نشریه اندیشه های حقوق عمومی
پیاپی 2 (زمستان 1390)

The claim of inefficiency of Islamic human rights which is demonstrated in different ways is one of the fundamental and logical challenges. The present paper, which discusses and criticizes the most important argument which support this claim, examines the assumption that the model of Islamic human rights is paradoxical, and refers to the paradox in assuming that other human rights declarations are sound, a view which Islam rejects. On the other hand, it examines the assumption of the necessity of adopting an extra-religion view about human rights and inefficiency of the intra-religion view about them to conclude that neither extra-religion view is "necessary" nor intra –religion view is "inefficient"; rather they, on the whole, are possible though for accessing real and sound human rights it is necessary to have religion as a basis.

If a judgment is made according to strict criteria about adultery in its most anomalous form, i.e. adultery committed by a married woman, then the woman may be stoned to death as a punishment. The reason behind imposing heavy penalties of this kind for this act is to prevent adultery, because the range of the perversity resulting from adultery, particularly that which is committed by married woman, extends to different aspects of man's life-worldly and otherworldly, material and spiritual, personal and social life, and it extends to society, as well. The most important factor of the different attitudes which Islam and materialistic schools take about adultery and adulterer's penalty is the way they view man, the right to live, freedom, and other fundamental human rights. On the other hand, most of the doubts raised about stoning to death penalty result from the lack of accurate perception of quiddity, necessity, and conditions of such penalty. The conditions of imposing stoning to death penalty are so precise, peculiar and strict that the possibility of committing an error of judgment lessens to zero. Furthermore, along with imposing strict conditions for making decision on adultery, the conditions of its execution are as such that even the legal pretext for incomplete execution of this penalty are observed.On the other hand, rational and scientific reflection would show that this kind of Islamic judgment is by no means incompatible with human rights, and the dispute over this point originates from the difference of worldviews and anthropological attitudes.

Administration of justice in the society requires a law-governed relationship between government and people. One of the ways ensuring this law- governed relationship is giving to citizens the right to complain about the decisions made by administrative and governmental officials, which is referred to as administrative procedure. Although some rules and regulations were passed in this regard before the Islamic Revolution, no firm decision was taken to put this subject into practice. However, due to the establishment of the Court of Administrative Justice and other administrative authorities, after the victory of Islamic Revolution special attention was given to it. The present paper introduces a brief account of the rules and regulations of administrative procedure and the course of its development in Iran.

The concept of "right" is one of the most important issues in ethics, law, and politics. When we study "right" we should focus on different subjects such as the meaning and nature of right, its types and origin, etc. and one of the most important of them is the meaning of right, especially form Muslim thinker's viewpoint, and more specifically in fiqh, law, sociology and politics. An exposition of thinker’s view of the meaning of right in different fields of Islamic sciences, especially law and politics, prepares the ground for discussing the important issues of legal and political systems soundly and scientifically. Having studied the literal and idiomatic meaning of "right" according to different sciences and Muslim thinkers view, the present paper concludes that "right" means "privilege", "sovereignty", and "allocation" and the total worth of all of them is a kind of "demonstration" provided for someone’s benefit.

Intellectual trends called fascism and nazism, legal positivism, and some other philosophical schools believe that man inherently lacks dignity and seeks the origin of his dignity in such things like his correlation with a certain state, government, race, ideology, and religion. Islam, however, believes that as a human being, man has inherent dignity. This dignity is based on a set of concepts and fundamental moral and religious values; namely," freedom and freewill” rationality and reasoning”, and “possession of divine blast and prestige". Islam believes that in addition to inherent dignity, man has “acquired dignity” the most important criterion and basis of which are piety and faith. The present paper studies the meaning and principles of inherent and acquired dignity according to Islam.

Islamic government is the most appropriate model for realizing real and transcendent human rights due to the unique features of its structure. The structure of Islamic government is designed in such a way that it can, with the sanctions it has, realize Islam's legal system which includes the most excellent human rights with the sanctions it enjoys. The present paper confirms this point, taking into consideration the main features of Islamic government, such as theocentricism, guardianship-orientation, democracy, flexibility, and dynamism, as well as the characteristics which the personnel’s of Islamic government enjoy, such as piety, justice, knowledge of divine law, efficiency, expertise, trustworthiness, and sociability.

The kind of relationship of human rights with anthropology and the worldview of legal systems is a direct one. There is a sharp difference between legal systems which adopt a materialistic approach and Islamic legal system which adopt a monotheistic approach and considers man's life to have higher position than materialistic life. The principle of truth-centredness forming the basis of religious rationality falsifies the relativistic thoughts which underlie western human rights by emphasizing on the existence of concrete realities and possibility of attaining them. On the other hand, Islam which adopt a monotheistic worldview and has a comprehensive and deep knowledge of man, has decreed man's rights and duties according to special principles which have influence on all the aspects of man's life. The principle of monotheism strengthens the sense of man's close relation with God and so God' right is viewed as the source of human rights. The principle of resurrection, which takes care of such issues like the immorality of the (human) soul, humane life, and the spirit of conducting oneself, and emphasizing man's accountability to God, has special significance in formulating human rights. The common and different grounds in man's rights and duties are logical consequence and principle of wisdom. The principle of justice prepares the ground for realization of utopia and man's social perfection. The principle of interrelation between right and duty is an indication of man's mission in social life. Finally, the principle of man's intrinsic and legislative dignity, which represents a divine blessing, along with the aforementioned principles prepares the ground for exaltation of human rights, because these principles are exclusive to the legal system of Islam and other legal systems and the documents of western human rights are alien to these principles.