Islamic Law and Human Rights

Introduction
One of the contemporary challenges faced by Islamic law today is the issue of compatibility between Islamic law and international human rights law. The debates about the compatibility of Islamic law with international human rights are taking on an increased significance in both the Muslim and the non-Muslim worlds. The scholarship addressing the compatibility between the two legal traditions is particularly important in the current political environment of Islamophobia in the West (whether it is the issue of hijab [veil], freedom of religion, serving halal meat in prisons and hospitals in France, Denmark, and Norway, to name a few, or linking Islam with terrorism in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other European countries). Unfortunately, Islam is being presented as inherently violent and incompatible with civility and peaceful coexistence. Contemporary issues of human rights are perceived as a threat to modern concepts of democracy and human dignity. Some Western scholarship persists in believing that Islamists oppose the implementation of human rights and democratization in Muslim countries, while conservative religious circles in Muslim communities suspect human rights as a Western and alien concept. The two legal traditions are not entirely irreconcilable. Since the 1990s, cutting edge scholarship has been produced to address such misconceptions on both sides and to search for a nexus between the two systems. This article introduces researchers to a wide range of scholarship that cuts across a number of themes within the human rights discourse, including women’s rights, child rights, religious freedom, and Muslim state practice. This bibliographical source covers literature that examines relevant theoretical and conceptual issues relating to the nature of international human rights law and Islamic law. The literature covered also examines whether there is a concept of human rights in Islamic law, if there is common ground between the two legal traditions, and if there are any areas of conceptual differences between the two systems. The objective of this bibliographical source is to identify literature that could be useful for developing an in-depth understanding of the concept of human rights in the Islamic legal tradition and to identify possible ways of how human rights can be best realized within the Islamic ethos of Muslim states. It will also be a useful contribution to the ongoing initiative of offering academic courses in Islamic law and human rights by a number of institutions around the world at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This online bibliographical source is an indicative input into what academics can use to develop such courses. An interdisciplinary approach has been followed while selecting literature, and works of political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists as well as legal scholars have been included in the field of Islamic law and human rights. The resources and materials are useful for both English-speaking and non-English-speaking audiences.