In June 2005, the Islamic Human Rights Commission and NEDA convened a conference of academics, theologians and practitioners entitled ‘Towards a New Liberation Theology: Reflections on Palestine’ the papers submitted for which form the content of this book. The conference was intended to be the first in a series of events and books exploring the relationship between the practical experiences of those living through events in various world flashpoints, their faith affiliations and aspirations and the possibilities of effecting justice through their goals rather than the imposition of ‘peace’ at any price and without any relevance to those it would most affect. Put more simply, this is an exercise in realizing the potential that religion has in resolving conflicts that have been irresolvable through secular initiatives.
1This is the second part of a paper (read Part One here) presented by ARZU MERALI at the Islamic Human Rights Commission’s one-day conference on ‘Islamic and Western Perceptions of Human Rights’ in London on September 12, 2003. In the first part of the paper, published in the October 2003 issue of Crescent, she provided a detailed critique of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Western assumptions of universality underpinning it. In this concluding section, she discusses the Islamic attitude to human rights.
1The Islamic Human Rights Commission held a one-day conference on ‘Islamic and Western Percentions of Human Rights’ in London on September 12, 2003, in cooperation with the Islamic College for Advanced Studies and other bodies. This is the first part of the presentation to the conference by ARZU MERALI of the IHRC. The remainder will be published in the next issue.
