The Islamic Theory of International Relations

Abstract

This book provides a remarkable reformist approach to Islam in general and to the Islamic theory of international relations in particular. The author begins by attributing the tragic condition of the modem Islamic world to its stagnation, brought about by the predominance of taqlid. Only with a resolution of the ”time-place issue” p. 4), a phrase that recurs throughout the book in relation to the necessity of distinguishing between what is permanent and what is a mere dated application in another time and place, does AbQSulaymzin believe that “the badly needed original dynamic and realistic policies” (p. 4) can be found. The author distinguishes between the Shari’ah and fiqh (writings of Islamic jurists), which he maintains has been inaccumtely considered to be “law in itself and not a secondary source of Islamic law” p. 4). The siyar (i.e., juristic writings related to international relations), AbuSulayman argues, is not “an Islamic law among nations’’ that constitutes “a sort of unified classical legal code” (p. 7). He also criticizes some writers for overlooking the diversity of classical opinion, saying that Majid Khadduri in particular presented only the “strict position” of al Shifi‘i while ignoring “the equally authoritative opinion of Abu Hanifah” AbuSulayman insists that it is necessary to understand the Qur’an and the Sunnah “in the context of conditions at a time when the early Muslims were confronted by unceasing aggression and persecution” (p. 35) and criticizes the use of abrogation (naskh) to exclude a more tolerant outlook. It is necessary for today‘s Muslims, the author says, ”to go back to the origins of Muslim thought . . . . and reexamine and reform their methods and approaches” (p. 49). The task of developing the required new methodology, he argues, must not be left to the ulama alone, because they “no longer represent the mainstream of Muslim intellectual and public involvement” and are not educated in “the changes. . . in the world today” (p. 76). Characterizing “modern Muslim thought in the field of external affairs” - particularly an “aggressive attitude involved in the classically militant approach to jihad” in the case of “a people who are [now] weak and backward ...