In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the International Declaration of Human Rights, a document designed to hold both individuals and nations accountable for their treatment of fellow human beings-regardless of religious or cultural affiliations. Since then, debates surrounding the reach and scope of the Declaration have been lively and wide-ranging, with the compatibility of Islam and human rights emerging as a particularly thorny issue of international concern. The question has been addressed by Muslim rulers, conservatives, and extremists, as well as Western analysts and policymakers, all of whom have commonly agreed that Islamic theology and human rights cannot coexist.
