Truth About Islam

“Parallel, by Design”

How the Islamic Human-Rights Framework Protects States from Accountability

In December 2001, as diplomats and jurists gathered in Kuwait for the International Islamic Fiqh Academy’s 13th session, a short resolution did something quietly radical. It affirmed “human rights in Islam,” but then insisted that outside organizations must not “interfere” in matters governed by Sharia, and it proposed building a new human-rights center that would report to the Academy itself. Read plainly, it wasn’t a bill of rights for people. It was a bill of defenses for states.

This essay takes a hard look—no euphemisms, no hedge words—at how the modern “Islamic” human-rights architecture functions as a parallel system. It borrows the language of rights, mimics the institutional look and feel of global human-rights law, and sprinkles in universalist rhetoric. But its core design choices—a sweeping Sharia override clause, the elevation of duties over rights, and a sovereignty firewall—systematically reposition power: away from individuals and toward states and state-sanctioned jurists. The result is a legal-political technology that shields governments from external scrutiny while advertising compatibility with universal norms.

I’m not talking about Islam as a faith or Muslims as people. I’m analyzing a set of intergovernmental documents and institutions—above all the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) and the 2001 International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA) resolution “Human Rights in Islam,” and, more recently, the OIC’s 2020 OIC Declaration of Human Rights (ODHR). Their texts matter; their architecture matters even more.

I. The Mimic and the Trap

Start with the Cairo Declaration. Much of it sounds familiar if you know the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): dignity, the inviolability of life, fair trial, the ban on torture. Then come two “small print” articles that change everything:

Article 24: “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.”
Article 25: “The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.” HUQUQ | Human Rights in Context

That’s the trapdoor. Whatever right you think you have, it exists only within the four corners of Sharia as interpreted by the state’s chosen authorities. There’s no international court to standardize that interpretation; there’s no neutral forum to appeal to. The “rights” are not trumps against power; they’re permissions inside a system power already controls.

Contrast that with the UDHR’s anchor points:

Article 18: the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the freedom to change one’s religion or belief.
Article 19: the right to freedom of opinion and expression. UN Human Rights Office

These UDHR guarantees were crafted as individual shields against the state. The Cairo Declaration’s Articles 24–25 convert shields into state-managed privileges.

The IIFA’s 2001 resolution doubles down. It warns international human-rights organizations to “refrain from interfering” in any aspects of Muslims’ lives governed by Sharia and insists that sovereign states’ internal laws not be subjected to foreign regulations. It then announces an IIFA-affiliated “center for Human Rights.” Read functionally, that’s a jurisdictional firewall combined with a narrative engine—a way to keep outside monitors at bay while producing insider reports that can be cited in global forums. iifa-aifi.org

If this sounds like a smart lawyer’s way of re-writing Article 2(7) of the UN Charter—the non-intervention clause on domestic jurisdiction—into a blanket shield, that’s because it is. The Charter’s text is meant to be narrow; the IIFA’s use is totalizing whenever Sharia is invoked. Human Rights Library

II. The Design Choices That Move Power

1) The Blanket Reservation: “Subject to Sharia”

In treaty law, a state that ratifies a convention with a broad, catch-all reservation (“we agree, except where our domestic law says otherwise”) gets called out by UN bodies for gutting the instrument. The Cairo Declaration bakes that logic into the document itself. Articles 24–25 function as a permanent, comprehensive reservation. There is no supranational arbiter to say, “No, that interpretation is unreasonable.” And because “Sharia” is a plural tradition with divergent schools and methodologies, the state’s selection of interpreters becomes the decisive move. HUQUQ | Human Rights in Context

2) Duties over Rights

Both the Cairo Declaration and the IIFA resolution consistently foreground duties—to God, family, community—and only then speak of rights, which are framed as contingent upon those duties and communal values. That is a philosophical choice, not a neutral description. It reorients standing: individuals do not claim rights against the state; rather, the state arbitrates duties and tells you which “rights” you may exercise without violating them. The result is a permanent tilt toward authority.

