1st Edition

Rights, Religion and Reform Enhancing Human Dignity through Spiritual and Moral Transformation

By Chandra Muzaffar Copyright 2002
    384 Pages
    by Routledge

    384 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book discusses issues concerning human rights and religion. Is a more integrated approach to human rights desirable - an approach that transcends the individual-centred orientation of civil and political liberties of the dominant centres of power in the West? How can religious thought contribute to an integrated notion of human rights and human dignity? What sort of transformation should religion itself undergo in order to enable it to come to grips with contemporary challenges? Related to this is a larger question: How can universal spiritual and moral values help to shape politics, the economy and society as a whole?

    Part I. From Human Rights to Human Dignity 1. An Integrated Approach to Human Rights 2. Development and Democracy in Asia 3. Transforming Rights: Five Challenges for the Asia-Pacific 4. Judging Asia: Assessing Human Rights Credibility 5. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 6. Rethinking Human Rights: A Philsophical Debate Part II. The Essence of Religion 7. A Spiritual Vision of the Human Being 8. A Worldview for Environmental Salvation 9. The Soviet Union and the Denial of God 10. Religious Conflict in Asia 11. Religiosity on the Rampage: Spirituality in Slumber 12. Islam: Justice and Politics 13. Judiciary and Justice 14. Islamic Movements and Social Change 15. Islamisation of State and Society 16. Reflections on the Shariah 17. Hudud: Central to Islam? 18. Iqbal and the Challenge of Reform Part III. The Challenge of Reform 19. The Welfare State: The Quest for an Alternative 20. The Economic Crisis 21. Establishing a Fully Moral and Ethical Society 22. Civil Society in Malaysia 23. Accomodaiton and Acceptance of Non-Muslim Communities 24. Islam and Confucianism: Ethnic Relations in Malaysia 25. A Concluding Thought: the Remembrance of God

    Biography

    Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is one of Asia's leading public intellectuals, and has written widely on politics, human rights and religion. A former university don, he has been a social activist for 30 years and is President of the International Movement for a Just World.