There can be little doubt that Abdullahi An-Na'im has been one of the most influential voices on the issue of Islam and Human Rights. This most worthwhile collection of writings brings together a number of better and less well known pieces, some of which were previously not so easily accessible. It is not a ‘Reader’ on An-Na'im as such, since it only contains reprints of articles rather than extracts from his books, but there is quite enough here to enable the reader to get a full flavour of his writings and of his approach to both Islam and to human rights. But there is more: the introduction by Mashood Baderin is a masterful overview of the work of An-Na'im as presented in these essays and it deserves to be recognised as a significant contribution to scholarship in its own right. Indeed, having read so insightful an introduction, some of the pieces seem relatively lacklustre in comparison.
The collection is thoughtfully structured into four parts. The first, in some ways the most significant, is entitled ‘Islam between Universalism and Secularism’ and comprised five pieces which are chosen to illustrate what Baderin considers to be the three fundamental pillars of An-Na'im's basic approach: the first is ‘a philosophy of cross-cultural universality’ (p xvi), the second is the idea of ‘internal reformation of Islamic law based on the methodology of his mentor Ustadh Mamound Mohamed Taha’ (who was executed by Sudan for apostasy in 1985) (p xviii), the third is the need for ‘reaffirming secularism for Muslim States’ (p xx). These three themes are all reflected in the final essay in the collection, which makes up its final part, and stands as a conclusion to the whole, and which is entitled ‘The Interdependence of Religion, Secularism, and Human Rights’. The other parts contain a number of essays examining ‘Islam and Human Rights in the Muslim World’ – this largely looking at the situation in a number of countries and regions – and ‘Some Topical Issues in Islam and Human Rights Discourse’ – these being Islamic approaches to apostasy, religious minorities, women's rights, the freedom of expression, and ‘Why Should Muslims Abandon Jihad? Human Rights and the Future of International Law’.
The title of this last piece is quite striking: it is not ‘why Muslims should Abandon Jihad’ but ‘why should they’? Written in 2006, this is the most recent piece included in the collection and this reviewer found it both bleak and dispiriting. In some ways, it highlights what appears to be a subtle but significant shift in the focus on An-Na'im's writing over the twenty years spanned by these articles. Whilst the essence of the framework outlined in the introduction by Baderin remains a constant across this time-span, the manner in which it is manifested undergoes a significant change, if only in the ways in which its basic elements interact with each other. In the earlier pieces, the message is clear: international human rights are of universal applicability, not because they are the product of a ‘universal consensus’ but because they are reflective of universal human experience. If they are to be ‘owned’ by the communities which they address, they must be understood in the light of the cultural experiences and traditions of those communities, this being essential for their realisation in practice. In the Muslim world, this means working within existing hermeneutics in order to find a language of interpretation which can bring about an authentic understanding of human rights, compatible with international understandings.
In short, the earlier writings call on Muslims societies to adopt understandings of Islam which cohere with international human rights standards. Whilst the later writings reflected in this volume do not depart from this message, they have a darker undertone: whereas in the earlier writings this is the sum of the message, the later writings – in a post-9/11 and, more particularly, post-2003 Iraq war world – tend to make this contingent upon the continued respect for international law by the western world itself: if one is to expect the Muslim world to refrain from the forceable projection of its values, then the western world must likewise refrain from the forceable projection of theirs. Somehow, the essence of ‘human rights’ as something which transcends such differences seems to have been lost.
But this merely points to another facet of the earlier writings: whilst fully appreciating the ‘western’ origins of human rights as set out in international instruments, these earlier pieces took a rather unquestioning approach to the value of rendering them into universal values through cross-cultural dialogue. The later pieces are more questioning in this regard.
Finally, it is noteworthy that most pieces are focused on how Muslim societies might adapt to the challenge of human rights. There is little concerning the now dominant debates of how western understandings of human rights are to adapt to the challenge of Islam. The final essay in this collection, urging a synergy between human rights, religion and secularism, certainly follows through the logic of An Na'im's philosophy, but does seem to struggle to make those connections in a way which speaks to the contemporary controversies over headscarves, burkas, religious symbols, discrimination, etc. One is left wondering if An Na'im's approaches really do have validity beyond the reception of human rights in Islamic societies – and whether there is a broader message about the contingent nature of human rights more generally which needs to be taken on board in contemporary international society.
