An Aberdeen academic explores Islamism, Statehood and Human Rights in his newly published book.
Olufemi O. Ilesanmi, also known as Femi, is a lecturer in Law at the Law School at Robert Gordon University (RGU) and he has based the book on his PhD which brings together insights from legal theory, comparative religion and political philosophy to examine the compatibility of Islam and human rights.
The book, entitled Islamism, Statehood and Human Rights, contributes to the ongoing universalist-relativist debate in international relations and law. At the heart of the book is the question of whether religious and political philosophies of contemporary Islamic regimes are compatible with human rights originating from the secular tradition of the West.
Femi said: “Attesting to the ever-increasing presence and influence of Islamism is the emergence of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. This newfangled theocracy is a constant source of inversions and shockwaves.
“But, while Islamism, Statehood and Human Rights does not give a day-to-day account of events in the newly created state, it does look in depth at the worldviews that shape public policies and law in the 21st century world of Islam.
“It examines two different worlds with competing perspectives on international human rights: firstly, a world where all humans are, by nature, entitled to human rights, and secondly a world where religious identity is a requirement for human rights.
“The former world of entitlement usually consists of secular societies where efforts are consistently made to ensure the separation of Church and State.
“In the latter world however, there is a hypostatic union between Church and State. Political and legal authority is stamped on the minds of citizens or subjects through religion. Rights, some theocrats believe, are divinely ordained and ascribed to members of a given community of faith.”
Femi added: “We live in a global risk society and it is ‘a world of difference’. Genuine desire for understanding the ‘other’ is necessary for any meaningful engagement. The book so postulates some relational hypothesis to help explain and analyse factors which determine compliance to human rights in the considered environments.”
Femi studied for a PhD in Law at the University of Aberdeen. With an interdisciplinary academic background in law, ethics and public theology, he has since taught law and cognate modules in universities across Europe and Africa. He teaches legal theory and criminology at the Law School at RGU, is an associate of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen and serves as the Convenor for the Jurisprudence Section of the Society of Legal Scholars in the United Kingdom.
