in the Middle East, South Asia, or sub-Saharan Africa, share a virtually consistent common world view. Without taking this world view into consideration, one may fail to understand properly the obstacles of establishing the universal concept of human rights in the non-Western societies described as Islamic. It is true that contemporary Islamic fundamentalists are reviving this exclusive world view for establishing grounds in the clash between civilizations.70 We cannot simply attributethe emphasis on duties and the rejection of the notion of unfettered rights to undemocratic regimes undertaking Islamization programs. The issue is not that simple. In a recent article, an Egyptian author states plainly, "While Arab elites at least pay lip service to democracy, democratic ideals seem to be of far less concern to the broader [D]emocracy is not at present a major concern of the Arab public .... masses."71While these undemocratic regimes in the Middle East utilize the concept of duties/fara'id, they did not invent it. It is an Islamic concept, as old as Islam itself and a part and parcel of the Islamic world view shared by the majority of Muslims. This world view becomes clear when the individualistic character in the Western concept of human rights is juxtaposed with the pre-modern Islamic heritage. A rejection of these individualistic values makes it difficult for Muslims to accept norms and values related to individual human rights.

69.

70. 71.

To contest cultural relativism is not equal to falling victim of the belief in universalism. There exists no universal morality, hence, universals such as those of human rights, can only be established on cross-cultural foundations. See Alison Dundes Renteln, International Human Rights: Universalism Versus Relativism, vol. 6 of Frontiersof Anthropology (London: Sage Publications, 1990), 138 in which she attempts "to reconcile the apparently conflicting positions of the universalist and the relativist." See Tibi, note 25 above. Mustapha K. Al-Sayyid, "Slow Thaw in the Arab World," World Policy Journal, VIII:4 (1991): 724.

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How could cultures in which the individual is conceived of as a limb of an organically defined religious-cultural collectivity admit individual rights without undergoing radical changes in their prevailing world view? If one fails to address this question, no adequate grasp of the issue can be reached. Again, to argue in favor of individual human rights as entitlements does not suffice for elevating these rights to a universal status in the concept of morality. To reach this end, these rights have to be established in a local cultural setting on cross-cultural grounds. Now, however, the absence of a cultural concept of these rights in some local cultures explains their utter absence in societies related to these cultures. The reference to oppressive regimes and to their undemocratic programs of Islamization, without subjecting the entire cultural system involved to critical scrutiny, cannot explain the problems at issue in a convincing manner. VI. CONCLUSION Arguing that the authors of Islamic human rights schemes72 lack a consistent concept of the subject under issue is justifiable. However, an adequate methodological access to the problems at hand would not be an escape from the predicament of Islam with individual human rights addressed in this article. In fact, the prevailing cosmological world view in the cultural system of Islam is the source of the obstacles in the way of establishing Islamic human rights standards acceptable to the criteria of universal morality. It is the problem of the prevailing culture and the related Weltanschauung73 as a cultural pattern in which the collectivity, not the individual, and duties, not rights, rank highest. This inquiry concludes with the assumption that a debate on Islam and culturally based resistance to human rights within the earlier outlined context of structural globalization and cultural fragmentation must be our framework for establishing cross-cultural foundations for the norms and values of human rights on legally and politically universal grounds. Unless Muslims change their world view and the cultural patterns and attitudes related to it, the conflict between Islamic human rights schemes and international human rights standards will continue to prevail as a source of conflict between civilizations. The reference to the culturally based resistance to individual human rights helps in understanding the conflict at issue. The recently developed Islamic human rights schemes conceal rather than

72. 73.

See Muhammad 'Imara, note 49 above; and Ghazali, note 56 above. Weltanschauung is the German philosophical concept of worldview also adopted in Anglo-saxon writings.

