Individual and Society
Individual and Society
Claims and Responsibilities
This chapter takes up the question of group rights, which is one of the four areas of contemporary international controversy over internationally recognized human rights. The concept of human rights challenges the ideal of community that sees individuals, rights, and other social options as defined by group membership. Secularism sees society as transcending community in the way the universal transcends the particular. Although community has imperceptible historical roots extending back to antiquity, it is not a rational construct. The essential feature of communities is that one's presence in them is not a matter of choice; that is, one does not decide at a particular time to join such a community, even hypothetically. Human relationships in such communities are constituted more along the lines of status than contract, status inevitably being a matter of kinship. Societies, in contrast, are rational constructs that transcend the particularistic dimension of communities constituted by revelation. Subordination of community to society has been regarded as an indispensable facet of democratic governance, which is based on inclusive and equal membership of all citizens regardless of their religious affiliation in their respective faith communities. This sociological distinction between a community and a society does not fully resonate with the Islamic paradigm of a religious‐political society with a cosmic dimension that can be contrasted and compared with the secular model on the one hand, and the traditional religious community on the other. The essential feature of Muslim community is that although it is based on religious affiliation derived from revelation, it functions as a comprehensive political society, presupposing the natural and legally constructed entitlements of those who live under its domination. Such a view is in direct conflict with the human rights norms that attach fundamentality to individual existence without any reference to extraneous conditions.
Keywords: group rights, community, autonomy, self, individual, traditional societies, family, female genital mutilation, headscarf, honor killing, secularity
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
