# Religious Minority Rights

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Christopher Buck, Religious Minority Rights, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> THE ISLAMIC WORLD
> 
> Andrew Rippin
> First published 2008 by Routledge
> 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
> Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
> by Routledge
> 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
> Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
> © 2008 Andrew Rippin for selection and editorial matter;
> individual chapters, their contributors
> Typeset in Sabon by
> RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
> Printed and bound in Great Britain by
> Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
> All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
> reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
> mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
> invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
> information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
> writing from the publishers.
> British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
> A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
> 
> Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
> A catalog record for this book has been requested
> 
> ISBN10: 0–415–36407–8 (hbk)
> ISBN13: 978–0–415–36646–5 (hbk)
> CONTENTS
> 
> List of illustrations                 x
> List of contributors                xiii
> 
> Introduction                          1
> ANDREW RIPPIN
> 
> PART I
> The geo-political Islamic world          9
> 
> 1 The Arab Middle East                 11
> MARTIN BUNTON
> 
> 2 West Africa                          24
> DAVID OWUSU-ANSAH
> 
> 3 East Africa                          39
> VALERIE J. HOFFMAN
> 
> 4 Turkey                               53
> MARKUS DRESSLER
> 
> 5 Iran                                 70
> ELTON L. DANIEL
> 
> 6 Central Asia                         85
> DEVIN DeWEESE
> 
> 7 Southeast Asia                      103
> NELLY VAN DOORN-HARDER
> 
> v
> ––– C O N T E N T S –––
> 
> 8 Europe                                                118
> JOHN R. BOWEN
> 
> 9 The diaspora in the West                              131
> AMIR HUSSAIN
> 
> PART II
> The religious Islamic world                              143
> 
> 10 The Qur ! ān                                         145
> GORDON NICKEL AND ANDREW RIPPIN
> 
> 11 Muh.ammad                                             157
> MICHAEL LECKER
> 
> 12 Sunnı̄ law                                            167
> ROBERT GLEAVE
> 
> 13 Theology: freewill and predestination                 179
> SULEIMAN ALI MOURAD
> 
> 14 Ritual life                                           191
> ZAYN KASSAM
> 
> 15 Sufism                                                212
> ART BUEHLER
> 
> 16 Shi " ism                                             224
> WILLIAM SHEPARD
> 
> 17 The Ibād.ı̄s                                         235
> VALERIE J. HOFFMANN
> 
> 18 Relations with other religions                        246
> DAVID THOMAS
> 
> vi
> ––– C O N T E N T S –––
> 
> PART III
> The intellectual Islamic world                            259
> 
> 19 The Arabic language                                    261
> MUSTAFA SHAH
> 
> 20 Philosophy                                             278
> OLIVER LEAMAN
> 
> 21 The scientific tradition                               289
> GEORGE SALIBA
> 
> 22 Education                                              305
> JEFFREY C. BURKE
> 
> 23 The transmission of knowledge                          318
> PAUL L. HECK
> 
> 24 Travel                                                 331
> DAVID WAINES
> 
> BIOGRAPHIES
> 25 " Abd al-Jabbār                                       344
> GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS
> 
> 26 Niz.ām al-Mulk                                        351
> NEGUIN YAVARI
> 
> 27 Al-Ghazālı̄                                           359
> FRANK GRIFFEL
> 
> 28 Ibn " Arabı̄                                           366
> SAJJAD H. RIZVI
> 
> 29 Ibn Taymiyya                                           374
> DAVID WAINES
> 
> 30 Nās.ir al-Dı̄n al-T
> . ūsı̄                             380
> ZAYN KASSAM
> 
> vii
> ––– C O N T E N T S –––
> 
> 31 Al-Suyūt.ı̄                                          384
> SULEIMAN ALI MOURAD
> 
> 32 Shāh Walı̄ Allāh                                    390
> MARCIA K. HERMANSEN
> 
> 33 Bediüzzaman Said Nursi                                396
> ZEKI SARITOPRAK
> 
> 34 Sayyid Qut.b                                          403
> WILLIAM SHEPARD
> 
> 35 Fazlur Rahman                                         409
> EARLE H. WAUGH
> 
> PART IV
> The cultural Islamic world                               419
> 
> 36 Art                                                   421
> HUSSEIN KESHANI
> 
> 37 Architecture                                          444
> HUSSEIN KESHANI
> 
> 38 Material culture                                      473
> JAMES E. LINDSAY
> 
> 39 Military organization and warfare                     487
> NIALL CHRISTIE
> 
> 40 Popular piety and cultural practices                  499
> EARLE H. WAUGH
> 
> 41 Music                                                 510
> MICHAEL FRISHKOPF
> 
> 42 Cinema                                                527
> GÖNÜL DÖNMEZ-COLIN
> 
> viii
> ––– C O N T E N T S –––
> 
> PART V
> Social issues and the Islamic world                          549
> 
> 43 Civilization                                              551
> AKBAR AHMED
> 
> 44 Social change                                             565
> EBRAHIM MOOSA
> 
> 45 Secularism                                                576
> AMILA BUTUROVIC
> 
> 46 Public ethics                                             591
> AMYN B. SAJOO
> 
> 47 Marriage, family, and sexual ethics                       611
> KECIA ALI
> 
> 48 Women, gender and human rights                            624
> SIMONETTA CALDERINI
> 
> 49 Religious minority rights                                 638
> CHRISTOPHER BUCK
> 
> Glossary                                                 656
> General index                                            661
> Index of Qur ! ān citations                             677
> 
> ix
> CONTRIBUTORS
> 
> Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and Professor of Inter-
> national Relations, The American University, Washington DC. He has held senior
> administrative positions in Pakistan, and was the Pakistan High Commissioner
> (Ambassador) to the UK, and is author of Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Global-
> ization (Brookings Press, 2007). He is the author of many other books and articles,
> and a frequent commentator on Islamic affairs in the media.
> Kecia Ali is Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston University. Her primary research
> interests center on marriage in early Islamic jurisprudence but she is also interested
> in modern appropriations of classical texts. She is the author of Sexual Ethics and
> Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur ! an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (Oneworld,
> 2006), and co-author of Islam: The Key Concepts (Routledge, 2008). She is cur-
> rently working on a biography of the jurist al-Shāfi ! ı̄.
> John R. Bowen is the Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington
> University in St. Louis. He studies problems of pluralism, law, and religion, and in
> particular contemporary efforts to rethink Islamic norms and law in Asia, Europe,
> and North America. He has written on Asia in Islam, Law and Equality in Indone-
> sia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning (Cambridge, 2003), and his Why the
> French Don’t Like Headscarves (Princeton, 2007) concerns current debates in
> France on Islam and laïcité. Forthcoming are Shaping French Islam (Princeton) and
> The New Anthropology of Islam (Cambridge).
