Frontline: Muslims

Human Rights in Islam Compared to the French and American Enlightenment Traditions

By Susan L. Douglass and Nadia Pervez  - 2003

Overview

The lesson provides three sets of primary source documents on the topic of human rights. To familiarize teachers and students with Islamic concepts of human rights, a brief background essay is provided to give context to the primary source selections, which range from inalienable rights to religious tolerance to social and economic justice. Two documents on human rights from the end of the eighteenth century, from the period of the American and French Revolutions, are provided for comparison with the Islamic sources.

Objectives

Students will be able to:

• cite examples of human rights and duties enumerated in selections from Qur'an and Hadith
• explain the concepts and sources of rights and duties in the framework of Islamic law
• compare the concepts of individual rights in the Islamic, American and French Enlightenment traditions.

Procedure

1. Distribute Handout 1, and assign students to read the brief background essay on concepts of human rights in Islam. If the lesson is done in conjunction with a world history study of the European enlightenment, then the handouts can form the basis for contrasting concepts of natural rights in the Enlightenment tradition and Islam. In a comparative religion class, the handouts may be used in conjunction with materials on ethics from other religious traditions studied during the course.
2. Extension: After reading the essay, have students read each section of primary source quotes on Handout 1 in diads or small groups, and discuss them in terms of their understanding of the concepts outlined in the essay.
3. Distribute Handouts 2, 3 and 4. The teacher may assign the three sets of documents on Handouts 1, 2, and 3 as group work, as individual homework, or in rotating groups over at least three half-hour periods, especially under block scheduling. Students should answer the document study questions from Handout 4 for each of the traditions, either individually or in groups. After explaining the historical context of the documents, discuss the questions related to understanding the concepts of human rights contained in them.
4. Adaptation: Instead of using all of the primary source quotations on the handouts, the teacher can cut the handout into strips and assign groups to read selections from each tradition or from the contrasting traditions.
5. Copy and distribute Handout 5 for use in individual or group work, or print it as an overhead transparency. Working in pairs, small groups or as a class, and building from the students' answers to Handout 4, label the chart with categories of human rights (inalienable natural rights, economic rights, social obligations and rights, tolerance, etc.). Then have the students give examples of rights outlined in each tradition by writing them in a few words on the chart. It may be useful to cite them with numbers or symbols.

Sources

1. Declaration of the Rights of Man. Avalon Project, Yale University at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof.htm Mohammad H. Kamali, "Fundamental Rights of the Individual: An Analysis of Haqq (Right) in Islamic Law," The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 10:3 (Fall 1993).
2. Qur'an and Hadith translations from The Alim Islamic Software, Release 4. Baltimore, MD: ISL Software Corporation, 1996. Thomas Jefferson Memorial Home Page, National Parks Service at http://www.nps.gov/thje/home.htm