Secularism vs. Islam; Organization of Islamic Countries' Cairo Declaration and its hypocrisy.

Beginning in the 19th century and in to the 20th century, one political concept that has become dominant theme and has been accepted universally is notion of human rights. Other two significant political concepts are secularism and equality of all human beings.

It is possible that all these three political concepts can be conflated in to any one of three mentioned political concepts, one might think. But the 20th century has witnessed a cold war, a clash between democratic (mostly called as free world) countries and communist nations. Communist nations have believed in and acted on the principle of equality of all human beings but have rejected the notion of human rights and communism was part of history. This should tell how important this concept of human rights is; of course we call this freedom.

The concept of human rights became a part of UN constitution in the year 1948; this is, today, popularly known as UN human rights declaration. This is not a binding declaration on all member countries to be adopted but many countries do adopt or at least their constitutions are close to this declaration, esp. all western nations, Japan, South Korea, India and many other nations in South America and Africa.

However, one group of nations, whose basis for formation is religion of Islam, of Muslim majority nations, i.e. Organization of Islamic Countries,  has declared that they do not accept  humans rights as in UN human rights declaration, because they are a product of western civilization (to an extent, they are right); instead their view, thus their laws, on human rights will be based on Sharia (Islamic law; this link will take you to post explaining how Sharia treats Non Muslims; I strongly recommend people to read about what Sharia says regarding Non Muslims and Muslims who leave Islam to another religion; then it becomes easy to understand this post.); this declaration took place in Cairo, declaration called ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam’ (One can read the entire charter of OIC from the link.), in the year1990.

Firstly, UN declaration on human rights does not mention any name of religion and stresses that all humans are equal and recognizes that every individual is free to choose and practice his religion (article 18). Now, let’s see the Cairo declaration; one can see that it is a cleverly worded document; while one can not see any confusion in UN charter but every thing in Cairo Declaration, is what I call any thing but straight.

Preamble of Cairo declaration starts with a reference to Koranic verse (3:110 but 2:143 also says the same thing, see the note (1) below.) which tells that Muslims are the best people and are chosen ones by Allah, only God according to Islam, to lead the humanity and to make his law based on Koran supreme on this earth. Most of the Cairo declaration is empty in universal values and it consistently upholds Sharia law; if some one has doubts regarding this declaration while reading then, at the end of declaration it reaffirms that every thing stated in declaration is subject to Sharia and it will be the only source for legislation. Cairo Declaration states:

Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which Allah made as the best community (since Muslims are best, then Non Muslims, by default, are the worst and inferior; so difficult to hide supremacist beliefs of Islam from infidels, I guess.) and which gave humanity a universal and well-balanced civilization........... to fulfill the expectations from this community to guide all humanity (i.e. to rule entire mankind.) which is confused because of different and conflicting beliefs and ideologies and to provide solutions for all chronic problems of this materialistic civilization.

In contribution to the efforts of mankind to assert human rights, to protect man from exploitation and persecution, and to affirm his freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah.

Believing that fundamental rights and freedoms according to Islam are an integral part of the Islamic religion and that no one shall have the right as a matter of principle to abolish them either in whole or in part or to violate or ignore them in as much as they are binding divine commands, which are contained in the Revealed Books of Allah and which were sent through the last of His Prophets to complete the preceding divine messages and that safeguarding those fundamental rights and freedoms is an act of worship whereas the neglect or violation thereof is an abominable sin, and that the safeguarding of those fundamental rights and freedom is an individual responsibility of every person and a collective responsibility of the entire Ummah;

Do hereby and on the basis of the above-mentioned principles declare as follows:

ARTICLE 1: (a) All human beings form one family whose members are united by their subordination to Allah and descent from Adam. All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrimination on the basis of race, colour, language, belief, sex, religion, political affiliation, social status or other considerations. The true religion is the guarantee for enhancing such dignity along the path to human integrity. (do not worry; this is meant to fool people. Please do go through the articles 24 and 25 which simply abrogate what is written here.)

(b) All human beings are Allah's subjects, and the most loved by Him are those who are most beneficial to His subjects, and no one has superiority over another except on the basis of piety and good deeds.

ARTICLE 2: (a) Life is a God-given gift and the right to life is guaranteed to every human being. It is the duty of individuals, societies and states to safeguard this right against any violation, and it is prohibited to take away life except for a shari'ah prescribed reason (It means those who leave Islam are put to death; those who criticize Islam are put to death; Any Non Muslim male marrying a Muslim girl is put to death; the list goes on and on.).

...............

(d) Safety from bodily harm is a guaranteed right. It is the duty of the state to safeguard it, and it is prohibited to breach it without a Shari'ah-prescribed reason.

............

ARTICLE 19: (d) There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Shari'ah.

ARTICLE 22: (a) Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari'ah.

(b)Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Sharia.

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.

This whole thing is about emphasizing Sharia and rejecting UN charter thus rejecting equality of Muslims and Non Muslims. In Sharia, discrimination against Non Muslims, in every aspect of life, is made lawful and upheld as part of devotion and obedience to Allah. Islam as a totalitarian religion (and as fascist political ideology) does not even accept its votaries rejecting and leaving Islam and it is only this way it can survive.