> Christopher Buck is author of Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy (Kalimat, 2005),
> Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Bahá ! í Faith
> (SUNY Press, 1999), Symbol and Secret: Qur ! an Commentary in Bahá ! u ! lláh’s
> Kitáb-i Íqán (Kalimat, 1995/2004), and a chapter in The Blackwell Companion to
> the Qur ! ān (Blackwell, 2006). He is a Pennsylvania attorney and independent
> scholar (Ph.D. 1996; JD 2006), having formerly taught at Michigan State Uni-
> versity (2000–4), Quincy University (1999–2000), Millikin University (1997–9),
> and Carleton University (1994–6), where he variously taught American Studies,
> African American Studies, Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, Argument Theory and
> Research Writing.
> Art Buehler is Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He
> is a scholar of the phenomenon of transregional S.ūf ı̄ networks and the transmission
> of Islamic revivalist ideas, and is senior editor of the Journal of the History of
> 
> xiii
> RELIGIOUS MINORITY RIGHTS
> 
> Christopher Buck
> 
> Islam is experiencing an identity crisis that has precipitated a world crisis. Radical
> Islamists are in the news almost every day, yet Westerners are taught that radical
> Islamism is not “true Islam.” Islam, we are told, means peace, yet that public identity
> is typically not reflected in the social mirror of the popular press. Every time a suicide
> bomb is detonated, the image of a peaceful Islam is exploded along with it. In the
> popular mind, Islam is as Islam does. Another yardstick by which Islamic claims to a
> peaceful authenticity are measured is the treatment of religious minorities within an
> Islamic state. Both Islamic and Western states, generally, claim to respect human
> rights, within the context of Islamic and democratic ideals, respectively. A Western
> nation-state’s identity as a democracy will be measured not only against its own
> democratic ideals, but against an emerging body of international human rights law.
> Whether by national or international standards, the acid test of democracy is its
> treatment of minorities. The same holds true for Islamic states. For all of the rhetoric
> professing Islam’s respect for human rights, human wrongs within the modern
> Muslim world must still be addressed, even if not redressed.
> Not all religious minorities within predominantly Muslim countries are treated
> similarly. Comparatively speaking, Jewish and Christian minorities typically fare bet-
> ter than other minority faith-communities within Muslim societies functioning under
> Islamic law. But certain minority religions within Islamic states have experienced
> hardships of such proportions as to attract the attention of the international com-
> munity. This chapter briefly looks at the Alevis, the Ahmadiyya, and the Bahá ! ís and
> argues that Islamic majoritarian treatment of minorities – who are a problem for the
> majority because they hold unwelcome beliefs – reveals much about the real nature of
> particular claims to Islamic authenticity.
> This chapter also suggests that Islamic identity and praxis must now withstand the
> scrutiny of the international community – a relatively new situation that certainly did
> not exist when Islam was the world’s superpower during the so-called Dark Ages of
> Europe. Inevitably, Islamic law will be measured against international law, and will
> increasingly be constrained by it. More importantly, in the twenty-first century, the
> legal “right” of minority religions to an identity may be as important as the “truth” of
> their respective identities. The cosmopolitanism of human rights requires the right
> to an identity of a minority where that identity stands in tension with the identity of
> the majority.
> Three of the most controversial religious minorities within the Islamic world will be
> examined in their respective socio-historical contexts: the Alevis in Turkey, the
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
> Ahmadiyya in Pakistan, the Bahá ! ís of Iran. These three faith-communities provide
> ideal subjects for a comparative study of the identities of religious minorities within
> the modern Muslim world. In an increasingly globalized world, Islamic identity is
> ultimately a legal as well as a religious issue. Characterizing the Ahmadiyya and the
> “Bahá ! í Faith” as “Islamic minorities” is problematic in itself, as the Ahmadis profess
> themselves as Muslims while the Bahá ! ís do not. Indeed, the distinctive identity of the
> Bahá ! í Faith as an independent world religion is universally upheld by the Bahá ! í
> scriptures, authorities, and adherents themselves, while the adamantine Islamic iden-
> tity of the Ahmadiyya is universally upheld by the Ahmadiyya writings, authorities,
> and adherents with equal vigor. Where the self-identity of each of these two religious
> minorities is at issue within a given Islamic state offers a case-study in terms of Islamic
> claims to authenticity.
> So, what is Islamic identity? More to the point is this question: Can an Islamic state
> tolerate a religious minority that has an alternative Islamic identity (as in the case of
> the Alevis), a rival Islamic identity (as in the case of the Ahmadiyya), or a post-Islamic
> identity (as in the case of the Bahá ! ís)? The resolution of these vexed questions
> depends on which lens is used as a frame and focus. Here, the choice of the frame-
> work of analysis is critical, for it will largely determine the outcome. This study
> employs a three-faceted inquiry. The identities of religious minorities within Islamic
> states implicates 1) etic (outsider/majoritarian), 2) emic (insider/minority), and 3)
> international perspectives. Together, these three perspectives operate as a prism that
> works its own ideological optics, refracting claims to Islamic identity and breaking
> those claims into their constituent colors – the spectral measure of which is the treat-
> ment of religious minorities in an Islamic state.
> Thus, this chapter explores Islamic and non-Islamic identities from multiple per-
> spectives – external, internal, and international. External identity represents the
> perspective of dominant Islamic authorities. Internal identity emanates from the per-
> spective of the faith-community itself. International opinion regarding the identity of
> both religious minorities and the majority of a given Islamic state is best viewed from
> the perspective of international human rights standards. In trying to make sense of all
> three vantage points, the connections between how Islamic authorities characterize
> certain religious minorities and how they treat them with respect to fundamental
> human rights will be explored. It is critical, then, to be clear throughout which per-
> spective is being presented.
> Islam, which has core beliefs and practices, lacks a central authority. Long before
> the abolition of the caliphate by Kemal Atatürk on March 2, 1924, the caliph had
> largely been a figurehead since 1258. Even before, the caliph was never a universal
> authority in Islam. Doctrinally, core Islamic beliefs and praxis were never reduced
> to a single creed or code. Sociologically, within the Muslim world, not only is the
> range of ethnicities, languages, and cultural traditions rich and variegated, there is a
> surprising range of Islamic identities as well. Ultimately, Islamic identity is as plural
> as it is plastic. Norms define and boundaries confine. These boundaries are in flux;
> they are as perceptual as they are conceptual. Whatever normative “Islam” is sup-
> posed to be is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated. As might be expected,
> Muslim questions surrounding the alternatively Islamic, rival Islamic, or post-Islamic
> identities of religious minorities within Islamic nation-states are vexing for Islamic
> orthodoxies.
> 
> ––– C H R I S T O P H E R B U C K –––
> 
> The very notion of an Islamic “orthodoxy” is itself problematic. The concept is
> so theologically freighted that to speak of an Islamic orthodoxy begs the question.
