This thesis aims to study Muhammad Iqbal's socio-political discourse, primarily his critique of the ideology of nationalism and his attempts to chart a path for the development of the 'nation' free from the centralising and homogenising tendencies of the modern state-structure. Iqbal's interaction with the ideology of nationalism, widely promoted as the embodiment of political modernity, is used in this thesis as a foil to a broader study into the interface between Muslim intellectuals and western socio-political thought in India circa 1857-1940. Instead of speaking in terms of a fixed Islamic political tradition, this study emphasises the diversity and richness of Muslim political discourse.

This study addresses the question of whether contemporary theocracies (either as concepts or as systems of governance) are compatible with human rights. It discusses theocracies as political arrangements in which the public, legal and constitutional institutions are characteristically religious. The human rights environments of contemporary Islamic theocracies are explored because of the prominence of Islam in local and international public arenas of the 21 century.

The establishment of a legitimate government was a primary concern of the medieval jurists. Consequently they were obliged to deal with the issue of authority and make it a regular part of their juristic formulation. It was, however, aI-Mãwardi who dealt with this issue more systematically and made it a subject of thorough investigation. In this study we will examine his political ideas with reference to the concept of legitimacy not only in his contemporary context, but also with regard to the governments of past Islamic history. The study will also examine various responsibilities of the ruler as well as his concept of political change in a broad context. The material has been divided into six chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter deals with the meanings of the Caliphate in a broader context, its significance and place in Islamic religious scheme, and various issues related to authority and government as al-Mawardi dealt with them in the light of the Qur'an, the Sunna and the Rashidun period. The second and the third chapters deal with legitimate accession to authority and various responsibilities of the ruler in order of priority and importance. Stress has been laid on the ruler's acknowledgement of the same order in their execution. The fourth chapter deals with the exercise of authority in a legitimate manner. It examines why al-Mawardi recognized the 'Abbasids as legitimate rulers despite criticizing them for their departure from the standard practices of the Räshidun period. In chapter five the attention is focussed on the legitimacy of the weak 'Abbisid Caliph, the status of the Amir and the rebel provincial dynast and the relations of the latter two with the Caliph. The Sunnites and the Shi'ites of this period had different approaches towards the issue of authority. It will be examined how they still managed to arrive at a concordat at an official level which lasted for more than a century. In the sixth chapter, al-Mãwardi's concept of political change has been examined in a broader context. In the conclusion various research findings are brought together in consequence of studying al-Mãwardi's political concepts in relation to the concept of legitimacy.

This study mainly focuses on the compatibility of the international human rights with the diverse cultural and religious values of our world, in particular, the Islamic Shari'ah, consisting of values that not only extend across different regions but even form an important factor of legitimacy for most Islamic states. The study will extensively discuss the international conception of human rights and whether such rights are universal in character and hence applicable to all societies irrespective of their local values, or whether their local values are to a certain degree inevitable to establish real universal human rights with full realization of their essence. It will raise some religious and cultural matters that could form obstacles to the full realization of human rights, such as the complexity of the implementation of human rights under Islamic Shari'ah. It will also refer to traditional values and principles of the British common law, in which Parliament is the sovereign body accorded unrestrained power, which seems to pose the same difficulty that Islam could cause in human rights implementation. The study will demonstrate that the cultural tension with human rights is not exclusive to a certain culture but it is a result of the variety of diverse traditions of different nations that fonn our relativistic world. The study will suggest that although some of the local values of certain societies may raise tension with the principles and values of the current international trend of human rights, this does not mean that these local principles and values must be changed to comply. Rather, it may more appropriately be suggested that this developing notion of human rights should be reconsidered to make universal rights more universal and not relative to a certain regional part of the world.

The aim of this research is to investigate the extent to which human rights in Islam corresponds with the international schemes of human rights despite its "cultural particularities". This thesis investigates the right to freedom of faith in light of the main textual sources in Islamic Shariah focusing on the concept of apostasy. To put the study in context, the research traces the history of human rights in both the Islamic and Western perspectives.