Human Rights and Religious Education through Islamic Legal Theory

Abstract

The notion of human rights in Islamic legal theory is closely associated with the theory of rights in relation to the idea of natural law. For example, the right to life starts from the right of human beings to exist, and thus it emanates from the creation of human beings by God. The theory of creation encoding the right to life in the context of natural law, leads to the presumed right to education for minors that is connected to parental care and custodianship, entailing interactive human rights and responsibilities. The term fitra stands for the balance between the rights of minors to education and responsibility of parents or those holding custodianship to safeguard the continuity of naturality, while educating or providing educational services to minors. The key criterion of the standard for preserving the continuity of fitra is the principle of best interest, which limits the use of power in decision making by the custodian only to the best interest of minors, thus, minimizing – if not totally eliminating – the abuse of power in the context of education in order to provide maximum attention to human rights in the process of education. This chapter discusses human rights and religious education in Islamic legal theory in relation to issues of natural law, human persons, principles of best interest, custodianship and religious education with relevant references to Islamic religio-legal rulings and differing juristic discretions.