> Heterodoxy is anything that departs from orthodoxy – that is, any belief that varies
> significantly from the perspective of the religious majority and is therefore objection-
> able to the dominant religion. Strictly speaking, notions of “orthodoxy” and “hetero-
> doxy” are simply social realities. Here, and purely as a term of convenience, by
> Islamic “orthodoxy” we mean any establishment of “official” or “mainstream” Islam
> that, by dint of its dominance, has coercive power to render the existence of minor-
> ities problematic where such groups hold unwelcome beliefs. In pluralist societies
> committed to freedom of religion, even the religious majority has no coercive power
> over the religious minorities. But in a state where a particular formulation of “cor-
> rect” Islamic belief is maintained and enforced, the existence of religious minorities
> whose beliefs and practices differ from the normative majoritarian position often tests
> the limits of the dominant religious leadership, which may have recourse in using the
> state’s apparatus to suppress and, in some cases, to oppress a minority, with the goal
> of eventually marginalizing it out of existence.
> Simply put, the Alevis are patently heterodox by normative Islamic standards,
> while the Ahmadiyya and the Bahá ! ís are doubly heterodox due to their post-Islamic
> claims to revelation. All three of these groups are considered heterodox by their
> respective orthodox Sunnı̄ (and Shı̄ " ı̄) majorities. This is particularly problematic
> under sharı̄ " a law, which can theoretically accommodate non-Muslim minorities with
> some degree of egalitarianism, if not quasi-equality, but only if they fit within a pre-
> scribed religious framework. A religious minority that fits within that framework is
> afforded a degree of protection. This is the case with Christians and Jews – “Peoples
> of the Book” – who enjoy, in theory at least, recognition and protection within an
> explicit Qur ! anic framework. Zoroastrians, Hindus, and other religious communities
> – such as the cluster of disparate groups that fell under the Qur ! anic rubric of Sabians
> – have historically gained a certain measure of toleration within Islamic states as well.
> But a religious minority within an Islamic state that does not fit within that frame-
> work (such as the Alevis, the Ahmadiyya, and the Bahá ! ís) is not afforded such pro-
> tection. That is where the international human rights regime can, on a case-by-case
> basis, intervene – and does so with increasing frequency.
> Under sharı̄ " a regimes in the past, the Alevis have, for the most part, historically
> adopted strategies of survival by secrecy, until secularization from within intervened,
> as in the case of modern Turkey, to secure their status as legally protected minorities.
> In the case of the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan and the Bahá ! ís of Iran, the legal regimes of
> their respective countries bar full recognition and rights, leaving secularization –
> in the form of international law – as an ameliorative and constraining force. In so
> saying, this is not to suggest that religious minorities will fare better to the extent
> that Islamic governments abandon sharı̄ " a regimes. Yet some adjustment has to be
> advocated. While implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
> Rights (discussed further in this chapter) will require such adjustments, it does not
> oblige the secularization of Islamic states.
> The paradox of being heterodox is this: how can a religious minority either main-
> tain its Islamic identity (as in the case of the Ahmadiyya) or maintain its independent,
> post-Islamic identity (as in the case of the Bahá ! ís) where a dominant Islamic ortho-
> doxy categorically rejects such self-defined identities as illicit, invalid, and illegal?
> 
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
> Simply put, the quasi-Islamic identity of the Alevis, the rival (revivalist) Islamic iden-
> tity of the Ahmadiyya and the post-Islamic (independent) identity of the Bahá ! ís all
> offend orthodox Islamic identities. These affronts – these offenses – while unintended,
> are variously taken as a real threat to traditional Islamic identities.
> Times change, and so do Islamic identities. The Alevis have been branded in the
> past as heretics – and in 2007 as “pagans” for their musical religious ceremonies and
> liberal customs – but now enjoy a relative degree of state support in Turkey. More
> significantly, the Alevis constitute the ruling elite in present-day Syria (where they are
> known as Alawis). But the Ahmadiyya and the Bahá ! ís are generally regarded as
> apostates. As will be seen, given the clash of religious identities within in the modern
> Muslim world, secularization is often superior to sharı̄ " a law in integrating religious
> minorities having quasi-Islamic, rival Islamic, and post-Islamic identities.
> Minorities are defined by majorities (unless the minority is a ruling elite, as with
> the Alawis). Even an Islamic democracy may fail to equalize rights in a Muslim state.
> The modern Muslim Middle East demonstrates, time and again, that information
> management in the hands of a majority determines social policy and overrides the
> self-identity of the minorities. In Pakistan, for instance, the Ahmadis profess to be
> Muslims, while Pakistani law strips the Ahmadiyya community of the right to mani-
> fest its Islamic identity. To cite another instance, the Bahá ! ís of Iran consider them-
> selves to be an independent faith-community, while the Iranian regime is intransigent
> in its refusal to permit the Bahá ! ís to practice their religion. Thus, the same group
> may have two distinct (even contradictory) identities: that defined by the prevailing
> Muslim majority, and that maintained by the minority group. Not only do these
> power disparities create formidable obstacles for scholarship in understanding these
> identities (especially in negotiating a middle ground between anti-minority polem-
> ics and pro-minority apologetics), they obviously pose problems for the minorities
> themselves.
> Muslim majorities strenuously maintain that the rights of religious minorities are
> respected in an Islamic state. To varying degrees, this may be true, so long as those
> minorities do not pose any threat (real or perceived) to Islam. Put in different words,
> the way that Islamic minorities are treated within the Islamic world depends, to a
> large degree, on how the religious identities of these minorities are defined by the
> Islamic states in which they live. This, in turn, can lead to judgments about claims
> regarding Islamic identity by the surrounding, largely secular world.
> To make matters worse, controversies within the modern Muslim world ignite con-
> troversies outside that world. While majority norms define Islamic identity within
> Muslim states, minority norms define Western valuations of those same Islamic iden-
> tities. Clashes within the Muslim world exacerbate the clashes without. Social histor-
> ian P. R. Kumaraswamy (2003: 244) notes that “discussions on minorities have often
> been controversial and politically loaded.” States typically resent and resist “any out-
> side criticisms over their treatment of their minority population and consider it to be a
> sovereign and inviolable subject.” Yet, as Kumaraswamy observes, “they do not hesi-
> tate to use the treatment of minorities by their adversaries as a useful foreign policy
> instrument.” In other words, minority issues within Muslim states are lightning rods
> for criticism by foreign states.
> Not everything that affects the body politic is political in the sense that Kumaras-
> wamy asserts. For instance, at a White House news briefing on March 28, 2006, a
> 
> ––– C H R I S T O P H E R B U C K –––
> 
> spokesman expressed President Bush’s concern over worsening situation of the
> Bahá ! ís in Iran. While such human rights concerns inform the policy of the USA, they
> are not determinative of it. Here, we see a triangulation of tensions between various
> Islamic orthodoxies, their constituent Islamic heterodoxies, and universal normative
> values, collectively defined by the human rights canons of international law, to which
> many Islamic states are signatories as well. There is a large body of literature on
> whether or not the human rights standards of international law represent Western
> values or universal values, and the view that they are Western is often advanced as an
> excuse for noncompliance.