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reveal the addressed conflict. These schemes obscure the incompatibility between individual and collectivity-oriented concepts in Western and Islamic human rights schemes, blurringthe boundaries between duties and rights. Again, to understand this we have to deal with the deep-seated dominant cosmological world view among Muslims. I contend that the prevailing Islamic view of the world is the crucial cultural underpinning of the Islamic predicament with the modern concept of human rights. In passing, Ann E. Mayer addresses the priorities of Muslim human rights authors: "[T]hey uphold the primacy of Revelation over reason and none endorse reason as a source of law."74Here lies the problem. It is the conflict between a man(reason)-centered and a cosmological theocentric view of the world and also between the related civilizations. I maintain that there is a conflict between the global civilization of cultural modernity and local pre-modern cultures grouped in regional civilizations. In other words, I conceive the conflict not to be a clash of civilizations but rather as one between local cultures (grouped as civilizations) and global civilization emerging from the "civilizing process."75 Modern law, including human rights law, is a product of the "cultural project of modernity"76being the substance of the "civilizing process." Modern natural law contributed to establishing the "principle of subjectivity"77i.e., of a man-centered view of the world and of the related legal underpinning which determines human beings as individuals entitled to freedom. Human rights as individual entitlements are part and parcel of cultural modernity and its "principle of subjectivity."The "reformof Islamic law," which An-Na'im brightly presents as "the fundamental objective"78of his remarkable work, cannot be accomplished without relating this reform to the very basic normative and structural requirements of cultural modernity and to the world view emanating from it. There exists an "incompatibility between Shari'a and modern standards of international relations and human rights,"79which An-Na'im courageously seeks to overcome through his envisaged reform of Islamic law. In

74. 75.

76. 77.

78. 79.

Mayer, note 37 above, 58. See Elias, note 57 above. Elias himself argues in the last part of the second volume that the European "civilizing process" has been stretching beyond Europe and becoming an international standard. In drawing on this, I refer to Elias' approach and deal with the crisis of the Islamic civilization itself in The Crisis of Modern Islam, note 39 above. See Habermas, note 13 above. By this notion of the "principle of subjectivity," Habermas in his Philosophical Discourse of Cultural Modernity (see note 13 above) underlines the processes of individuation in European history which resulted in determining man as a free subject, i.e., free individual with individual entitlements vis-a-vis state and society. This is the cultural underpinning of the human rights concept. An-Na'im, note 9 above, 185. Ibid., 184.

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fact, this incompatibility is, as earlier emphasized, one between a cosmological-theocentric and a man-centered view of the world.80 The cultural fragmentation in the structurallyglobalized system of international relations is related to the incompatibility of the respective world views of cultural modernity and pre-modern cultures. In order to embrace human rights as entitlements, Muslims need to embrace cultural modernity. The current politicization of the described cultural fragmentation contributes to strengthening all varieties of cultural religious fundamentalism,81 and it most certainly does not serve the cause of establishing individual human rights in the civilization of Islam. These rights are a concern of Muslims in particular, as well as of world politics in general.82 The Rushdie affair83ought to illustrate this dual concern. Establishing an indigenous tradition of individual human rights in local cultures is the bottom line of universal morality shared by all of humanity. Effortstowards this end may contribute to the resolution of conflict between global civilization and local cultures. The universal morality of human rights is the true alternative to the concept related to the clash of civilizations. In our age of cultural reassertion, disorder, and political turmoil, there is a great need for establishing commonalities between the conflicting civilizations. What could be more appropriate for this than an international, cross-culturally based morality of human rights?Among the civilizations at issue, the West and Islam generate the most concern. The increasing role of Islam in world politics and the increased presence of Muslims in Europeand in North America-a presence that makes for a more intense interaction between civilizations than ever before-underlie the need for a "common discourse about ethics."84 The conflict between the shari'a claims and secular individual human rights that has been accounted for in this article, is not only a potential for world politics, but it also refers-in our age of global migration-to domestic politics. John Kelsay, a scholar of religion,

80. 81. 82. 83.

84.

Bassam Tibi, "Im Namen Gottes? Der Islam, die Menschenrechte und die kulturelle Moderne," in Der Islam im Aufbruch?,ed. Michael Luders(Munich: Piper Verlag, 1992), 144-61. See Fundamentalisms Observed, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). David P. Forsythe, Human Rights and World Politics, 2nd ed., revised (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1989), 189-228. See The Rushdie File, ed. Lisa Appignanesi and Sara Maitland (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990). For relating the Rushdie affair to the clash between Islamic and global civilization with regard to human rights, see the comprehensive study by Bassam Tibi, Im Schatten Allahs. Islam und Menschenrechte (Munich: Piper Press, 1994), forthcoming in Fall 1994. John Kelsay, Islam and War: A Study of Comparative Ethics (Louisville, KY:John Knox Press, 1993), 3-5.

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stresses this need for a common ethics (which I propose to be the foundation for universal human rights) in his awareness that "the traditions we call 'Western' and 'Islamic' can no longer strictly be identified with
particular geographic regions.... [T]he rapidity of Muslim immigration ...

suggests that we may soon be forced to speak not simply of Islam and, but of Islam in, the West."85It becomes clear that any dismissal of the ethics of human rights as a basis of international morality through forwarding multicultural or cultural-relativistarguments is also a dismissal of world and domestic peace between civilizations.

85.

Ibid., 117-18.