Introduction; M.A.M.Salih , B.de Gaay Fortman & K.Martens PART I: HERMENEUTICS, COMMUNITIES OF READERS AND CONTEXT Religious Identity, Difference and Human Rights: The Crucial Role of Hermeneutics; M.A.M.Salih & B.de Gaay Fortman Islamic Texts, Democracy, and the Rule of Law: Towards a Hermeneutics of Conciliation; S.Haq Interpretation in Canon Law: Faith or Reason; P.Brown Judicial Textualism: An Analysis of Textualism as Applied to the United States Constitution; H.Philipse Arbitrary Readings? Christianity and Islam as Capricious Hermeneutic Communities; K.Steenbrink Changing Hermeneutics in Reading and Understanding the Bible: The Case of the Gospel of Mark; G.van Oyen PART II: HERMENEUTIC, SCRIPTUAL POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS The Qur’an and Religious Freedom; A.Mirmoosavi Dignitatis Humanae. A Hermeneutic Perspective on Religious Freedom as Interpreted by the Roman Catholic Church; K.Martens Strangers and Residents: The Hermeneutic Challenge of Non-Jewish Minorities in Israel; D.Weissman Religious Texts as Models for Exclusion. Scriptural Interpretation and Ethnic Politics in Northern Nigeria; N.Kastfelt Jihad from a Shi’a Hermeneutic Perspective; S.Haghighat Views on Women in Early Christianity: International Hermeneutics in Tertullian and Augustine; W.Otten Women’s Rights and the Interpretation of Islamic Texts: The Practice of Female Genital Mutilation; I.Touray

BAS DE GAAY FORTMAN
 is the Chair in Political Economy of Human Rights at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands.

KURT MARTENS
 is
Assistant Professor Canon Law at the Catholic University of America, USA.

M.A.MOHAMED SALIH is Professor of Politics of Development at both the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague and the Department of Political Science at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands.