Islam And International Relations

Islam in International Relations: Politics and Paradigms analyses the interaction between Islam and IR. It shows how Islam is a conceptualization of ideas that affect people’s thinking and behaviour in their capacity to relate with IR as both discipline and practice. This approach challenges Western-based and defined epistemological and ontological foundations of the discipline, and by doing so contributes to worlding IR as a field of study and practice by presenting and discussing a broad range of standpoints from within Islamic civilization. The volume opens with the presentation and discussion of the international thought of a major Muslim leader, followed by a chapter that addresses the ethical practice of IR, from traditional pacifism to modern Arab political philosophy. It then switches to applying constructivism as a tool to understand Islam in world affairs and proceeds to address the issue of how the ethnocentric approach of Western academia has hindered our understanding of world affairs. The volume moves on to address the ISIS phenomenon, a current urgent issue in world affairs, and closes with a look at Islamic geopolitics. This comprehensive collection will be of great interest to students, scholars and policy-makers with a focus on the Muslim world.

Islam and International Relations: Fractured Worlds reframes and radically disrupts perceived understanding of the nature and location of Islamic impulses in international relations. This collection of innovative essays written by Mustapha Kamal Pasha presents an alternative reading of contestation and entanglement between Islam and modernity. Wide-ranging in scope, the volume illustrates the limits of Western political imagination, especially its liberal construction of presumed divergence between Islam and the West. Split into three parts, Pasha’s articles cover Islamic exceptionalism, challenges and responses, and also look beyond Western international relations. This volume will be of great interest to graduates and scholars of international relations, Islam, religion and politics, and political ideologies, globalization and democracy.

This edited volume conceives of International Relations (IR) not as a unilateral project, but more as an intellectual platform. Its contributors explore Islamic contributions to this field, addressing the theories and practices of the Islamic civilization and of Muslim societies with regards to international affairs and to the discipline of IR.

International Relations and Islam: Diverse Perspectives presents the idea of finding a middle way or common ground of understanding between two bodies of knowledge conceived from two different hemispheres of the world; namely, International Relations (IR), a social science discipline conceived in the UK and the US (the West), and Islam or Islamic Studies which was conceived in the Arab world and developed in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia and many non-Arab countries. The book is divided into two main sections; the first being general perspectives from different backgrounds or cases concerning Islam. The second part specifically examines Turkey, offering various perspectives on the significance of this country and its democratic experience. The contributions included in this volume range from discussions on the Islamic veil and its associated stereotypes to an article on Islamic feminism. Other subjects discussed include the issues of Muslim integration, Turkey’s international relations, and Islam’s relationship with democracy, in addition to a biographical representation of the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoğlu, detailing his scholarship and its impact on Turkey’s foreign policy. This edited book is part of the mission-vision of the IR-IS Research Cohort, an e-networking community interested in advancing comparative research between International Relations and Islamic Studies. Contributors: Jessica L. Daniels, Didem Doğanyılmaz, Gökhan Duman, Alessandra L. González, İştar Gözaydın and Ari Varon.

An accessible and comprehensive account of the global dimensions of political Islam in the twenty-first century, explaining political Islam, nationalism and globalization and providing a detailed account of Al Qaeda.

This book compares and contrasts Islamic worldviews and Western theoretical perspectives on international relations to suggest that a combination of the two could lead to a mutually beneficial redefinition of contemporary international relations utilizing Western theoretical tools and incorporating an Islamic perspective. Particular focus is given to the Islamic concept of istikhlaf as an ontological and normative foundation. The reasoning being that all man-made social arrangements on “earth”, as well as international society, should be considered a realm of istikhlaf. This allows for return to an eternal and critical first principle, linking all social roles to this principle, which is that man as designated by the Qur’an, is God’s khalifah or Vicegerent on earth. It’s a statement of great magnitude.

Jocelyne Cesari examines the idea that Islam might threaten the core values of the West through testimonies from Muslims in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the US. Her book is an unprecedented exploration of Muslim religious and political life based on several years of field work in Europe and in the United States.

Recent events have demonstrated that one of the most important fields of study in this century is world order. The contribution of this book to this field is that it attempts to lay the intellectual foundations for a reconsideration of what constitutes a truly Islamic world order. Perhaps the words of the late Professor Ismail al-Faruqi, in his scholarly introduction to this work, best describes the landmarks of such an order; "The world order of Islam would confer upon every person by virtue of birth and humanity, the ultimate right and honor, namely, the capacity to think and make up one's mind as to which millah one wishes to belong and hence, by which law one desires to order one's life and that of one's dependents."In dealing with his subject, the author has had to return to the sources of Islam, the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and develop a methodology for dealing with them in a creative and practicable manner. In doing so, he examines the methodology developed by the early generations of Muslim scholars and finds it limited by its legalistic approach. Thus, much of the value of his work lies in its discussion of methodology and in the social sciences in general, by means of methodology developed from a purely Islamic perspective.Originally submitted as a doctoral dissertation, and then revised for its publication in 1987 as "The Islamic Theory of International Relations", this edition, retitled "Towards an Islamic Theory of International Relations", has undergone serious editorial revision, and may now be seen to convey the author's pioneering ideas in a way that befits their importance.

How do we engage with the pressing challenges of xenophobia, radicalism and security in the age of the 'war on terror'? The widely felt sense of insecurity in the West is shared by Muslims both within and outside Western societies. Growing Islamic militancy and resulting increased security measures by Western powers have contributed to a pervasive sense among Muslims of being under attack (both physically and culturally). "Islam and Political Violence" brings together the current debate on the uneasy and potentially mutually destructive relationship between the Muslim world and the West and argues we are on a dangerous trajectory, strengthening dichotomous notions of the divide between the West and the Muslim world.