> Thus there are three competing sets of Islamic identities that act and react on any
> given religious minority in an Islamic state and these sets of identities will be exam-
> ined here with the three groups in question: (1) the Alevis in Turkey, (2) the Ahmadi-
> yya in Pakistan, and (3) the Bahá ! ís in Iran. Of these three nations, Pakistan and Iran
> have been designated “countries of particular concern,” “for ongoing, egregious
> violations of religious freedom” by the United States Commission on International
> Religious Freedom (2005). To label any Islamic state as a “country of particular
> concern” necessarily entails the interface of three identities: (1) the perceived identity
> of that religious minority within the broader framework of the group identity of the
> dominant Islamic majority; (2) the self-identity of the religious minority within an
> Islamic state; and (3) judgments made by the international community regarding
> these plural – and problematic – identities. A religious minority has its own moral
> compass and religious laws. These, in turn, are constrained by the overarching
> authority of the Islamic majority which, in turn, is constrained, at least in principle,
> under international law. Thus, concentric identities are layered within local, national,
> and international contexts that act and react on each other.
> 
> Outsider-majority views
> 
> The Alevis in Turkey
> In 2002 the Alevis of Turkey numbered some twelve to fifteen million, comprising an
> estimated 20 to 25 percent of the total Anatolian population. The Turkish Alevis form
> a distinct religious and quasi-ethnic group. Alevis are the second most numerous
> ethno-religious minority of republican Turkey. The vast majority of Alevis are ethnic
> and linguistic Turks, although about 20 per cent of Alevis are Kurds, equal to about
> 25 per cent of the total Kurdish population of Turkey. Alevis live primarily in Eastern
> Turkey or Anatolia (the part of Turkey that lies in Asia).
> Severely persecuted during Ottoman rule, Alevis adopted secrecy as a survival
> strategy, and so practiced dissimulation (taqiyya). Although Alevis have a distinct
> genealogy going back to early Shı̄ " ı̄ history, some of the outward identifiers of being
> Muslim – whether in the orthodox Sunnı̄ or Shı̄ " ı̄ sense – are missing. For instance,
> Alevis do not observe the fast of Ramad.ān. Instead, they fast for 12 days during
> the month of Muh.arram. Neither do they perform their obligatory prayers five
> times daily, as Muslims are required to do. Nor do they make the pilgrimage to
> Mecca. The fact that fasting, prayer, and pilgrimage – three of the five “pillars of
> Islam” – are conspicuously absent raises serious questions about the identity of Alevis
> as Muslims.
> 
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
> The Alevis have reemerged in the past two decades as a largely secular, democratic
> community both in Turkey and in Europe. More important is Alevi identity in rela-
> tion to what has been termed the “Turkish–Islam” synthesis that aims to transform
> inter-communal conflict into a sense of greater, particular Turkish, unity. Poyraz
> (2005: 512) argues that “the Turkish State uses the Alevis as a form of insurance
> against those who oppose secularism.” The Turkish state has found an ally in the Alevis,
> who have proved useful as a bulwark against the encroachment of ultra-conservative
> Muslim clerics. But there is a more practical, immediate reason for recognizing the
> minority rights of Alevis, as Sahin explains: “Since the global discourse of identity as
> right has been accepted by the EU, Turkey is forced to promulgate laws to recognize
> its religious and ethnic minorities” (2005: 467). The question of the Islamic identity
> of the Alevi minority entails, in a positive form, an active state interest – an interest
> that we will see in the case of the Ahmadiyya of Pakistan and the Bahá ! ís of Iran, but
> manifest in decidedly negative and oppressive ways in those instances.
> 
> The Ahmadiyya in Pakistan
> The Ahmadiyya is a worldwide community, with Hazrat Mirzā T.āhir Ah.mad as its
> Supreme Head. The Ahmadiyya have around four million adherents in Pakistan
> (Khan 2003: 218). Perhaps the most well-known Ahmadi of recent times is Sir
> Muhammad Zafrullah Khan (d. 1986), former president of the International Court of
> Justice, Pakistan’s first foreign minister, a translator of the Qur ! ān and paternal grand-
> father of Ahmadi author Amjad Mahmood Khan, a 2004 graduate of Harvard Law
> School, who has published a legal analysis of the plight of the Pakistani Ahmadiyya in
> Harvard Human Rights Journal (2003).
> In his article, Khan presents the official Islamic perspective of the government of
> Pakistan, of the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan, and the international human
> rights regime. Khan notes that, in 1974, the orthodox Sunnı̄ Muslim " ulamā ! success-
> fully pressured then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to declare Ahmadis as non-
> Muslims. Accordingly, Bhutto oversaw the introduction into Pakistan’s parliament of
> Articles 260(3)(a) and (b), defining the term “Muslim” in the Pakistani context and
> excluding groups that were, legally speaking, deemed to be non-Muslim. Effective as
> of September 6, 1974, this constitutional amendment explicitly stripped Ahmadis of
> their identity as Muslims. In 1984, the Government added Section 298(c) to its Penal
> Code, a section commonly referred to as the “anti-Ahmadi law.” Used by the gov-
> ernment and anti-Ahmadi religious groups to target and harass Ahmadis, the section
> prohibits Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslims or posing as Muslims, from
> referring to their faith as Islam, from preaching or propagating their faith, from invit-
> ing others to accept the Ahmadi faith, and from insulting the religious feelings of
> recognized Sunnı̄ Muslims. The vague wording of the provision that forbids Ahmadis
> from “directly or indirectly” posing as Muslims has enabled mainstream Muslim
> religious leaders to bring charges against Ahmadis for using the standard Muslim greet-
> ing form and for naming their children Muh.ammad. The constitutionality of Section
> 298(c) was upheld in a split-decision Supreme Court case in 1996. The punishment
> for violation of the section is imprisonment for up to three years and a fine.
> This “excommunication” of the Ahmadiyya as Muslims by force of law was a
> clear extension of the hegemony that orthodox Muslim clerics wielded. Divesting the
> 
> ––– C H R I S T O P H E R B U C K –––
> 
> Pakistani Ahmadiyya community of its Islamic identity was followed by legal
> entrenchment of the anti-blasphemy provisions in Pakistan’s Penal Code. These pro-
> visions are systematically aimed at the eradication of every vestige of Islamic identity
> that the Ahmadiyya possessed. It is apparent that the Ahmadis in general are caught
> on the horns of a dilemma: while the Ahmadiyya see themselves as authentic
> Muslims, the theocratic force of Pakistani law endangers any visible manifestation of
> that identity. Here, the prevailing Islamic orthodoxy has, through the instrumentality
> of state law, legally barred the Ahmadiyya from openly practicing their faith as pro-
> fessed Muslims.
