Islamic Human Rights Day in Iran Date in the current year: August 5, 2024

The Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, originally known as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, was founded in 1969 in order to preserve Islamic values and increase cooperation in political, economic, social, cultural, and scientific areas. It has 57 members.

The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam was the OIC’s response to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Some OIC member states felt that the UDHR failed to take into account the religious and cultural context of non-Western countries and thus needed amendments.

Although the Cairo Declaration guarantees many of the same rights as the Universal Declaration, it establishes the sharia (Islamic law) as the only source of human rights in Islam. This greatly restricts rights with respect to the UDHR, since, for example, Muslim men have more rights than women and members of other religion under sharia. Therefore, the Cairo Declaration has been criticized for implying superiority of men and failing to guarantee freedom of religion.

The Cairo Declaration was adopted on August 5, 1990 and has since been signed by 45 states. In Iran, the anniversary of its adoption is observed as Islamic Human Rights Day.