Allameh Ja'fari and the Islamic Human Rights Issue

In the last decades, human rights have become a very sensitive topic. Elements of human rights can be traced back to ancient sources, however, there is no doubt that the current concept is the products of fairly recent intellectual and philosophical endeavors. For many years now, Muslims have been making the case for Islamic human rights, seeking the recognition of an equal status to the western human rights. Among preeminent scholars in Islamic society who have argued for Islamic human rights, there is Allameh Ja'fari (1923-1998), who published some insightful works in 1982, as well as Javad Amuli (1933-…). In the present article, we survey and analyze the work of Allameh Ja'fari, focusing on the following points: 1. A recognition of the effort and precision of Allameh Ja'fari's work. 2. An assessment of his proposed definition of elements of Islamic human rights as well as his comparison with western human rights. 3. His suggestions as to how one should react and interact with the issue of human rights: a) What should be the foundation of human rights and how to reflect on the rights of various religions according to it. b) An emphasis on the pragmatic aspect of Islamic human rights, that is how and by which means these rights should be applied, rather than spending a huge amount of time on marginal issues, and seeking difficult to reach ideals