3) The Sovereignty Firewall

The IIFA resolution’s admonition to global human-rights organizations—don’t interfere in what we deem “Sharia-governed”—is more than rhetoric. It’s an attempt to redefine the boundary of international concern. In practice, many of the hardest human-rights questions—religion, family law, expression, gender equality—are precisely those the resolution tries to relocate behind the firewall. And when those questions are fenced off, accountability is, too. iifa-aifi.org

4) Institutional Substitution

By proposing an IIFA-linked “human-rights center,” the 2001 resolution lays the groundwork for institutional substitution: alternative reporting, alternative indicators, alternative interpretations—produced within the same ideological frame that limits rights to begin with. This is not pluralism; it’s a closed informational loop.

III. Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Three Stress Tests

Abstract architecture becomes legible when you test it against real rights. Three areas show how the parallel system operates: freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and equality in family law.

A. Freedom of Religion (and the Right to Exit)

Under the UDHR, the right to change one’s religion is explicit and non-negotiable (Article 18). UN Human Rights Office
Under the Cairo framework, that same right is “subject to the Islamic Shari’ah” (Article 24), and Sharia is the “only source” for interpreting the Declaration (Article 25). In the speech-heavy preamble, this does not sound alarming; in application, it’s decisive. In several OIC states, apostasy and blasphemy are criminalized, sometimes with the death penalty.

A 2023 USCIRF fact sheet identifies Iran and Saudi Arabia among states where apostasy is punishable by death in law or practice, and notes severe penalties for blasphemy across the region. Wikipedia
In Pakistan, Section 295-C of the Penal Code mandates death or life imprisonment for “derogatory remarks” about the Prophet—an offense used to prosecute speech and belief, with a long, well-documented record of abuse and vigilante violence.

Defenders sometimes reply: “That’s not the Cairo Declaration’s fault; that’s domestic law.” But that’s precisely the point. The Cairo architecture outsources the scope of rights to domestic Sharia determinations and then demands that outsiders not “interfere” with those determinations. The system is doing exactly what it was designed to do: validate state choices ex ante and deter external accountability ex post. HUQUQ | Human Rights in Contextiifa-aifi.org

B. Freedom of Expression (and the “Sanctities” Clause)

Again, the UDHR’s baseline is clear: the right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers (Article 19). UN Human Rights Office

By contrast, the Cairo Declaration’s Article 22 recognizes expression—then immediately narrows it: expression may not violate the “sanctities” and dignity of prophets; it may not “undermine moral and ethical values” or “weaken [society’s] faith.” That’s an ideological veto written into the text. In systems where “sanctity,” “morality,” and “faith” are defined by state-approved clerics, expressive freedom is limited by design. HUQUQ | Human Rights in Context

You can see the line from text to practice. Laws against “insulting religion” and “blasphemy” become natural extensions of Article 22’s limits; prosecutions follow. The Cairo framework’s brilliance—if you’re a state seeking leverage—is that it lets you say you “protect free expression” while pre-legitimizing the categories of speech you most want to suppress.

C. Equality in the Family (and the Non-Negotiable Core)

The UDHR treats equal rights at marriage, during marriage, and at its dissolution (Article 16) as a baseline. UN Human Rights Office

Islamic family law traditions, by contrast, contain non-trivial asymmetries that are theologically anchored and widely codified: permissible polygyny (up to four wives), interfaith marriage constraints (Muslim men may marry certain non-Muslim women; Muslim women generally may not marry non-Muslim men), and gendered inheritance rules (sons receiving a larger share than daughters). These positions are rooted in classical jurisprudence and, for many jurists, in scripture (e.g., Qur’an 4:3 on polygyny; 4:11 on inheritance).

Modern Muslim-majority states vary in how they handle these issues, but the architecture of the Cairo Declaration means reformers pushing toward UDHR-style equality are running uphill: the Declaration itself can be—and regularly is—invoked to say that equality claims beyond Sharia’s settled boundaries are category errors. When you place that logic behind the IIFA’s sovereignty firewall, you’ve engineered a double bind.

IV. The 2001 IIFA Resolution: The Firewall, Codified

Let’s return to Kuwait, December 2001. The IIFA resolution locates “human rights in Islam” in divine honor, ties the core of rights to the “five essentials” Sharia preserves (life, religion, property, intellect, honor/lineage), and then lays out two decisive planks:

No interference: international organizations must refrain from intruding into Sharia-governed aspects of Muslim life; imposing alien norms is out of bounds; internal laws of sovereign states supersede foreign conventions.
Institutional build-out: establish a human-rights center reporting to the Academy to develop the agenda. iifa-aifi.org

If you strip the pious phrasing, what’s left is jurisdictional control and narrative control. The human-rights conversation is allowed, even encouraged, provided it sits inside the interpretive circle the Academy draws and is insulated from external review. That is the essence of a parallel system.