> 
> The Bahá ! ís in Iran
> The identity of the Bahá ! í Faith is that of an independent world religion, and not as a
> sub-group within Islam. Given the longstanding, nearly universal and legally binding
> recognition of the independent status of the Faith worldwide, this is not merely a
> matter of internal Bahá ! í claims versus those of certain Islamic authorities. However
> obvious this may be to the Bahá ! ís themselves, the Iranian authorities have a contrary
> view based on Islamic doctrine that bars any religion from legitimately appearing
> after the time of Muh.ammad. Absolutely fundamental to Islamic identity is the
> finality of Muh.ammad, whom the Qur ! ān dignifies as the “seal of the prophets”
> (Qur ! ān 33:40) and thus the last of the prophets. Therefore it is an utter impossibil-
> ity, from the strictly Muslim point of view, for any prophet to appear after Muh.am-
> mad. Since the Bahá ! í Faith was established in the nineteenth century, its truth-claims
> are automatically rejected because of the doctrine of the finality of Muh.ammad’s
> prophethood (Buck 1995: 191–8; Buck 2007).
> The idea that the Bahá ! í Faith is a sect of Islam could brook no tolerance by
> Muslim authorities. This sectarian notion of Bahá ! í origins is primarily a Western
> mischaracterization. The notion that the Bahá ! í Faith has an Islamic identity and is
> an “Islamic minority” would, unless carefully contextualized, lend support to a perni-
> cious misrepresentation of the Bahá ! í Faith which is, after all, more aptly character-
> ized as simply a religious minority within any given Islamic state. Simply put, the
> Bahá ! í Faith has Iranian Islamic origins, and thus a great deal of continuity with Shı̄ " ı̄
> Islam, yet emerged as an entirely independent religion, replete with its own scriptures,
> laws, and identity. In a word, the Bahá ! í Faith is the daughter religion of Islam
> in much the same way as Christianity sprang from Judaism. In this respect, both
> Christianity and the Bahá ! í Faith are secondary monotheisms, arising out of primary
> monotheisms. Although historically derivative, they are independent.
> The Islamic Republic of Iran professes its support of human rights, arguing that
> Islam has long been the promoter and protector of human rights far in advance of
> Western secular formulations. Ironically, some of the United Nations human rights
> language has made its way into the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
> Outlining the “General Principles” of the Constitution, Article 13 states: “Zoroastrian,
> Jewish, and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities, who,
> within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies,
> and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious
> education.” Members of these three religions are considered by Iranian clerics to be
> “People of the Book” and are therefore accorded Qur ! anic protection. The effect of
> 
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
> this provision is to deny Bahá ! ís their freedom of religion. Bahá ! ís are considered
> apostates, and their blood may be shed with impunity, perhaps even with clerical
> approval.
> The vocabulary of human rights, which has been used in the Iranian Constitution,
> does not carry the universal application characteristic of international law. Elsewhere
> in the Constitution, under the rubric, “The Rights of the People,” Article 20 adds:
> “All citizens of the country, both men and women, equally enjoy the protection of the
> law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, in conform-
> ity with Islamic criteria.” Clearly, the Bahá ! ís do not conform to these legal criteria.
> While the Iranian government has not denied that Bahá ! ís are citizens of Iran, they do
> not enjoy equal rights.
> In the years immediately following the 1979 Iranian revolution, clerics ordered
> the arbitrary arrest of Bahá ! ís and the torture and execution of over 200 of them
> (particularly members of Bahá ! í administrative bodies, sometimes with demands that
> their families pay for the bullets used to kill them). Other actions taken against
> Bahá ! ís include confiscation of property, seizure of bank assets, expulsion from
> schools and universities, denial of employment, cancellation of pensions (with
> demands that the government be reimbursed for past pension payments), desecration
> and destruction of Bahá ! í cemeteries and holy places, criminalizing Bahá ! í activities
> and thus forcing the dissolution of Bahá ! í administration, and pronouncing Bahá ! í
> marriages as illegal acts of prostitution. In addition, there were relentless propaganda
> campaigns aimed at inflaming anti-Bahá ! í passions to instigate mob violence and
> crimes against Bahá ! ís. There are many documented instances of this state-instigated
> incitement to violence (see Ghanea 2002; Buck 2003). This phase of the anti-Bahá ! í
> campaign has aptly been described as “civil death” – a cultural cleansing that collec-
> tively affects a community estimated to be 300,000 Iranians.
> After 1985, with Iran having been scandalized for its violation of the rights of
> Bahá ! ís and other religious minorities, the number of executions of Bahá ! ís sharply
> dropped, and, in 1987 and 1988, most of the Bahá ! ís being held in prison were
> released. While this may imply that improved treatment of Bahá ! ís in Iran was due to
> the international attention focused on the issue, the cause of the improvement is not
> known and thus it should not be assumed that international pressure was a decisive
> factor. Yet there is more direct evidence of the efficacy of diplomatic recourse in
> partially restoring rights to education. In the early 1980s, a proportionally large
> number of Bahá ! í children – probably most, but not all – had been expelled from
> public and private schools in Iran. But international pressure caused that policy
> to be rescinded, and, in the late 1980s, the Iranian regime adopted a new policy
> of concealment. This shift in anti-Bahá ! í tactics masked a new and insidious strategy
> formalized in a secret 1991 memorandum from the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary
> Cultural Council on “the Bahá ! í question.” This document surfaced in 1993, first
> appearing in the report by Special Representative Reynaldo Galindo Pohl to the
> UN Commission on Human Rights. The policy recommendations of this document
> are still in force. Personally endorsed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 25,
> 1991 and written by Dr. Seyyed Mohammad Golpaygani, secretary of the Supreme
> Revolutionary Cultural Council, this document advises government officials, among
> other things, to expel Bahá ! ís from universities, “once it becomes known that they
> are Bahá ! ís.” It further states: “Deny them employment if they identify themselves as
> 
> ––– C H R I S T O P H E R B U C K –––
> 
> Bahá ! ís.” “Deny them any position of influence.” The policy effectively denies Bahá ! ís
> the right to higher education, a policy that had already been in effect since 1980. No
> Bahá ! í can, in practice, attend university in Iran. As a result, Bahá ! ís have organized
> the Bahá ! í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), popularly known as “Bahá ! í Open
> University.”
> The Bahá ! í International Community reports that Iranian Bahá ! ís seeking to enter
> Iran’s vocational and technical institutes are effectively barred from admission for the
> 2007–8 academic year, since the 2007 form for the entrance examination indicates
> that only one box may be marked for religion. Applicants are given three choices to
> self-identity as religious minorities – Zoroastrian, Jewish, or Christian. If none of
> these boxes is marked, the applicant will be considered Muslim. This is unacceptable
> to Bahá ! ís as tantamount to a de facto denial of their faith.
> As disturbing as this surely is to human rights advocates, it is not surprising.
> Bahá ! ís are typically denied full freedom of religion throughout many states in the
> Muslim Middle East. There are two principal reasons for this: 1) Bahá ! ís lack
> dhimmı̄ (protected) status and are therefore excluded from Qur ! anic protection; and
> 2) the Bahá ! í Faith is a post-Islamic religion – a theoretical impossibility considering
> Muh.ammad’s ontological status as the “seal of the prophets.” Apart from the day
> of judgment, Islam cannot conceive of a post-Islamic act of revelation, much less
> theologically tolerate a post-Islamic claim to revelation.
