Rethinking Issues in Islam by Asghar Ali Engineer

Author:Asghar Ali Engineer
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9788125046271
Publisher: Orient Longman
Published: 1998-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

The concept of human rights differs from one historical era to another. In the feudal era though there was a notion of human freedom it was different from ours. Nor was there a concept of human rights such as we have today. For feudal society, the central values was 'loyalty'. If one was not loyal to one's master — including one's theological master — one was not ture to one's salt. Human behaviour in feudal times was circumscribed by one's loyalty to one's master. Any deviation from this norm attracted sharp condemnation. It was construed as rebellion, not as a mere difference of opinion, as we would term it today.

The central value of our post-fedual — industrial and modern — era is freedom of thought and action, this is also called freedom of conscience. Many other behavioural values, including the value of loyalty, are subordinated to this value. Ideally, freedom of conscience cannot be compromised on today, just as one could not compromise on one's loyalty to one's master in the bygone era. It is the very spirit of the modern era. Similarly in the feudal era one had to be rigid about observing traditions. Modernisation, on the other hand, builds itself on the ruins of these traditions. The project of modernisations would not have succeeded without attacking the traditions. And traditions could not have been attacked without upholding freedom of conscience. Thus freedom of conscience became very central to the industrial era. In the post-modern period, traditions have regained some of their sanctity but freedom of conscience has not been displaced and modernist values as freedom of conscience. Thus various traditions, past and present, can coexist harmoniously in this post-modern era.

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