The First Generation of Muslim Intellectuals and the 'Rights of Man'

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Generally speaking, men are influenced by books which clarify their own thought, which express their own notions well, or which suggest to them ideas which their minds are already predisposed to accept. Carl Becker (1) I. INTRODUCTION Long before the birth of the contemporary human-rights discourse, the 'rights of man' found an interesting fate in the nineteenth century. On the one hand, natural rights doctrine was propagated through the French Revolution 1789, which despite its controversial aftermath, continued to inspire the 'global intellectuals' (2) in many parts of the world. At the theoretical level on the other hand, as the process of secularization of natural law was completed by the late eighteenth century, the philosophical foundations of Lockean rights doctrine were put into serious doubt by all sides of the philosophical spectrum, from Bentham to Marx. Bentham wrote a harsh critique on the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen 1789 and described the underlying principle of equality claimed in the Declaration to be a natural right as absurd and miserable nonsense! The critique of natural rights was not confined to utilitarian or legal positivist theories which flourished in the nineteenth century but it also came from Karl Marx, whose early works On the Jewish Question similarly contains a comprehensive critique of the French Declaration and its underlying individualism. Muslim intellectuals of the nineteenth century were mostly political activists, rather than theorists, to whom the idea of the 'rights of man' had particular appeal. They, however, employed, and often skewed, the abstract notions of the 'rights and liberty' language in ways that fostered, rather than undermined, their advocacy for constitutionalism given the specific political, social and cultural context in which they operated. It is, thus, crucial to appreciate the contextual differences that existed between the nineteenth century Islamic world and the Western world on the eve of the Glorious Revolution 1688 or eighteenth century France before the dawn of the French Revolution in which the absolutist sovereign had been weakened by the force of a new and emerging social order. There is also a lack of a European-style Reformation that needs to be considered as a significant factor in explaining the dominant role that religion played in the public sphere of the Islamic world. The Ottoman sultan had considered itself the legitimate successor to the Abbasid caliphs since the conquest of Baghdad by 'Suleiman the Magnificent' in mid-sixteenth century. Similarly in Persia (Iran), the Safavid shahs gained theocratic legitimacy by claiming to be the descendants of Imam Ali, the first Shia Imam and Prophet's cousin. Despite these characteristic differences between the West and the Islamic East, the impact of the French Revolution was profound in both Sunni and Shia-ruled territories of the nineteenth century Islamic world, respectively the Ottoman Empire and Persia (Iran). Just like Fichte and Hegel, Muslim intellectuals were impressed by the French Revolution and, later, with Napoleon's sophisticated character. It is of note that Muslims particularly in the Ottoman Empire, thanks to the formation of a Franco-Ottoman alliance since 1536, did not carry any significant hostility towards the French as they did vis-a-vis other European powers, particularly the tsarist Russia against whom they had fought constant battles. Napoleon's 1789 invasion of Ottoman Egypt, which was under the brutal rule of the Mamluks (the local aristocracy), hardly changed that friendly attitude towards France. Hence General Bonaparte's manifesto, which was cunningly flavoured with rights language, appealed to Muslim masses: Peoples of Egypt, you will be told that I have come to destroy your religion. [This is an obvious lie]; do not believe it! Tell the slanderers that I have come to you to restore your rights from the hands of the oppressors and I, more than the Mamluk, serve God . …