Terminological Engineering in International Law: Sexuality and the Epistemological Challenge to Islamic Ethical Law
Keywords:
Islamic Law, Islamic Ethics, Gender, LGBTQI , Sexuality, Human Rights
Abstract
This study investigates how international institutions, particularly United Nations bodies, engage in terminological engineering that reshapes global moral and legal discourse. It argues that terms related to gender, sexuality, and human identity are not linguistically neutral but serve as instruments of Western ideological hegemony. Through the analysis of international instruments such as CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action, and the Yogyakarta Principles, the paper demonstrates how linguistic normalization embeds secular-liberal assumptions within international law. Drawing upon the Islamic intellectual tradition, especially the concepts of fiṭrah (innate disposition) and iṣṭilāḥ (ethical terminology), the study contrasts secular and sacred epistemologies of law and language. It concludes that the global diffusion of these terminologies constitutes not merely a legal process but an epistemological transformation that redefines human ontology, undermines ethical pluralism, and challenges the moral sovereignty of Islamic jurisprudence.
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ʿĀshūr, Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir ibn. Al-Taḥrīr Wa al-Tanwīr. Vol. 1. Tunis: Dār Sahnūn, 1997.
ʿAwaḍī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Al-Muṣṭalaḥāt al-Wāfida Wa Atharuhā ʿalā al-Huwiyya. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 2015.
Alston, Philip, and Ryan Goodman. International Human Rights. OUP Oxford, 2013.
Asad, Muhammad. The Principles of State and Government in Islam. Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1980.
Asad, Talal. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Attas, Syed Muhammad Naquib. Islam and Secularism. Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), 1413. https://www.icit-digital.org/books/islam-and-secularism.
Badgett, M. V. Lee. “The Economic Cost of Homophobia: How LGBT Exclusion Impacts Development.” World Bank. The Economic Costs of Homophobia, A Case Study of India, Washington, DC, March 12, 2014.
Benard, Cheryl. Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies. 2004. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1716.html.
Benhabib, Seyla. “The Legitimacy of Human Rights.” Daedalus 137, no. 3 (July 2008): 94–104. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed.2008.137.3.94.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Charlesworth, Hilary, and Christine Chinkin. The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis. Manchester University Press, 2000.
Cortez, Clifton. Equality of Opportunity for Sexual and Gender Minorities. Washington DC: World Bank Group, 2024. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/equality-of-opportunity-for-sexual-and-gender-minorities.
Ḍayf, Shawqī. Tārīkh Al-Adab al-ʿArabī: Al-ʿAṣr al-Jāhilī. Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1983.
Dijk, Teun A. van. Discourse and Power. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Red Globe Press, 2008.
Donnelly, Jack. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. Cornell University Press, 2003.
Dunn, John. The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the “Two Treatises of Government.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Ekşi, Ahmed. “Comparing Dowry System and Mahr: Cultural Practices Versus Ottoman Law in Turkish Matrimonial Traditions.” Islamiyyat 46, no. 2 (December 2024): 17–28. https://doi.org/10.17576/islamiyyat-2024-4602-02.
Ekşi, Ahmet, and A. H. M. Ershad Uddin. “Application of Maintenance During the Waiting Period ('Idda’): A Perspective From Ottoman and Turkish Civil Law.” IIUM Law Journal 31, no. 2 (December 2023): 2. https://doi.org/10.31436/iiumlj.v31i2.792.
Fairclough, Norman. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009.
Gajanan, Mahita. “LGBTQ Characters on TV Hit Record High, GLAAD Survey Finds.” TIME, November 3, 2016.
https://time.com/4556362/lgbtq-characters-television-glaad/.
Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm Al-Dīn. Vol. 1. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah, 1983.
Hallaq, Wael B. Restating Orientalism: A Critique of Modern Knowledge. Columbia University Press, 2018.
———. Sharī’a: Theory, Practice, Transformations. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
———. The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament. Columbia University Press, 2012.
Human Rights Watch Press Release, New York. “Egypt: End Internet Entrapment, Homosexual Prosecutions.” February 21, 2003. https://www.hrw.org/legacy/press/2003/02/egypt022003.htm?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
Ibrāhīmī, 18. Muḥammad al-Bashīr. Āthār Al-Imām al-Bashīr al-Ibrāhīmī. Vol. 2. Algiers: Wizārat al-Thaqāfah, 1997.
Jaggar, Alison M. Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Philosophy and Society). Bloomsbury Academic, 1983.
Jalabī, Muḥammad. Zubdat Al-Taʿrīfāt. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1998.
Jurjānī, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad. Kitāb Al-Taʿrīfāt. Edited by Ibrāhīm Abyārī. Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1985.
Kafawī, Abū al-Baqāʾ. Al-Kulliyyāt: Muʿjam Fī al-Muṣṭalaḥāt Wa al-Furūq al-Lughawiyyah. Edited by ʿAdnān Darwīsh and Muḥammad Miṣrī. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 1998.
