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Human Rights and Reformist Islam

Online ISBN:
9781474495400
Print ISBN:
9781474449304
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press
Book

Human Rights and Reformist Islam

Mohsen Kadivar
Mohsen Kadivar
Duke University
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Published online:
23 September 2021
Published in print:
1 September 2020
Online ISBN:
9781474495400
Print ISBN:
9781474449304
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press

Abstract

Human Rights and Reformist Islam critiques traditional Islamic approaches to the question of compatibility between human rights and Islam and argues instead for their reconciliation from the perspective of a reformist Islam. The book focuses on six controversial case studies: religious discrimination; gender discrimination; slavery; freedom of religion; punishment of apostasy; and arbitrary or harsh punishments. Explaining the strengths of structural ijtihad, Mohsen Kadivar’s approach is based on the rational classification of Islamic teachings as temporal or permanent on the one hand, and four criteria of being Islamic on the other: reasonableness, justice, morality and efficiency. In the book, all of the verses of the Qur’an and the Hadith that are problematic in relation to human rights are abrogated rationally according to these criteria. The result is a powerful, solutions-based argument based on reformist Islam – providing a scholarly bridge between modernity and Islamic tradition in relation to human rights. The book’s fourteen chapters are organized in five sections, including freedoms of belief, religion and politics, women’s rights, and slavery in contemporary Islam. Adding an extensive new introduction and annotations throughout the text from Kadivar bring the work up-to-date and place it in its academic and public contexts. In the introduction, the author critically compares his approach to Islam and human rights with those of five leading contemporary scholars: Mahmoud M. Taha, Abdullahi A. an-Na’im, Ann E. Mayer, Mohammad M. Shabestari and Abdulaziz A. Sachedina.

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