One of the main themes in modern Islamic discourse has been the relationship between universal and cultural particularistic norms regulating human affairs, the sphere which in classical Islamic tradition is designated as mu´amalat. One recurrent topic of contest has been the universal character of international conventions on human rights. This paper will discuss two attempts at accommodation by two Moroccan philosophers, who serve as exponents of two different positions in this debate. Muhammad ´Abid al-Jabiri (1936-2010) justified a conception of democracy, human rights, and women’s rights substantially identical to that of contemporary international conventions by arguing for its foundation in the Islamic philosophical tradition. Indeed, he claimed that the European philosophical tradition had been borrowed from Islam. Taha ´Abd al-Rahman (b. 1944) argued for a specifically Islamic re-conceptualization of democracy and human rights, saying that the task of Islamic civilization was to inject a spiritual dimension into what he considered Western materialistic notions. The iconic figure in al-Jabiri’s philosophical discourse is the Andalusian Islamic scholar and philosopher Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), who attempted to reconcile revelation and reason. In contrast, ´Abd al-Rahman’s reference in Islamic tradition is Ibn Rushd’s contemporary, Ibn ´Arabi (d. 1240), who attempted to construct a coherent system of the Islamic mystical tradition. Both of these Moroccan philosophers try to safeguard a particular collective identity, in the case of al-Jabiri, a national Moroccan one, and in the case of ´Abd al-Rahman, a general Muslim one. At the same time, they integrate this identity into a broader, modern global culture. In order to analyze how these two philosophical projects articulate the relationship between religion, law, and ethics in modern societies, I employ Kant’s ideas concerning universally binding moral norms. Kant made a distinction between moral and ethical norms, a distinction that has been elaborated by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas and also Rainer Forst. I plan to depart from this distinction between universally binding moral norms and ethical norms which define the good of particular life-forms.