> 
> Insider-minority perspectives
> 
> The Alevis in Turkey
> “Alevi” means “of " Alı̄” and thus comes to mean “follower of " Alı̄.” Alevis revere " Alı̄
> ibn Abı̄ T.ālib (d. 661). Thus they have been called the “Deifiers of " Alı̄.” This reflects
> " Alı̄’s exalted station in Alevi theology. While Alevis claim a distinct identity, it is one
> that neither conflicts with Turkish national identity nor is inimical to the Turkish
> state. That identity kept at bay the threat of Alevi fusion into the Sunnı̄ majority.
> According to David Zeidan:
> 
> The resurgence of Sunni fundamentalism that began in the 1950s and has
> recently grown much stronger also pushed the Alevis to the political left.
> Many Alevis reacted by stressing their separate identity and reinterpreting
> Alevism in socialist and Marxist idiom that seemed to have an affinity to Alevi
> ideals of equality and traditions of revolt.
> (Zeidan 1999:77)
> 
> That “revolt” has gone full circle in Turkey, where the Alevi minority now enjoys
> the blessings of the moderate Sunnı̄ majority. The Alevi question became one answer
> to countering the threat of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, where the former
> “Deifiers of " Alı̄” are now the reifiers of Turkish secularism.
> 
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
> The Ahmadiyya in Pakistan
> The insider perspective is clear: Ahmadis consider themselves to be Muslims and
> observe Islamic practices. According to Khan (2003: 218, n. 4), the Ahmaddiyya are
> self-professed Muslims, and their claim to Muslim self-identity is valid and should be
> immune from exclusion by a Sunnı̄ majority under the following rationale. As followers
> of the prophetic restorationist and messianic claimant, Mirzā Ghulām Ahmad
> (d. 1908) of Qadian, India, the Ahmadiyya profess what they consider to be the “true
> spirit” of Islam. They see their beliefs and practices as the restoration of pristine
> Islam. An orthodoxy may well define what and who is heterodox. But the arrow can
> quickly fly back at the archer, when one considers that orthodoxy and heresy are fluid
> notions that entail power relations. The irony is this: the Ahmadiyya, in their view,
> practice a more authentic form of Islam – one that is purified from 14 centuries of
> accretion. According to Pakistani authorities, the Ahmadiyya do have the freedom to
> practice their religion – but not as Muslims. So, while “might” makes “right” when
> the Sunnı̄ orthodoxy in Pakistan proscribes the Ahmadiyya practice of the same
> religion under penalty of law, international religious human rights advocates see this
> as a clear breach of religious freedom.
> 
> The Bahá ! ís in Iran
> What kind of Islamic identity do Bahá ! ís have? Are Bahá ! ís, for instance, Muslims?
> The simple answer is no, since the Bahá ! í Faith is an independent world religion.
> Bahá ! ís do not, in fact, profess to be Muslim, although they recognize the divine
> station of Muh.ammad. Because of the Islamic origins of their Faith, however, Bahá ! ís
> have much in common with Muslims. What distinguishes the Bahá ! í Faith from Islam
> is the revelation of Bahá ! u ! lláh (d. 1892), the socio-moral principles of which marked
> a major “paradigm shift” in what may be characterized as a paradigm of unity.
> Explaining the relationship of the Bahá ! í Faith to Islam raises the larger Bahá ! í
> concept of “Progressive Revelation.” Although the Faith has a close historical link with
> Islam, Bahá ! í self-identity is intrinsically and intimately related to all of the world’s
> great religions. Islam is seen as a major event in a series of decisive historical moments
> when great spiritual teachers appeared to catalyze the course of social evolution
> through renewed spiritual teachings and new social laws. To invoke the Western term,
> these Prophets are both “forth-tellers” (the literal meaning of the Greek prophētes) as
> well as foretellers. Each communicated a present message and future “prophecy.”
> Prophecies converged in presaging the advent of Bahá ! u ! lláh, a world-messiah whose
> principles and spiritual influence would bring about world unity. As “World-
> Reformer,” Bahá ! u ! lláh advocated world peace, parliamentary democracy, disarma-
> ment, an international language, harmony of science and religion, interfaith concord,
> gender and racial equality. From a historicist perspective, in precocious anticipation
> of a global society, Bahá ! u ! lláh’s signal contribution was to sacralize certain secular
> modernist reforms, integrated within an irreducibly original paradigm of world unity
> in which peace is made sacred. From an emic perspective, Bahá ! u ! lláh’s principles
> have a divine origin and, if carried out, promise the social salvation of society.
> Designating his son " Abdu ! l-Bahá (d. 1921) as interpreter, exemplar and successor,
> and by ordaining the eventual formation of elected councils, Bahá ! u ! lláh instituted
> 
> ––– C H R I S T O P H E R B U C K –––
> 
> his Covenant as the organizing principle of the Bahá ! í community and guarantor of
> its integrity, safeguarding against major schism. Succeeding " Abdu ! l-Bahá in 1921 as
> “Guardian” of the Bahá ! í Faith, Shoghi Effendi (d. 1957) globalized and evolved
> Bahá ! í administration as a system of Local and National Spiritual Assemblies, lead-
> ing to the election of The Universal House of Justice in 1963, the international Bahá ! í
> governing body, established on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.
> While Islamic sensitivities need to be respected, many would argue that they do not
> outweigh human rights considerations. Ironically, secular values can sometimes be
> more universal than religious ones. Consequently, in a clash of religious value sys-
> tems, international law may be the only practical arbiter until the conflict is resolved.
> In the case of Iranian Islam, there is a considerable distance between the consti-
> tutional rhetoric of respect for minority rights and the prevailing sociopolitical reality.
> As a direct result of Iran’s treatment of its Bahá ! í minority, the ultimate injury-in-
> fact is refractory damage to the reputation of Islam in the eyes of a critical public
> that uncritically tends to see Islam as monolithic. By the yardstick of minority rights,
> Iran’s efforts to preserve Islamic values have arguably had the effect of perverting
> them.
> 
> International perspectives
> International law exerts external pressures on a given country. Religious human rights
> (i.e., freedom of religion) are a subset of human rights. Human rights watchers monitor
> inequitable legal/policy restrictions on religious minorities by governments in response
> to perceived religious threats. In 1998, the USA enacted the International Religious
> Freedom Act, making religious freedom a feature of its foreign policy. Passed by the
> Senate on October 9, 1998 and unanimously approved by the House by voice vote on
> the following day, President Clinton signed the International Religious Freedom Act of
> 1998 (IRFA) into law on October 27, 1998. That Act established an independent and
> bipartisan advisory Commission on International Religious Freedom, an office in the
> State Department, an Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, and
> an Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. The President, moreover, is
> required to take defined actions against states that violate religious freedom.
