Religion and Human Rights; Compatibility, Conflict and Resolution

Religions have been a primary source of guidance and normativity for their followers for centuries. They emerged to cater for the needs of the communities of different eras and locales by providing systems of norms and rules on how to live a moral and spiritual life. These religious normative systems were very successful in fulfilling the needs of their communities; indeed, their systems of social organisation, and spiritual practice became established to the extent that they continue to be significant and authoritative for the overwhelming majority of the global population. Paradoxically, human history attests that religions have also been a source of division and discord between adherents of different faiths, resulting in some of the bloodiest wars and killings, and oppression based on doctrinal discriminations against the ‘other’.

In the wake of the number of human lives lost in the first and second world wars, the advent of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as international law for its plenipotentiaries was a hallmark in human history, whereby discriminatory treatment of individuals could be outlawed. Although intended as a legal measure to prevent the escalation of nation-wide discriminatory events to mass genocide, its implications extended to curbing the norms and laws of nation states founded directly upon religion. Thus the conflict and antagonism was born between human rights and religion, and debates ensued within religious seminaries and religious departments in universities regarding the compatibility of individual religions and human rights.

To explore this further, Al-Mahdi Institute hosted an inaugural workshop as part of a series of events on Socio-political issues and Religion called, ‘Religion and Human Rights’ bringing together human rights specialists and scholars from different world religions with expertise on human rights. Scholars such as, Ayatullah Muhaqiq Damad, Professor Abdul Aziz Sachedina, Sheikh Arif Abdulhussein, Kishan Manocha, Anicee Van England, David van Dusen, Susannah Cornwall and many spoke of different issues related to this.