The Rights of Mankind: Human Rights and Reformist Islam (Paperback or Softback)

In the context and conventions of the age of early Islam, all Islamic teachings, including shari'a rulings, were reasonable, just, moral, and more functional as compared with rival systems. Islam never invited anyone to accept any unreasonable, unjust, immoral, or less functional teachings. However, a number of the shari'a rulings gradually lost some or all of their essential conditions over time. Such rulings which were Islamic once, are not so today. It means that they have been abrogated based on a school of thought that concrete reason is one of its epistemic sources.

Anything that we call Islamic today must be reasonable, just, moral, and more functional according to the conventions of the present time. Anything that is unreasonable, unjust, immoral, and less functional than the rival approaches, regarding the conventions of the time, is not Islamic, even though it might have been so, previously. The main problem of traditional Islam is that it is living in the 21^st century while breathing in the atmosphere of several centuries ago. Distinguishing timeless teachings from time-bound ones and abrogated rulings is a complex and professional duty and require structural ijtihad or 'ijtihad in principles and foundations'. This important deed is the collective responsibility of mujtahids (with the aforementioned characteristics) working in the contemporary academic atmosphere with critical scrutiny.

Traditional Islam is inconsistent with human rights criteria in at least six areas: religious discrimination; gender discrimination; slavery; freedom of religion and criminalization of apostasy and blasphemy; arbitrary punishments, harsh punishments, and torture; and the privilege of jurists over laypeople in the public sphere. These inconsistencies are not only conspicuous in jurisprudence but also are observable in many hadiths and a few Qur'anic verses. Conventional ijtihad in juridical derivatives is not capable of addressing such deeply-rooted problems.

But "traditional Islam" is not equal to Islam, rather, it is the reading and understanding of Islam by scholars of the past. Comparably, it is possible to have a reading of the Qur'an and the Tradition of the Prophet and a methodology in ijtihad and jurisprudence that is consistent with the criteria of human rights.

This reformist reading does not mean deriving human rights from the Qur'an and Tradition. Moreover, this is impossible since the modern concept of human rights did not exist in the past.

Such reading is the major theme of the present book The Rights of Mankind: Human Rights and Reformist Islam. Considering the fact that the author's publication has been absolutely prohibited in his homeland since 2009, the second edition of this book is published after fourteen years in Germany. Aside from revision, short reflections have been added to the end of a few chapters. In the critical and detailed introduction to the new edition, Kadivar's approach has been critically compared with the ideas of five main thinkers in the field of Islam and human rights: Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari and Abdulaziz Sachedina.

Mohsen Kadivar was born in 1959 in Fasa, Fars Province, Iran. After schooling in Shiraz, he graduated in mathematics in 1977 and began studying electronic engineering at Pahlavi Engineering University (now Shiraz University). Following the Islamic Revolution and nationwide university closures, he left engineering for the humanities. In 1981 he married Zahra Roodi; they have four children.Kadivar began theological studies at the Shiraz Seminary in October 1980 and transferred to the Qom Seminary in mid-1981. He completed his intermediate courses at the top of his class in 1988, then pursued advanced courses (dars-e kharej) in jurisprudence and its methodology under prominent Ayatollahs. His jurisprudential expertise stems from a decade of study under his most influential teacher, the late Ayatollah Shaykh Hossein-'Ali Montazeri (1922-2008). For sixteen years he also studied theology, philosophy, mysticism (Irfan), and Qur'anic exegesis under Ayatollah Shaykh Abdollah Javadi 'Amoli, who turbaned him in 1984. At thirty-nine, after seventeen years at Qom, he received his certificate of Ijtihad-the highest degree in Islamic religious tradition-from Ayatollah Montazeri.He earned his master's in Islamic studies and theology in 1993 and his Ph.D. in Islamic Philosophy and Theology from Tarbiat Modarres University in 1999, with a dissertation on the views of Agha 'Ali Modarres Tehrani.Kadivar taught at Qom Seminary from 1983 and later at Mofid University and several Tehran universities (1992-1998). From 1991 to 1998 he headed the Islamic Thought office at the Strategic Research Center in Tehran, overseeing seventy research projects. His publications include The Theories of the State in the Shi'ite Jurisprudence (1997) and Theocratic State (1998), a critique of Ayatollah Khomeini's velayat-e faqih.Since 1987, Kadivar has publicly questioned major policies of the Islamic Republic and opposed the 1989 constitutional revisions. From 1995 he faced escalating restrictions-including teaching bans-and in 1997 political pressures forced him to leave Qom. In 1998 the Guardian Council barred him from running for the Assembly of Leadership Experts. After condemning the 1998 "serial murders" of dissidents and criticizing the regime in a February 1998 interview, the Special Court of Clergy arrested him on February 17, 1999 and held him in Evin prison. Forty-seven days later, in a hearing without an impartial jury, he was sentenced to eighteen months for one speech and one interview; he was released on July 16, 2000. (He had first been arrested in May 1978 by SAVAK.) His defense was published as Price for Freedom (1999).In 2000 Kadivar became Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tarbiat Modarres University, permanent faculty in 2005 and department chair from 2004. Political pressure forced him out of his tenured post in 2006; in 2007 he was transferred to the Iranian Research Institute of Philosophy and his passport was confiscated. In 2008 he joined the University of Virginia and later Duke University as a visiting professor of religious studies. In June 2011 he was unlawfully dismissed from government service for publishing offensive articles against the regime, velayat-e faqih, and the Leader. He has lectured widely at universities across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.During the 2009 presidential election, Kadivar supported Mir-Hossein Mousavi and, after the disputed vote and suppression of protests, joined the Green Movement, serving on the policy-making council of the "Jaras" network (2009-2011). In a July 2010 address to the Assembly of Experts, he formally accused the Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, of tyranny, breaking the law, attempting to overthrow the Islamic Republic, and insulting Islam.Kadivar's central concerns are reform of Islamic thought and dialogue between tradition and modernity. A critic of theocracy and velayat-e faqih in all forms, he strives for justice, democracy, and secularism in Iran.