The Genealogy of the Concept of the Right to Marriage in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Its Comparative Comparison with the Provisions of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam

The topic of the right to marriage and its components is the most sensitive and controversial cultural issue among the topics of human rights. This reality has been shown in the process of formulating Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the right to marriage and the family. Since the topic of the right to marriage was first introduced to the international literature of human rights by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is important to investigate its viewpoint on the right of marriage and how it can be interpreted based on the process of negotiations for formulating Article 16; thus, this research aimed to comparatively make comparisons between the viewpoint of Islamic countries in the process of negotiations as well as the definition reflected in the Cairo Declaration on the right to marriage and what was stated in the final text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Therefore, the related sources from 1945 until now were reviewed. According to the findings, the Islamic countries could present a certain view in the form of the Cairo Declaration on human rights in Islam in the late of twentieth century. In addition, although the religious views were not included in Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the extent that they were proposed, presenting them in the United Nations was valuable. The Islamic countries modified the view of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the concept of the family and marriage, and especially introduced the divine nature of the family by formulating the Cairo Declaration on human rights in Islam.