Human Rights Abuses CHAPTER V

By the standards of Western humanrights activists  and of many Muslims as well  several countries in the Muslim Middle East are alleged to have very bad "humanrights" records. In the last chapter, in our discussion of "Islamic law" in contemporary practice, we gave some instances of conduct which would surely be regarded as outrageous and indecent in Western eyes. Much of this conduct  most notably, perhaps, the alleged rape of young women prisoners in Iran in order to render them ostensibly suitable for execution  would perhaps appear even more outrageous and indecent in orthodox Muslim eyes.

Human rights violations in the Middle East continue. Amnesty International, in its Annual Report Summary (1990), reported sharp increases in the number of executions in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Torture was reported to be widespread in Morocco, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, and also was reported in Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.

To the Western public, these are all grouped together as Muslim (or even as "Arab") nations and societies, and all of their humanrights abuses are liable to be laid at the door of Islam. Yet it will be noted that many of the worst Middle Eastern humanrights abusers are under nonIslamic  often, indeed, rigidly secular  regimes. The plainest examples of this are Iraq and Syria, ruled

suggest that the punishment of unbelievers is properly left to God. It is, moreover, worth noting that Shari'a law has the potential for a great deal more flexibility than has been popularly associated with it in the West. Islam was from the beginning in part a practical guide to life in accordance with the will of God  and practical requirements can change according to circumstances. Indeed, the classical Hanbali scholar Al Imam Al Tufi argued that the public interest overrides all else, including specific Qur'anic provisions (Yamani: 1388 AH, 10). In modern times, the government of Kuwait used arguments drawn from the Qur'an as the basis for rejecting the specific provisions of Shari'a in drafting its commercial code (Sfeir 1988: 438). Thus the potential for flexibility and development does in fact exist within Islamic law. Moreover, it can certainly be argued that the emergence of Islamic states  something not seen since the early generations of the Islamic community  requires a degree of development and analysis of Shari'a not seen since before the "closing of the gates of ijtihad." Nor does the current character of "revolutionary" Islam any more reflect the nature of a mature Islamic state than