Human Rights and Human Development in the Arab and Islamic World

For many years, Islam has behaved in total authoritarian domination over masses of populations, with a total disregard of basic human rights, based on the Sharia holy law of Empire and rule over its own Muslim subjects. Even more so over a multitude of Christian, Jewish, and other minorities, Islam has ignored Western developments since the American and French Revolutions, which little by little developed the liberal predominance of human rights.

The prevailing rationale in Islam was, and has remained, that Allah's Law as expressed in His Holy edicts forever takes priority over any law that humans can produce.

While similar beliefs were modified in other faiths and creeds, which resulted in Western philosophical thought due to the established separation of Church and state, Islam has never known such a separation, and has perpetuated the ancient traditional views, rationalizing that while human-made laws are ephemeral and transient, Allah's are immutable and eternal.

Hence the severe laws on apostasy in Islam, which forbid Muslims the right to deny their faith under threat of death. Even the religions of Christianity and Judaism are under restriction in Islamdom. If their followers wish to convert, they are permitted to do so only to Islam, which is why the record of human rights in Islam is so poor.

(About the Author)

Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph.D.in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the1970s. He is the author of over 80 books and 100 articles.