Discoursal Configuration of Human Rights in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran

The political Islamic discourse considers Islamic teachings as enlightening in all aspects of human life; therefore, it tries to stabilize to meanings and signifiers on the basis of its semantic system and monotheistic thought. In this article, after explanation of human rights in terms of the Constitution, it will be shown that, in the discourse of political Islam, human rights shapes around the central sighnifier of “human dignity”, while other signs and signifiers (e.g. political, social–economic, cultural and civil rights) are perceived according to that. In other words, although the concept of human rights is a modern one and has entered Islamic literature just as other modern concepts have, the issues raised in relation to that have formed a specific conceptual discourse, which can be named Islamic Human Rights Discourse. In the islamic discourse, human dignity is the central, transcendent signifier or central sighnifier, while all other human rights and privileges — which are floating signifiers — are perceived based on this sighnifier.