V. “We Updated the Declaration”: The 2020 ODHR

In 2020, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation approved a new OIC Declaration of Human Rights (ODHR), billed by supporters as an improvement on the Cairo text. Some of the most jarring formulations are softened; the document is more polished. But the gravitational pull remains. The ODHR still situates rights within an explicitly Islamic moral universe and, in substance, preserves the interpretive primacy of Islamic law and values over competing claims of universality. That is, it renovates the façade, not the foundations. pssr.org.pkoic-oci.org

If you’re looking for a smoking gun—a sentence as blunt as Cairo’s Article 25—you may not find it in the same form. What you will find is that the ODHR does not create an external adjudicator, does not displace Sharia-bounded interpretation, and does not commit OIC states to UDHR-style justiciable obligations. The architecture—parallel, inward-facing, sovereignty-deferential—survives.

VI. How the Parallel System Works in Practice

A. Reframing Universality as Cultural Imperialism

When monitors press on religion, expression, or gender equality, officials can appeal to the IIFA resolution and Cairo/ODHR texts to say: you are imposing foreign values on a civilization with its own comprehensive legal-moral system. Because the documents weave together theological claims with legal architecture, objecting to the legal design is reframed as an attack on faith itself. The result is to chill external accountability and raise the political cost of internal dissent. iifa-aifi.org

B. Ex Ante Validation, Ex Post Immunity

Before a rights claim even arises, the Sharia-override clauses validate a narrower band of rights. After a violation is alleged, the sovereignty firewall and institutional substitutions provide immunity from the most consequential forms of scrutiny: independent tribunals, treaty bodies with teeth, and transnational advocacy that relies on universal standards. That’s not an accident; it’s the point. HUQUQ | Human Rights in Contextiifa-aifi.org

C. Selective Convergence, Strategic Divergence

On issues where domestic practice already aligns with broad human-rights expectations (ban on torture, due process, social welfare aspirations), the documents converge with UDHR language. On the most politically sensitive issues—religious exit, blasphemy, family equality, sexual autonomy, minority worship—the documents diverge and then declare that divergence off-limits to outside critique. That is a calibrated strategy.

Consider public worship and minority rights: Saudi Arabia, for example, has long restricted public non-Muslim worship and proselytization; independent monitors consistently document severe limits on religious freedom. The Cairo/IIFA architecture gives doctrinal cover and a sovereignty argument to keep it that way. ResearchGate
Consider speech: when a journalist, activist, or artist is prosecuted for “insulting religion” or “undermining moral values,” the state can cite Cairo Article 22’s “sanctities” clause as a domestic mirror of its international stance. That is, again, by design. HUQUQ | Human Rights in Context

VII. “But Isn’t This Just Cultural Relativism?” (No—It’s Power Design)

There’s a serious debate about universality and culture. But the Islamic human-rights architecture under review goes beyond pluralism. It is a power-design that:

Centralizes interpretive authority in state-approved jurists;
Removes the most contested rights claims from external venues;
Pre-authorizes ideological limits on speech and belief; and
Institutionalizes the state’s narrative through insider “rights centers.”

Cultural relativism is a theory about values. This is a political strategy about who gets to decide which values stick—and who gets to judge when the state deviates.

VIII. The Human Cost of Architecture

It’s easy to get lost in documents. So spell out the stakes.

A woman who wishes to marry a non-Muslim man in a jurisdiction that prohibits it, or who seeks equal inheritance with her brothers, is not just facing “culture.” She is facing a textual apparatus that has already declared her claim out of bounds, and an international framework designed to keep monitors away.
A convert from Islam who seeks recognition of his right to change religion under UDHR Article 18 finds that, in the parallel system, his “right” is conditional—and in some states, his speech or beliefs trigger criminal prosecution. When outside observers object, the firewall comes up: don’t interfere in Sharia-governed matters. UN Human Rights OfficeWikipediaiifa-aifi.org
A writer who questions clerical authority or satirizes sacred figures is told that free expression exists—so long as it does not “violate sanctities.” The category of “violate” is defined by the very authorities his critique targets. That’s not a right; it’s a license. HUQUQ | Human Rights in Context

These are not hypotheticals; they are the routine collision points between citizens and the architecture of parallel rights.

