Did you hear? There was an international human rights conference in Saudi Arabia! There is a very good reason why you probably haven’t. Joseph Kéchichian explains in Gulf News: “Although proceedings ended on October 15, a formal Declaration was not published until December 4 without, it is worth noting, serious analysis.”
The conference, Kéchichian explains, was “held under the auspices of the Saudi Red Crescent Society.” It “set out to identify ‘different concepts of human rights in peace and armed conflicts,’ and to distinguish whatever obstacles hindered the ‘protection of human rights’ in the Muslim world. It also purported to suggest a few solutions that would be compatible with Islamic law (Shariah).”
Well, there’s your trouble right there. The Sharia simply isn’t compatible with the idea of universal human rights, which it denies to dhimmis and others. Don’t take my word for it: in Islam Unveiled I quote Sa’id Raja’i-Khorassani, who served in the 1980s as Permanent Delegate to the United Nations from the Islamic Republic of Iran. He declared that the idea of universal human rights was “a Judeo-Christian invention,” foreign to Islam. His boss, the Ayatollah Khomeini, called Iran’s approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights one of the Shah’s “most despicable sins.” Sure, there are millions of Muslims who no doubt accept the idea of universal human rights, but Khomeini’s perspective is widespread, and there are many explicit provisions of the Sharia that are in direct contradiction to ideas of religious freedom and other issues.
Thus the assertion of this conference’s Declaration “that human life and dignity are embedded in Shariah” is yet to be proven. (Thanks to nicolei.)