Religions and mission in the Arab world
SEPTEMBER 2008: Vivienne Stacey

This issue of our magazine is fully focused on Ms Vivienne Stacey, a lifelong missionary in the Muslim World. You will find her major writings in this issue on our frontpage. If you click the button Vivienne Stacey you find many other articles by her hand; we will continue to upload new articles there, so keep coming back!

This week we received the news that our sister Shirley Madany has passed away; her husband, Rev. Bassam Madany, regularly contributes to our magazine. We wish him comfort of God in the certainty that his beloved wife is now with our Lord. Let us pray for Bassam.

We have also made dozens of articles by Bassam and Shirley Madany available in the past weeks. Under the button Madany's you find them.

Please let us know how we can improve St Francis Magazine so that it serves your needs in mission in the Arab World!

Rev Dr John Stringer
 

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The Cross of Middle Eastern Christians:The human rights situation of Christians in Syria, Libya and

During the last fifty years human rights have been a much debated issue. Human rights have been put down in  different United Nations declarations and covenants. The most important are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in 1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (both adopted in 1966). Most of the debate has been on the question whether these rights are universal or not.   This Master Thesis has been written in 1996 by the director of Middle East Concern (MEC). 

In the Islamic world thedebate about human rights has been very extensive. Usually the argument was about the relation between the Islamic law (sharica) and the human rights set down in the declarations and covenants of the United Nations. The criti­que of many Muslims regarding the existing human rights docu­ments are twofold:

1, The concept of human rights is not a Western concept; human rights were already set down in the sharica (so they are from Islamic origin).

2, The existing human rights documents are not universal but defined in Western terms.

Therefore the present human rights documents should be redefined in order to become truly universal. Like an Iranian delegate to the United Nations stated: "The Declaration and the Conventions are largely the product of Western libera­lism; at the time of their adoption, the Western colonialist and imperialistic regimes represented the majority of the interna­tional community. Nowadays however, this majority is formed by the newly independent states of Asia and Africa which posses a rich philosophical, ideological and cultural heritage. Conse­quently, the Declaration should be changed. The secular and Western document has to be replaced by an instrument which is better universally accepted and therefore easier universally applicable."

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