Demands Abroad, Denials at Home: Islam, Rights, and the Double Standard

Introduction: Equal Rights—But Only When Muslims Are the Minority?

Muslim minorities living in secular democracies frequently advocate for unrestricted civil rights: freedom of worship, freedom of expression, protection from religious discrimination, access to education and jobs, and even accommodations for Islamic dress codes, dietary laws, or prayer rituals in public spaces.

But a glaring question arises:
Do Muslim-majority societies offer the same rights to their religious minorities or secular citizens?

The answer, as seen across much of the Islamic world, is an emphatic no. In fact, non-Muslims often face systemic legal discrimination, ranging from social marginalization to second-class legal status, to outright persecution.

This contradiction is not just political—it is deeply theological and legal. It reflects a long-standing asymmetry in Islamic legal theory, where Muslim supremacy is encoded into law, while equality is embraced only tactically in non-Muslim lands.

1. 📜 When in Rome: Muslim Appeals to Western Rights

Muslims in Europe, North America, and other secular countries frequently advocate for:

Religious Freedom: Building mosques, wearing hijab/niqab, broadcasting the adhān (call to prayer).
Legal Accommodation: Access to sharīʿa arbitration for family law or inheritance.
Speech Protection: Defending Islam against criticism or “Islamophobia.”
Cultural Rights: Halal food in prisons and schools, prayer spaces at universities or workplaces.

These demands are often framed within the very liberal tradition that upholds individual rights, pluralism, and secular governance—principles that are not derived from Islamic law, but rather from Enlightenment liberalism and secular democratic theory.

Yet, in many Muslim-majority countries, non-Muslims cannot expect reciprocal treatment.

2. ⚖️ The Reality for Non-Muslims in Muslim Lands

In states governed by classical Islamic legal norms, non-Muslims (or even secular Muslims) face severe restrictions:

Religious minorities may be denied the right to build places of worship (e.g., Saudi Arabia), proselytize (e.g., Egypt), or publicly display religious symbols.
Apostasy and blasphemy laws criminalize religious conversion or criticism of Islam (e.g., Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan).
Ahmadi Muslims, deemed heretical by mainstream Islamic authorities, are legally persecuted in countries like Pakistan, where they cannot even call themselves Muslim.
Legal discrimination persists through dhimmī laws, such as unequal testimony, inheritance, or tax obligations.

Even where such laws are not enforced in full, they remain ideologically present, tolerated, or reinterpreted rather than repudiated.

This reveals a fundamental asymmetry: Islam often expects deference and protection in secular contexts, while refusing to grant it in Islamic contexts.

3. 🧠 The Theological Basis: Islam’s Asymmetrical Worldview

At the heart of this double standard is Islamic legal-theological asymmetry:

Principle	When Muslims are a Majority	When Muslims are a Minority
Religious Freedom	Islam must dominate; other faiths are tolerated at best	Muslims must be free to practice without limits
Legal Equality	Sharīʿa governs all; non-Muslims are subordinate	Full legal parity is demanded
Proselytism	Islam may be spread; conversion out is punished	Muslims must be free to preach and convert others
Blasphemy and Criticism	Criticism of Islam is punishable	Criticism of Islam must be outlawed ("Islamophobia")
Pluralism	Islam is the truth; tolerance has limits	Pluralism is invoked as a right

This is not a bug—it is a feature of classical Islamic jurisprudence, where the ummah (Muslim community) is the intended sovereign, and sharīʿa is seen as the divinely mandated framework that all should ultimately submit to.

When Muslims are in power, Islam must reign; when Muslims are not, they appeal to the very freedoms their theology does not reciprocate.

4. 🤐 The Weaponization of Rights Discourse

When living in secular democracies, Muslims often deploy liberal values as strategic tools:

Freedom of speech is used to shield Islam from criticism (labeling it “hate speech”), while classical Islam condemns and punishes any critique of its tenets.
Religious freedom is invoked to establish sharīʿa-based arbitration courts or religious schools—rights not granted to non-Muslims in many Islamic states.
Anti-discrimination laws are used to push for Islamic dress codes in public institutions, while non-Muslim symbols are banned in many Muslim lands.
Tolerance is demanded in the name of “diversity,” even though Islam defines tolerance as subordination under Islamic supremacy, not equality.

This dynamic represents not just inconsistency—it reflects a calculated inversion of liberalism: exploit its protections while rejecting its core principles.

5. 📚 Historical Roots: Dhimmitude and Treaty Ethics

Historically, Islamic jurisprudence divided the world into Dār al-Islām (Abode of Islam) and Dār al-Ḥarb (Abode of War). Non-Muslims within Islamic lands became dhimmīs (protected subjects), who were:

Required to pay a tax (jizya)
Forbidden from building new churches or proselytizing
Subject to social and legal subordination

This “tolerance” was conditional—a contract of subjugation, not equality.

By contrast, in non-Muslim lands, classical Islam viewed Muslims as temporary residents under treaty (ʿahd) or in a state of strategic daʿwa (invitation), until Islam could be established.

Thus, reciprocal equality was never a theological objective. Rights for Muslims in the West are not framed as mutual respect but as divinely sanctioned necessity until Islamic dominance is possible.

6. 🧠 Islamists Know the Game—and Play It Well

Islamist thinkers have explicitly articulated this double discourse:

Yusuf al-Qaradawi stated that Islam permits temporary acceptance of democracy until the Islamic state can be restored.
Sayyid Qutb argued that rights in non-Muslim lands are useful insofar as they allow Islamic propagation—but should never legitimize secularism.
Hizb ut-Tahrir openly uses Western legal protections to preach the overthrow of secular governments and the reestablishment of the caliphate.

This is not mere hypocrisy. It is a tactical deployment of Western values to undermine them from within, while reinforcing Islamic supremacy from without.

7. 🔍 The Moral and Philosophical Double Standard

The crux of the issue lies in moral coherence.

Liberalism rests on reciprocal universality: rights apply to everyone, regardless of religion or identity.
Islamic legal theology, in its classical form, does not.

Muslims advocating for rights in the West often do so sincerely—but they may be unaware that their own tradition, when in power, does not extend the same courtesy to others.

This is not just a political problem—it’s a philosophical contradiction.

Either:

Islam must reform its foundational political theology, rejecting sharīʿa supremacy and embracing true pluralism and equality,

Muslim demands for equality abroad must be recognized as incoherent if they are not reciprocally extended to non-Muslims in Muslim lands.

Conclusion: Rights Must Be Universal—Or They Are Just Tools

If Muslims invoke secular rights for themselves in non-Muslim lands, then moral consistency demands that they affirm those same rights for everyone—including apostates, secularists, LGBTQ+ individuals, and non-Muslim minorities in Muslim lands.

But as long as Islamic legal theory upholds a supremacy model, this will not happen.

Until the theological engine of Islamic exceptionalism is dismantled or transformed, the double standard will persist—not just in politics, but in the moral logic of Islamic law itself.

Truth About Islam

Thursday, 22 May 2025