IX. A Note on Theology vs. State Power

Some will say: “You are criticizing Islam.” No. I’m criticizing how states and intergovernmental bodies have engineered a rights architecture around Sharia that maximizes state discretion and minimizes external accountability. Inside the Muslim intellectual tradition there are rich, reformist currents—maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (objectives of the law), modernist usūl work, rights-forward readings—that seek to reconcile Islamic ethics with universal human rights. The problem is that the parallel system actively disempowers those currents in law and policy by locking interpretation to state-approved authorities and demanding non-interference from outside.

X. What Would Real Convergence Require?

If the goal were genuine alignment with universal human rights—still leaving ample room for religious life and local tradition—three structural changes would be non-negotiable:

Remove the Blanket Override. Articles that make all rights “subject to Sharia,” and that make Sharia the “only source” of interpretation, are incompatible with rights as constraints on power. A revised text would have to guarantee core UDHR rights as rights, not as permissions—especially religious freedom (including exit), expression, and equality at and within marriage. HUQUQ | Human Rights in ContextUN Human Rights Office
Create External Review. If OIC states want their own human-rights declaration, fine—but then submit to an independent adjudicatory mechanism with authority to interpret those rights in line with international standards, or else accept the jurisdiction of existing UN treaty bodies without “Sharia reservations” that swallow the rule.
Decouple the Sovereignty Firewall. The IIFA’s instruction to rights organizations to stay out of “Sharia-governed” domains is a poison pill. A system that insulates itself from scrutiny is by definition unaccountable. The firewall has to go. iifa-aifi.org

Short of those steps, changes are mostly cosmetic—as the 2020 ODHR shows. The façade can be modernized; the core remains a state-protective machine. pssr.org.pkoic-oci.org

XI. The Honest Conclusion

The Islamic human-rights architecture that took shape in 1990 and was fortified in 2001 is not a neutral alternative to the UDHR. It is a parallel, state-centric system that redefines rights as conditional, locks interpretation to state-approved Sharia, and erects a sovereignty shield against external oversight. Its texts speak the language of dignity and justice; its design reallocates power—from persons to states, from citizens to clerics who answer to states, from universal monitors to insider institutions.

You don’t need to guess at intent. The key provisions are explicit:

“All the rights and freedoms…are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.”
“The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference.”
“Refrain from interfering” in Sharia-governed domains; sovereign laws supersede foreign conventions. HUQUQ | Human Rights in Contextiifa-aifi.org

That is not a charter of emancipation. It is a blueprint for immunity.

If we care about people, not just states, we have to say this clearly. A rights system that places the most vital liberties behind an ideological and jurisdictional firewall is not a rights system. It’s a control system—with the trappings of human-rights language to make it palatable in international halls. Call it what it is. Then decide whether that’s the future you want human rights to have.

Citations (key sources)

Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (1990), esp. Articles 22, 24–25. HUQUQ | Human Rights in Context
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), esp. Articles 16, 18–19. UN Human Rights Office
International Islamic Fiqh Academy Resolution “Human Rights in Islam” (2001), sovereignty and non-interference clauses; plan for an IIFA human-rights center. iifa-aifi.org
UN Charter Article 2(7) (domestic jurisdiction/non-intervention). Human Rights Library
OIC OIC Declaration of Human Rights (2020) and analysis of continuity with Cairo’s architecture. pssr.org.pkoic-oci.org
Apostasy/blasphemy context: USCIRF fact sheet on apostasy and blasphemy laws; Pakistan Penal Code §295-C analysis. Wikipedia
Country practice examples (religious freedom): USCIRF country reporting on Saudi Arabia. ResearchGate
Scriptural anchors frequently invoked in family-law asymmetries: Qur’an 4:3 (polygyny), 4:11 (inheritance).

(This critique targets institutions and legal architecture—not a faith community. People deserve rights that limit power. Any system that rewrites those rights into permissions—and then forbids outsiders from asking questions—serves power first.)