Human rights in islam - the ascendancy of community rights over individual rights in the context of the criminal law

Abstract

Human rights in Islam - the ascendancy of community rights over individual rights in the context of the criminal law. One of the most controversial issues between the West and the Islamic world in today's world are the human rights. In Europe, after the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. In the 20th century II half, the first ideas in the field of human rights had been burst in Islamic countries, legitimated by the Quran and Sunnah of the prophet Muhammad. The aim of this thesis, by comparing three Islamic human rights concepts, found in S. Mawdūdī‘s “Human Rights in Islam”, the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, to analyse how Islamic criminal law conveys the conception of human rights in Islam through the welfare of Muslim community. The hermeneutic method will be used. First of all, the transcendental background of the Sharia and its criminal law should be revealed to understand the authority of the sources in Islamic society. The issue of the Islamic secularism will be discussed to show the importance of religious sources in Islamic states. After that, the concept of the welfare of Muslim community will be introduced to understand that Islamic criminal law gives priority to the rights of the Muslim community over individual rights. The analyses of the three primary sources will reveal the ideas of the human rights as the part of Islamic tradition. Four articles found in the declarations will be compared with the Islamic criminal law which results that human rights in Islam are based on the non-personal but social welfare. The study has revealed that Islamic criminal law is the best mean, legitimated by the Quran and Sunnah, to protect the wellbeing of Muslim society which is seen as the concept of human rights in Islam. This thesis may be useful to the international organizations responsible for the protection of human rights due to possibility to understand the concept of the Islamic human rights better