Human Rights and Islamic Legal Tradition: Prospects for an Overlapping Consensus

Abstract

The encounter between human rights law and Islamic legal tradition was largely academic until the last decades of the twentieth century. Following the widespread international adoption of human rights instruments such as CEDAW, and the concurrent rise of Islamist political movements that attempted to enforce pre-modern interpretations of the Shari’a, adherents of the two seemed destined for conflict; at least for growing mutual distrust and contempt. But is this clash inevitable?