Any one who has read Sharia law on Non Muslims can easily see that Islam lacks conscience. Non Muslims find it hard to believe about lack of conscience in Islam; but Muslims do not think in terms of conscience, like what is right and what is wrong based on universal ethics and moral values. Their line of reasoning and logic is completely different from the way Non Muslims do. They think only in terms of what Koran says; if Koran says something, there is nothing wrong in it and it is accepted with out questioning as they believe every word of Koran to be a word of God and God can not be wrong; so if there is going to be discrimination then there is reason behind it, Muslims believe. When Koran tells them to hate and reject Non Muslims they do it obediently.

When I write about Islam, many people reject what I say and write in this blog; and they tend to think that what I write here is view of few Islamic extremists, not actual main line Islamic teachings and philosophy that exist in Koran; they also tend to think that all faiths are same.

But OIC is not formed by some few extremists like Al-Qaeda was. It is a 57 member organization, consisting of all Islamic nations; and they represent the entire Muslim Ummah (brotherhood) and all Islamic governments are consulted on each and every issue; 85-90% of Muslims live in these countries. Its annual meetings are attended by, at times, officials from countries like USA, Russia, China and even India.

Its (OIC) upholding of Sharia law is not a view of few Muslims who misunderstood Koran and misinterpret Koran. If their views are contradicting what I write here, then they should be opposing Sharia law instead of upholding. But we have not seen any criticism or any refusal of Sharia Law, in whole or in part, in the entire Cairo Declaration. They upheld Sharia law because they knew that it is derived from Koran and example of Mohammad. In effect, Sharia law is main line Islamic thinking.

Dogmatic apartheid that exists in Sharia towards Non Muslims directly contradicts universalism and secularism of UN charter on human rights; it contradicts every constitution of all nations of free world including India which guarantee freedom of religion and right to criticize. Another aspect of Sharia law is that it can not be changed, questioned and criticized because it is God’s law.

Now, is opposing this kind of law, Sharia, a criminal act? Is opposing this Sharia amounts to spreading hatred about Islam and Muslims? Is it criminally wrong to spread the awareness of real nature of this Islamic law to all people? Organization of Islamic countries thinks it is; on one hand it upheld Sharia law and on the other hand it does not want criticism of it. So if extremist Muslim organizations are trying to Islamize Non Muslim majority countries and impose Sharia law, we should not oppose them but we should surrender meekly and accept second class citizenship that we are given and obey all other humiliating conditions imposed on us and pay Jizya. Well, this is what OIC wants from us, convert to Islam or surrender.

Last year, these very same Islamic nations forced the UN to adopt a non binding declaration condemning criticism of Islam, Koran and Prophet, of course citing it as Islamophobia. Now they want to make this a binding declaration on all nations i.e. virtually banning any criticism of Islamic Supremacism (i.e. fascism). Well, let’s read a report on meeting of foreign ministers of Islamic nations in New York in September (2010) and their observations from Saudi Gazette:

Foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have called upon the international community to make collective efforts to prevent incitement to hatred and discrimination against Muslims (very lovingly worded statement.)and to take effective measures to discourage negative stereotyping of people on the basis of religion, faith or race, according to an official source at the OIC on Sunday.

This call was made in the declaration by the Annual Coordination Meeting of Foreign Ministers of OIC Member States on Countering Islamophobia held at the United Nations head quarters, New York on Friday.

The foreign ministers called for a global awareness on the dangerous implications of the rise of Islamophobia on world peace and security and urged the leaders of the international community to demonstrate their collective political will to address the issue with all urgency. 

“We emphasize the need to develop, at the UN, including the HRC, a legally binding institutional instrument to promote respect for all religions and cultural values and prevent intolerance, (I have never come across more bigger and flagrant lie than this statement. Islam respecting all religions! You believe that?) discrimination and the instigation of hatred against any group or followers of any religion.”

They also called upon the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to set up an observatory at her office aimed at monitoring and documenting acts that lead to incitement to religious hatred, hostility and violence.

“We also call upon the international community to make concrete measure with a view to fostering an environment of respect for all religions,” (You repeat a lie many times, many people will believe it. OIC believes in this, it looks like.)they said.

They stressed that while considering the importance of dialogue among civilizations and expansion of relations and cooperation between the Islamic World and other cultures and civilizations, “we reiterate our commitment to continue efforts in engaging with the West in projecting the true tenets of Islam, and countering common challenges." ...... (continues.)

If one has read the Sharia law from the link I provided, they can be just wondering how OIC can lie like this so blatantly. But trust me, it is not difficult for Islamists to lie to infidels and cheat; in the views of people who are ignorant about Islamic doctrines, it appears like lack of conscience in Islam. But for me, they are just following true Islam as Koran tells it is OK to lie (Doctrine of Taqiyyah.) and allows every thing for advancing cause of growth of Islam i.e. Allah's cause. No matter how it happens, OIC wants to shut down infidels only hope of defense against incessant onslaught from Islamists thus removing the obstacle to their goal of imposing Sharia law over the entire world.

But you decide, whether it is worth and appropriate to fight against this inhuman Islamic ideology in the most peaceful way and if you feel yes then do participate in it.

Note 1: This is regarding what the verses 3:110  and 2:143 mean. I just want to provide links to what Ibn Kathir says on these verses (3:110 and 2:143) in his Tafsir. Ibn Kathir's exegesis is very popular classical Tafsir among present day Muslims. But most of the time I try to follow Ibn Kathir's classical Tafsir and also Maududi's modern one.