> Human rights standards encoded as international law serve as the secular norm for
> religious rights. Discrimination as to religion or belief is condemned and this proscrip-
> tion against religious discrimination is an essential feature of the United Nations
> human rights charters. Several instruments of international law have been adopted –
> with varying force of law – to protect freedom of religion. They are: 1) Article 1(3)
> and 13 of the United Nations Charter; 2) Articles 1, 2, 18, Universal Declaration of
> Human Rights (adopted December 10, 1948, GA Res. 217, UN Doc. A/810, 71); 3)
> Article 2, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
> (1948); 4) Articles 2, 18, 26 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and
> Political Rights [ICCPR] (adopted 1966 and effective March 23, 1976) (see
> pp. 654–5) Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance
> and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (adopted November 25, 1981); 6)
> UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious
> and Linguistic Minorities (1992); and 7) Article 14, Convention on the Rights of the
> Child. Their language is strong but their enforcement is weak. This problem is
> 
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
> nowhere better illustrated than in the unresolved problems affecting the Bahá ! ís of
> Iran and the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan.
> Article 18 of the ICCPR protects the right to “freedom of thought, conscience and
> religion” and the “freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief” of one’s choice.
> Article 18 is concerned only with one’s right to profess and practice one’s belief and
> not at all concerned with the “truth” of one’s religious identity. Thus, what inter-
> national law requires of Islamic states is not that they recognize religions per se, but
> that they recognize fundamental religious human rights. Of the instruments cited
> above, this article is the most directly applicable, legally binding provision on
> religious freedom. These complex distinctions among international covenants and
> conventions, however, are not decisive in and of themselves. In clarifying the legal
> distinction between international law and non-binding instruments, it should not be
> implied that the critical distinction is the legal status of the instrument (convention
> versus declaration), but rather the process of ratification by state parties. While inter-
> national religious human rights law is evolving, it remains for member states to
> implement it.
> Laws of religious freedom in Pakistan and Iran are vitiated by countervailing laws
> against Ahmadis and policies against Bahá ! ís respectively. Technically, there are no
> “laws against” the Bahá ! ís in Iran, but rather a lack of legal protection due to silence
> in the Iranian Constitution. Government action against Bahá ! ís has been mandated
> not by laws but by government orders and instructions. While such laws, policies
> and directives may incorporate human rights language as a ringing endorsement of
> international covenants in theory, they may ring as a hollow echo in actual practice.
> Various United Nations resolutions have condemned these laws and their practices.
> Examples, where relevant, will be provided below.
> 
> The Alevis in Turkey
> Turkey, of course, must satisfy the Copenhagen criteria in order to join the European
> Union, and this will act, in concert with Turkish secularism and the force of inter-
> national law, as a further constraint against any reflex of repression. According to the
> International Religious Freedom Report 2005 released by the Bureau of Democracy,
> Human Rights, and Labor, the Alevis have experienced relatively minor and isolated
> incidents of discrimination (US Department of State 2005a). Given the increasingly
> ideal Turkish state relations in recent support of the Alevi community as a bulwark
> against the perceived and real threat of radical Islam, however, these problems
> affecting the Alevis in Turkey are likely to resolve themselves.
> 
> The Ahmadiyya in Pakistan
> According to the same International Religious Freedom Report 2005 released by
> the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the situation of the Ahmadiyya
> is far most serious in terms of religious human rights concerns (US Department of
> State 2005b). Critics of Pakistan’s anti-Ahmadi laws point out that Ordinance XX of
> Pakistan’s Penal Code violates Article 18 of the ICCPR, under its provisions that “no
> one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a
> religion or belief of his own choice.” This analysis is borne out by United Nations
> 
> ––– C H R I S T O P H E R B U C K –––
> 
> Resolution 1985/21. Under this analysis, international law is more concerned with
> the “right” of the Ahmadiyya to profess and practice Islam rather than with the
> “truth” of their Islamic identity. There are distinct advantages that will accrue if
> international law is more effectively enforced.
> 
> The Bahá ! ís in Iran
> In addition to the situation reported above, other recent actions in Iran against the
> Bahá ! í community have been brought to light by the United Nations. On December
> 16, 2005, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution decrying human
> rights violations in Iran, citing
> 
> escalation and increased frequency of discrimination and other human rights
> violations against the Bahá ! í, including cases of arbitrary arrest and deten-
> tion, the denial of freedom of religion or of publicly carrying out communal
> affairs, the disregard of property rights, the destruction of sites of religious
> importance, the suspension of social, educational and community-related
> activities and the denial of access to higher education, employment, pensions,
> adequate housing and other benefits.
> (Bahá ! í World 2005)
> 
> The Iranian Bahá ! ís have long been persecuted for their religious faith. Persecution
> entails a systematic policy of discrimination by a religious majority on the basis of
> heterodox beliefs of the oppressed minority. The International Religious Freedom
> Report 2005 released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor speci-
> fies these human rights violations (US Department of State 2005c). This may partly be
> a symptom of a larger problem: Mohamed Eltayeb, an expert in the human rights
> field, points out that, in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, a number of Muslim
> countries attempted “to construct alternative ‘Islamic’ human rights instruments,”
> which, however, “have fallen far below the international standards” (cited in Buck
> 2003: 91–2).
> The Bahá ! í question is exacerbated by one particular problem in current inter-
> national human rights standards: the UN’s Declaration on the Elimination of All
> Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief has yet to be
> raised to the level of an international convention, even though UN declarations on the
> elimination of racial discrimination and discrimination against women have already
> been codified as international law (Buck 2003: 91). At issue here is the difference
> between a declaration and a convention in the context of international law. The rea-
> son a convention takes the force of international law is that it operates as a multi-
> lateral treaty. The fact that the UN Declaration is an aspirational document and not
> law is not inherently a problem with respect to protecting the Bahá ! ís in Iran, as Iran
> is already a party to the ICCPR and is thus bound by its Article 18. This is not to say
> that if the provisions of the Declaration became binding they would not be helpful,
> but Article 18 already requires Iran to protect the essential religious rights of the
> Bahá ! ís.
> Protection of the Bahá ! ís in Iran (or of any religious minority anywhere), as a
> matter of international law, does not depend on recognition of the religion by the
> 
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
> state government. Because of the religious identity of some Islamic governments, they
> could never, and could never be expected to, recognize the Bahá ! í Faith as an
> independent religion. However, they can and they must be expected to permit all
> individuals to “have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice” and “either indi-
> vidually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion
> or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching” (International Covenant on
> Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], art. 18). Thus the Bahá ! ís are not seeking from
> the Iranian government a formal recognition of the independent identity of the Faith
> but rather the right to believe and to practice. The distinction may be fine, yet
> religious rights have a clear priority over religious recognition. The Bahá ! í religion
> need not be “recognized,” but the religious rights of the Bahá ! ís must be recognized.
> From the fact that various Islamic states and institutions have attempted to repli-
> cate international human rights language into their respective constitutions and legal
> codes, one may observe – and even predict – that international religious human rights
> will exert increasing pressures on Islamic regimes found to be in violation of inter-
> national norms, to which most Islamic states are signatories and by which they are
> legally bound.
