The Islamic World In 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.

The Islamic World comprises territories of Muslim states throughout the world. This area faces a lot of dilemmas regarding ethnic and religious conflicts as well as political and economic instability. The authors address the topic from the perspective of international security, foreign policy, economic and energy policy as well as regional studies.

The anthology is an introduction to political cultures in the Islamic world and into relations between the West and Islam. It details its analysis in country studies on Algeria, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Bosnia, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Central Asia and Pakistan.

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.

A sweeping history of Islam and the West from the seventh century to today Europe and the Islamic World sheds much-needed light on the shared roots of Islamic and Western cultures and on the richness of their inextricably intertwined histories, refuting once and for all the misguided notion of a "clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and Europe. In this landmark book, three eminent historians bring to life the complex and tumultuous relations between Genoans and Tunisians, Alexandrians and the people of Constantinople, Catalans and Maghrebis—the myriad groups and individuals whose stories reflect the common cultural, intellectual, and religious heritage of Europe and Islam. Since the seventh century, when the armies of Constantinople and Medina fought for control of Syria and Palestine, there has been ongoing contact between the Muslim world and the West. This sweeping history vividly recounts the wars and the crusades, the alliances and diplomacy, commerce and the slave trade, technology transfers, and the intellectual and artistic exchanges. Here readers are given an unparalleled introduction to key periods and events, including the Muslim conquests, the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, the commercial revolution of the medieval Mediterranean, the intellectual and cultural achievements of Muslim Spain, the crusades and Spanish reconquest, the rise of the Ottomans and their conquest of a third of Europe, European colonization and decolonization, and the challenges and promise of this entwined legacy today. As provocative as it is groundbreaking, this book describes this shared history in all its richness and diversity, revealing how ongoing encounters between Europe and Islam have profoundly shaped both.

This lecture focuses on the need for the United States – and other Western countries – to understand the political, social, and ideological trends that have emerged in the Muslim world in recent years, and on the necessity of engaging Muslim communities worldwide. The Obama administration is moving in this direction, as evidenced by President Obama’s Cairo speech of June 4, 2009, and his other statements and media interviews regarding the Muslim world. This lecture is based on my academic research over the years, and my work for the US government from 1990 to 2006. It draws heavily on my two recent publications, and on the numerous visits I have made to more than thirty Muslim counties in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central, South and Southeast Asia and the Balkans, as well as to several European countries that have Muslim populations. These visits have afforded me the opportunity to engage hundreds of Muslims – thinkers, writers, activists, journalists, politicians, clerics, non-governmental organization (NGO) workers, “jihadists,” liberals, radicals, Sunnis, Shia, and Sufis – in conversations on current developments in the Islamic world and how they view their relations with the outside world, including with the United States. My interviews gave me a clear impression that Muslims – especially those of the well-educated and professional middle classes – throughout most of the present decade have grown increasingly troubled by present relations between the United States and the Islamic world, and even more concerned about the future of these important relations.

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.

Reaching beyond traditionally politicised scholarship to provide a unique perspective on the place of religion and culture in global and local politics, this book examines the impact of Islam on 'civilizational' relations between different groups and polities. Bassam Tibi takes a highly original approach to the topic of religion in world politics, exploring the place of Islam in society and its frequent distortion in world politics to the more radical Islamism. Looking at how this becomes an immediate source of tension and conflict between the secular and the religious, Tibi rejects the 'clash of civilizations' theory and argues for the revival of Islamic humanism to help bridge the gap. Chapters expand on: inter-civilizational conflict in global politics dialogue between religious and secular, East and West western concepts of Islamism euro-Islam and the Islamic diaspora in Europe Islamic humanism as a tool for bridging civilizations. Shedding new light on the highly topical subject of Islam in politics and society, this book is an essential read for scholars and students of international politics, Islamic studies and conflict resolution.

For four decades Saudi Arabia and Iran have vied for influence in the Muslim world. At the heart of this ongoing Cold War between Riyadh and Tehran lie the Sunni-Shia divide, and the two countries' intertwined histories. Saudis see this as a conflict between Sunni and Shia; Iran's ruling clerics view it as one between their own Islamic Republic and an illegitimate monarchy. This foundational schism has played out in a geopolitical competition for dominance in the region: Iran has expanded its influence in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, while Saudi Arabia's hyperactive crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, has intervened in Yemen, isolated Qatar and destabilized Lebanon. Dilip Hiro examines the toxic rivalry between the two countries, tracing its roots and asking whether this Islamic Cold War is likely to end any time soon.