A collection of this nature is an ideal backdrop to such speculations, allowing as it does an insight into the evolution in the thinking of one of the world's leading thinkers on this subject-matter. Whatever reflections one might have, or conclusions which one might draw, one must be grateful for the skill and the insight of the editor in crafting this volume so ably.
Turning to Anne-Marie Mooney Cotter's international analysis of religious discrimination, this, according to its introduction, is the fifth book written by the author dealing with different forms of discrimination (the others looking at discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability and age) and this volume, on religious discrimination, follows the same approach and structure as those which have preceded it. The opening chapter offers some general reflections on the phenomena of religious discrimination – described generically as the concept of ‘Heaven Forbid’ – and is followed by a series of chapters looking at how ‘Heaven Forbid’ is addressed in a number of institutional and nation settings: in the United Nations (chapter 2); in Australia and New Zealand (chapter 3); in Africa and South Africa (chapter 4) in Canada, Mexico and the US (chapter 5); in the North American Free Trade Agreement (chapter 6); in the UK and in Ireland (chapter 7)' and in the European Union (chapter 8). The book closes with a ‘Conclusion to Heaven Forbid’.
Apart from the odd use of the expression ‘Heaven Forbid’ to describe the concept of religious discrimination, this might appear a reasonable framework within which to undertake the task which the book sets itself, this being ‘to better understand the issue of inequality and to improve the likelihood of achieving religious equality in the future and ending religious inequality’ (p 1). However, its actual content falls a long way short of what might reasonably have been expected in the execution of that task. Each of the substantive chapters follows the same pattern: a relatively short introduction setting the scene for what follows, this being sections which set out at length various legislative or other texts, interspersed with some general observations. The chapters close with sections of varying length which add some commentary to the material presented and on its relevance for ‘heaven forbid’. One of the difficulties with this is that is it is difficult to see what much of the material presented has to do with religious discrimination at all. For example, both the chapters on the NAFTA and the EU contain a great deal of material concerning their respective institutional frameworks and issues concerning labour law in general, and this swamps the material more obviously connected with discrimination (in the chapter on NAFTA it is not made particularly obvious what of the material presented is connected with religious discrimination per se).
Whilst the chapter on the UN mentions the UN Special Rapportuer on Racism and Intolerance it does not mention the Special Rapportuer on Freedom of Religion or Belief. It opens with sections from the UN Charter and the Statute of the ICJ, the relevance of the latter being far from obvious. There is no consideration of the substantive work done by the bodies established under the UN Human Rights treaties, and so on. Turning to the chapter on the European Union, one finds embedded within it a presentation of the European Convention on Human Rights, the jurisprudence of which relating to both freedom of religion and to discrimination is only lightly touched upon, and the most recent cases cited being from the mid-1990s. This is at least somewhat more recent than those cited in the section of the book looking at the USA – where the most recent case law is from the late 1980s. Though this reviewer does not purport to claim expert knowledge of US case law on religious discrimination, it seems strange that nothing of note has occurred in the last 20 years. The chapter on Africa is also troubling, if only from a geography perspective – opening as it does with the statement that it aims to ‘examine efforts against religious discrimination on the continent of Africa, and in South Africa’ (p 93). It goes on to include extracts from the 1963 Charter of the OAU, but not the 2000 Constitutive Act of the African Union, sets out the 1998 Protocol to the African Charter on the Establishment of an African Court which has been completely superseded and once again fails to make any reference at all to the work of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights relevant to discrimination. The work contains comments which are likely to raise eyebrows – eg ‘By virtue of establishing nationalism, as opposed to globalism, every government has formalized and supported discrimination’ (p 8).
One could go on, but there seems little point in doing so, since, as will be apparent, this reviewer finds it difficult to find much to be positive about within this book. That is regrettable, since the aim of a comparative study of religious discrimination and the relevant law in different national and international jurisdictions does seem well worthwhile.
