Introduction

Global human rights standards are predominantly assumed to have been established without any earnest contribution by the Muslim States, alongside the Middle Eastern states. This, however, is not the case in a real sense. The input of the Muslim diplomats in conjunction with the Arabic diplomats has been documented by the United Nations from 1946 to 1966. Muslim diplomats have contributed to the assertion of culturally cautious language appertaining to their beliefs, promotion of gender impartiality, self-autonomy as well as in-depth statement of universality. Their affiliation in human rights can neither be fabricated nor abated. The contribution of the Muslim states in human rights has been emphasized below in parts.

Early Influencers

“Human rights” in Arabic is termed as huqūq al-insān and has come into everyday use in recent times. Human rights in Turkish  is termed as insan haklari hak asasi anusia in Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian), and huqūq-i insān in Persian.  Philosophy and theology in the Islamic world have the same ideas as those of human rights. The human rights however contrast since it did not have the exact equivalence in the fiqh or antique jurisprudence. A category in fiqh applies to the rights of the individual Muslim, named ḥaqq al-ʿabd (Kamak, 1993). This term was relied on to differentiate between the cases, which contained any legal actions, particularly against an offender and the judgment was left upon the one offended.

Under the general sharīʿah law, a rulers obligation was to comply with this law, and for their followers, to comply with the orders of the rulers, unless such orders amount to a sin (Shaheed, 2010). Such institutions which made rulers accountable thus put restrictions on their subordinates were not promoted, and generally, any rebellion was seen as an antidote for such authoritarianism.  Muslim political leaders in cooperation with the intellectuals started adopting the European constitutionalism principles, during the 19th century to solve the problem connected to the protection of rights and freedoms of the people.

Additionally, in the posterior half of the 20th century, in spite of the ongoing breaching of the UN Security Council resolutions, the western support for Israel including some dictatorial Muslim and Arab regimes looked for different standards to debate on human rights claims (Weiss, 2015). During the French Revolution, The French legal principles and concepts had the most potent impact on Muslims’ ideas.

Concepts relating to modern human rights were incorporated into the 1791 French Constitution, the 1789 Declaration des Droits de l ’Homme et du Citoyen, along with the concepts of public liberties (Mayer, 2006). Some diplomats, writers, and scholars from the Muslim countries, of the 19th century, played critical roles in the dissemination of the European ideas relating to constitutionalism and public liberties. These included: Shaykh Rifāʿah Rāfiʿ al-Ṭahṭāwī, Mīrzā Malkom Khān, and Namık Kemal

Human Rights Movements

The non-governmental organizations and the independent ones which were founded to protect human rights were at the forefront in leading crusades to enhance advancement towards recognition of human rights in the Muslim nations. The earliest Muslim human rights organization in the Spanish was formulated by the Moroccans who controlled enclave of Tetouan, in December 1993. This organization was treated as the Spanish human rights association associate. (Hashemi, Nader & Qureshi, 2016).

A human rights group namely, The Iranian Committee for the Defense of Freedom and Human Rights was developed through the participation of various religious figures (Chehabi, 1990). It had an Islamic affiliation and the organization aimed at accomplishing democratization alongside ensuring that all sorts of mistreatment as a result of political trials were gotten rid of.

Mehdi Bāzargān (1907–1995), was the chief proponent of this organization and was perceived to be a strong supporter of the Islamic liberalism. He subsequently became the first prime minister of Iran, after the Islamic Revolution. Along with his supporters, he, later on, broke off with Ayatollah Khomeini, who was the leader of the Islamic revolution of 1979, on issues linked to human rights violation, as well as democracy, after the convulsive attack of the embassy of the United States in Tehran (Bazargan, 2016).

The Muslim States and International Human-Rights Law

The attainment of the contemporary international formulations of human rights occurred during the aftermath of the Second World War, Standards which 4rwere later entailed into the comprehensive communal legislation were set after this acquisition. The 1945 Charter of the United Nations particularly demands the respect of human rights as well as a fundamental freedom. The Muslim countries and  their representatives according to  the current scholarships have been exhibited   for  taking an active participation in the establishment as well as the negotiations of the UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights), covenants of ICESCR (International Covenant on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights) and ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) (Brown, 2008).

Some of these organizations have been very, unlike others. The representatives of both Lebanon (Charles Malik), alongside with that of  Egypt (Omar Loutfi) took part in the discussions on the UDHR. Malik participated more since he was in these discussions from the very beginning (Schabas, 2013).

The Muslim had diverse opinions which were a clear reflection of the interests of the individuals and the nation at large. Muhammad Zafaruʿllah Khān, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, actively fought for the freedom of religion (Hussain, 2016). Saudi Arabia had however desired to skip over the phrase, which dealt with the liberty of changing the faith of a person, from Article 18, this motion of Saudi Arabia was disapproved by both the delegates of India (Mohammed Habib) and those of Pakistan (Zafruʿllah Khān).

The General Assembly in 1948 approved The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and its different aspects attracted major reproval from all the Muslim representatives. Saudi Arabia was the core country, which opposed the traversal of these rights (Schabas, 2013). The readiness of the Muslim nations was in a significant way different; concerning the enactment of the human rights conventions after the UN, sponsorship was drafted.

The Muslims often lamented that the different standards of international rights had western bias, and this hindered the acceptance of these rights in the Muslim surroundings. In terms of the agreement of the Islamic law with the international rights norms, it was often purported that the base of conflict was a major element of civil as well as political rights. Many issues about the compatibility of Islam with the cultural, economic and social rights were often raised. Principles related to freedom of religion, especially the right of conversion of religion from Islam to any other faith, along with the policy of full quality of every person in spite of the religion or sex of such person (Mays, 2015) brought about significant challenges.