The Basic Intention of Human Rights Moderating the Clash of Worldviews in Islam-West Debates of Human Rights

Abstract

The idea and institutionalization of human rights is meant to protect people from negative experiences, such as discrimination, marginalization and oppression. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed on December 10, 1948 reflects this basic intention, but to this day there is no unanimity in Islamic circles to accept the universality of the values listed there. Conservative Muslims even reject them as products of Western secularism and liberalism alien to Islamic doctrine and declare their own human rights. The debate between the West and Islam on the universality of human rights has triggered a clash of worldviews between the two. This article will transcend the clash by recalling the basic intention of human rights to protect human beings from negative experience. The author recommends an anamnestic way of moderation that brings the two sides closer together.