The Muslim world's human rights documents in comparative perspective

Abstract

One of the most important theoretical issues in the Islamic debate on human rights is the relationship between secularism and human rights and the related empirical question of the application of sharia. This issue is what Enzo Pace calls the structural deficit of legitimacy in Islam, referring to its original characteristics, particularly the fusion of religious and political dimensions, as a challenge in adhering to the United Nations (UN) human rights system. From that perspective, this article analyzes human rights documents produced in the Muslim world, attributing more importance to documents produced in intergovernmental environments because they reflect the concerns and efforts of these governments to participate in the discussion of human rights.