> 
> Conclusion
> It has been shown that the Islamic identities of Islamic minorities are largely a matter
> of perspective. Where the legitimacy and rights of a controversial religious minority
> within an Islamic state are both in question and in peril, the interplay of what might
> be termed a “standpoint epistemology” must be taken into consideration. Like truth
> and beauty, Islamic orthodoxy is in the eyes of the beholder. More importantly,
> Islamic authenticity is in the hands of the powerful. Only the pressure of international
> human rights standards has the universal and even-handed potential needed to con-
> strain Islamicate power-brokers from repressing their relatively powerless minorities.
> Many in the field of international human rights feel that the Islamic world is the
> part of the international community least accepting of the international human rights
> regime. Clearly, what is needed is acceptance of international human rights laws, both
> in the enlightened self-interests of Islamic authorities, as well as in the interests of
> the religious minorities under their governance. Religious minorities that hold
> unwelcome beliefs within Islamic states – such as the Alevis of Turkey, the Ahmadiyya
> in Pakistan, and the Bahá ! ís of Iran – continue to pose a challenge to the Islamic
> identity of its entrenched orthodoxies. This challenge is affrontive, not confrontive.
> A test case in Egypt has recently drawn international attention: an Egyptian Bahá ! í
> couple requested the Department of Passports and Immigration to add the names of
> their daughters to their passports. The department refused to return their passports
> and withdrew their ID cards – arguably in violation of their legal rights guaranteed
> by the Constitution of Egypt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On
> April 4, 2006, a lower administrative court ruled that “[i]t is not inconsistent with
> Islamic tenets to mention the religion on this card even though it may be a religion
> whose rites are not recognized for open practice, such as Bahá ! ism and the like.” The
> Egyptian government has appealed this ruling. On December 16, 2006, the Supreme
> Administrative Court issued its final judgment in the case of Husam Izzat
> Musa and Ranya Enayat Rushdy, upholding the government’s policy of allowing only
> 
> ––– C H R I S T O P H E R B U C K –––
> 
> affiliations of the three officially recognized religions – Judaism, Christianity, and
> Islam – on state ID cards and government documents. This ruling sets Egypt’s
> religious human rights standards against international standards. However, on 31
> March 2008, Egypt’s official national newspaper, Al-Akhbār (“The News”),
> announced that Egypt’s government-appointed National Council for Human Rights
> has just released its fourth annual report, recommending, inter alia, that the govern-
> ment allow the entry of “Bahá ! í” as one of the choices in the religion field on official
> identity cards. Time will tell whether this recommendation will herald the dawn of a
> new era in the eventual freedom of oppressed religious minorities in Islamic states.
> These and other recent events have reinforced the importance of sustained pressure
> by the international community on Islamic authorities to conform to international
> human rights standards. Accordingly, this chapter is not only about the identities of
> the minorities in emic, etic, and international perspectives, but about the perceived
> threat posed to the identity of the ruling majority, both by the existence of these
> minorities and by the requirements of international law that they be protected. Inter-
> national law bears on the right to choose and to practice a religion or belief. The right
> to religion as currently incorporated in international law is an individual right, not a
> group right, and is independent of the view of any state or people or even the inter-
> national community itself as to the identity, nature or value of the belief or religion.
> What this has to do with the “identity” of a religious group is where Islamic states
> deny individual rights by denying group rights. In mustering the political will of states
> to advocate through international bodies and otherwise for the protection of the
> rights of members of a religious group, the political realities of efforts to implement
> human rights norms are challenging.
> Since Islamic authorities are facing increasing pressure under international religious
> human rights law to allow religious minorities to maintain their own self-identities –
> whether as self-professed Muslims (as the Ahmadiyya maintain), or as self-professed
> religionists with a distinct identity separate from Muslims (as the Bahá ! ís maintain),
> a full Islamicization of secular religious human rights standards is perhaps the most
> formidable challenge of all.
> 
> References and further reading
> Bahai World (2005) “UN Calls on Iran to Stop Persecution of Bahá ! ís,” available online at
> http://www.bahaiworldnews.org/story.cfm?storyid=413.
> Buck, C. (1995) Symbol and Secret: Qur ! an Commentary in Bahá ! u ! lláh’s Kitáb-i Íqán, Los
> Angeles: Kalimát Press; available online at http://bahai-library.com/books/symbol.secret.
> —— (2003) “Islam and Minorities: The Case of the Bahá ! ís,” Studies in Contemporary Islam 5
> (1–2): 83–106; available online at http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2005/June/Bahái/
> Images/BuckBaháis2005Eng.pdf.
> —— (2007) “Beyond the ‘Seal of the Prophets’: Baha ! ullah’s Book of Certitude (Ketab-e Iqan),”
> in C. Pedersen, F. Vahman, eds., Religious Texts in Iranian Languages, Copenhagen: Det
> Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 369–78.
> Furman, U. (2000) “Minorities in Contemporary Islamist Discourse,” Middle Eastern Studies,
> 36 (4): 1–20.
> Ghanea, N. (2002) Human Rights, the U.N. and the Bahá ! ís in Iran, Oxford: George Ronald.
> Gualtieri, A. R. (1989) Conscience and Coercion: Ahmadi Muslims and Orthodoxy in Pakistan,
> Montreal: Guernica.
> 
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
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> Khan, A. M. (2003) “Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan: An Analysis Under
> International Law and International Relations,” Harvard Human Rights Journal, 16:
> 217–44; available online at http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss16/khan.pdf.
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> tives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, 2: 244–64; available online at http://
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> www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51599.htm
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> Pluralism,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 20: 29–43.
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> Rienner Publishers, 129–48.
> 
> ––– C H R I S T O P H E R B U C K –––
> 
> INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON
> CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
> Adopted and opened for signature, ratification
> and accession by General Assembly resolution
> 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966
> entry into force 23 March 1976, in accordance
> with Article 49
> 
> Article 4
> 1 In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the
> existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties to the present
> Covenant may take measures derogating from their obligations under the pres-
> ent Covenant to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation,
> provided that such measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations
> under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground
> of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin.
> 2 No derogation from articles 6, 7, 8 (paragraphs 1 and 2), 11, 15, 16 and 18
> may be made under this provision.
> 3 Any State Party to the present Covenant availing itself of the right of deroga-
> tion shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the present Covenant,
> through the intermediary of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, of the
> provisions from which it has derogated and of the reasons by which it was
> actuated. A further communication shall be made, through the same intermedi-
> ary, on the date on which it terminates such derogation.
> 
> Article 18
> 1 Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
> This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his
> choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in
> public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, prac-
> tice and teaching.
> 2 No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have
> or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
> 3 Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such
> limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety,
> order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
> 4 The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the
> liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious
> and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.
> 
> ––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––
> 
> Article 26
> All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination
> to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any
> discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against
> discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, polit-
> ical or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
> 
> Article 27
> In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons
> belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the
> other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise
> their own religion, or to use their own language.
> Source: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm
>
> — *Religious Minority Rights (Used by permission of the curator)*