Kamali, Prof Mohammad Hashim. The Dignity of Man: An Islamic Perspective. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2002.
Kāsānī, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn. Badāʾiʿ Al-Ṣanāʾiʿ Fī Tartīb al-Sharāʾiʿ. Vol. 7. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1986.
Khwārazmī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad. Mafātīḥ Al-ʿUlūm. Edited by Gerhard F. P. Sachs. Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1910.
Lister, Ruth. Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives. NYU Press, 2003.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Third Edition. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
Manẓūr, Ibn. Lisān Al-ʿArab. Vol. 2. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1990.
Martti, Koskenniemi. The Politics of International Law. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011.
Maydānī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ḥabannakah. Mawārid Al-Bayān Li-Durūs al-Lughah Wa al-Balāghah. Damascus: Dār al-Qalam, 1990.
Merry, Sally Engle. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago Series in Law and Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo3636543.html.
Money, John, and Anke A. Ehrhardt. Man & Woman, Boy & Girl: Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity. Bloomsbury Academic, 1996.
Monshipouri, Mahmood. Democratic Uprisings in the New Middle East: Youth, Technology, Human Rights, and US Foreign Policy. New York: Routledge, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315635224.
Mutua, Makau. Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
———. “Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights.” Harvard International Law Journal 42, no. 1 (2001): 201–45.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. The Need for a Sacred Science. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
Okin, Susan Moller, Joshua Cohen, Matthew Howard, and Martha C. Nussbaum. Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Producer, Heidi Spillum, Web. “Where We Are On TV Report 2021–2022.” February 2, 2022. https://glaad.org/whereweareontv21/.
Qarāfī, Aḥmad ibn Idrīs. Al-Furūq. Vol. 1. Beirut: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 2001.
Rāfiʿī, Muṣṭafā Ṣādiq. Tārīkh Ādāb Al-ʿArab. Vol. 1. Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1989.
Roy, Olivier. The Failure of Political Islam. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1994.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 2014.
Sakkākī, Yūsuf ibn Abī Bakr. Miftāḥ Al-ʿUlūm. Edited by Nāṣir al-Dīn Asad. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1987.
“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Archives.” International Commission of Jurists, April 11, 2005. https://www.icj.org/issue/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/.
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. A New World Order. Princeton University Press, 2005.
Ṭabarī, Muḥammad ibn Jarīr. Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āy al-Qurʾān. Vol. 4. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1984.
Ṭahānawī, Muḥammad ʿAlī. Kashshāf Iṣṭilāḥāt Al-Funūn. Edited by Aḥmad Ḥanafī. Beirut: Maktabat Lubnān, 1996.
Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2018.
———. Modern Social Imaginaries. Duke University Press, 2004.
Taymiyyah, Aḥmad ibn. Majmūʿ Al-Fatāwā. Vol. 29. Riyadh: King Fahd Complex, 1995.
Uddin, Ahm Ershad. “Analyzing the Implementation of Shufʻah ‘Preemption Rights’ in the Legal System of Bangladesh within the Framework of Islamic Law.” İslam Medeniyeti Araştırmaları Dergisi 8, no. 2 (2023): 459–83. https://doi.org/10.20486/imad.1351411.
Uddın, Ahm Ershad. “Human Rights of Minorities in Islam: From the Perspective of Iraq.” İlahiyat Tetkikleri Dergisi, no. 57 (June 2022): 55–62. https://doi.org/10.5152/ilted.2022.223077.
———. “The Practice and Legitimacy of Misyār Marriage: A Critical Analysis within Islamic Law.” Yakın Doğu Üniversitesi İslam Tetkikleri Merkezi Dergisi 9, no. 2 (December 2023): 2. https://doi.org/10.32955/neu.istem.2023.9.2.06.
Ulugöl, Fatih. “Arap Dili Istilâhlarindaki İhtilaflarda Dînî Hassasiyetin Rolü.” Çukurova Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi (ÇÜİFD) 20, no. 2 (December 2020): 486–508. https://doi.org/10.30627/cuilah.722748.
UNESCO. International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education: An Evidence-Informed Approach. Paris: UNESCO, 2018.
UNHR. “Free and Equal.” OHCHR, 2025. https://www.ohchr.org/en/get-involved/free-and-equal.
ʿĀshūr, Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir ibn. Al-Taḥrīr Wa al-Tanwīr. Vol. 1. Tunis: Dār Sahnūn, 1997.
ʿAwaḍī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Al-Muṣṭalaḥāt al-Wāfida Wa Atharuhā ʿalā al-Huwiyya. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 2015.
Published
2026-06-22
How to Cite
Djebbar, A., & Uddin, A. (2026). Terminological Engineering in International Law: Sexuality and the Epistemological Challenge to Islamic Ethical Law. Mazahib, 25(1), 26-51. https://doi.org/10.21093/mj.v25i1.11860
Section
Articles
Copyright (c) 2026 Abdelhak Djebbar, Ahm Ershad Uddin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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