by Nassef Manabilang Adiong
My
goal was to present and put forward the idea of finding a middle way between
two bodies of knowledge which were conceived from two different hemispheres of
the world. International Relations (IR), a social
science discipline conceived in the UK and the US (comprising 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
(comprising the East).
If scholars and members of the English School of
International Relations were able to
associate and converge their thoughts on conceptualizing International
Relations with Christianity, this is of course majority of them are Christians
and so Western Europe is. Then, it is a precedent and an indication that along
the strand of the Abrahamic Faiths Islam is putatively
feasible and probable to understand and interpret International
Relations (IR) and vice versa. Though the danger of this idea might
suggests a myriad adherence to two extreme poles of risky paradigms: (1) those
IR scholars who totally ignore Western concepts in Islam because it’s plainly
un-Islamic and (2) those Islamic (ulama) scholars who color Western concepts like IR within
the Islamic prism by putting Islamic elements. This is a matter of how we are
going to find tangency or via media between Islam and IR without committing
submission to those extreme poles.
The proposed idea is on the study of relations
between Islam and
International Relations which primarily presents the title of this
edited “Islam and International Relations: Diverse Perspectives.” This was
initially conceptualized with the aim of looking their conceived perceptions
side by side, whether, how Islam is interpreted by IR scholars and vice versa.
This has been the proponent’s quest to feasibly and scholarly presents Islam as
a non-alien in the Western discourse of the IR field.
The aims of this initial initiative are to show
juxtaposed positions of mutual perceptions or diverse perspectives between Islam and IR based on
conceived notions of contested conceptions, to eliminate deplorable and pejorative
(mis)conceptions of IR scholars towards Islam and vice versa, and add or put
Islam in the epitome of global discourse of international relations as a major
causal factor that affects the behaviors of every actors (states, sub-state
system, individuals, international and regional organizations, and
multinational corporations) in the international community particularly those
which have interest and peculiar relations to the Muslim world. The process of constructing this initiative involves
selecting perspectives and categories to bring to bear on the research idea.
Contemplating
on the Idea of an Islamic IR?
The title alone of this essay will surely cause havoc
in the Western academia of IR particularly those who were trained in an
American IR school. European IR schools are somehow pluralistic in terms of how
they view IR than their American counterparts. This initiative (an edited book
project) is not an ‘all-knowing’ type of a term project, but it is delimited by
an ‘interrogative’ descriptive structure of explanation. It will be about
various perspectives and cases on the complex relations of “Islam and IR.” How
both conceptions perceived each other, its repercussions on implicit and
explicit notions of human and society, and if there are mutual or reciprocal
relations or even relative relatedness, or in short ‘interrelationships’
constructed?
But this question is apparently not the primal concern
of IR; it may be more of an importance to sociology, psychology, theology, and
political science. However, we cannot deny IR’s multidisciplinary approach as
an academic discipline. For many years since the interwar (interbellum) period,
a bulk of IR scholars’ research work has been dealing with statecraft, war and conflict studies, state-to-state relations,
and the international system paying little
attention to human affairs or human-to-human or human-to-society relations
concomitant the roles of culture, religion, language, and other determining ‘given’ identities.
Only then at the post-Cold War period, these
matters were given importance, of course, ignited by the constructivist project
in the US.
Looking
for an Intellectual Patronage
When I arrived at a certain university I did some
little research on the faculty list of the IR department and noted those who
may help me in this endeavor. I initially talked to the chairwoman during the
registration period and told me that she doesn’t know if my proposed thesis
(this was done verbally not the formal process of submitting a thesis proposal)
is feasible enough because in her view, ‘why there’s a need to formulate an
international relations theory based on religious perspective, if so then,
there should be Buddhist, Hindus, Christian and Jewish conception(s) of IR’ and
I replied that this is not the point, it’s like you are saying that Islam is similar or
identical with other religions or ideologies.
Further, I lamented that ‘why can Western scholars
particularly the pioneers of English School of IR associated their thoughts
with Christianity’? Was this because of the Peace of Westphalia’s resolutions to disputes between Catholics and
Protestants, and later lead to the establishment of ‘sovereign’ nation-states. Whereby, sovereignty has been so
used (rehashed) word for research by IR scholars which resulted to grand
concepts like anarchy, self-help system, balance of power, national interests,
power, and complex interdependence among others. Though this is not to mean
that when the notion of sovereignty emerged, grand concepts that I mentioned
immediately were conceived. Simple causation here is not enough but complex
method of correlation is the appropriate structure of explanation.
Another professor just shrugged me off and answered
that my proposal is too ambitious (period). In my mind, there’s no ‘ambitious’
research proposal, only those who concluded their research and failed to defend
their work that make it ambitious. Few other IR professors responded to my
inquiry that they cannot help me in my research work because simply they are
not expert on Islam, but instead, gave me links and other important
resources salient to my research. However, when I approached a certain
professor (we had an interesting discussion that lasted almost an hour or so),
it gave me hope and opened my thoughts to many possibilities.
First, he was asking me with several questions
regarding what is really on my mind. He talked about vehemently avoiding two
extreme poles which I discussed in the beginning. I asked: “can we find a via
media or middle way from
these two ends of spectrum” because I don’t want to pattern my research in a
pendulum way, wherein I might get too adhering to the no. 1 or no. 2 extreme
poles? And he answered, it’s possible, if we can rework (adjust) its
ontological propositions and find or
discover appropriate epistemology. The thing that I can think of is to use a method
that is immune and has defensive mechanism in avoiding or capable of avoiding
these extreme poles.
But for now I will focus first on asking questions,
observing the phenomena, and gathering a plethoric survey of literatures.
Secondly, he suggested for possible research undertakings like look into the
works of Edward Said, Mohammed Arkoun, Giorgio Shani, al-Zuhili and gave me the Sabet’s
book to make some reports. Though I criticized Sabet’s book at first, but
suddenly I am overwhelmed by the arguments he presented in his conclusion. He
presented a conundrum style of inquiry (like puzzles designed to test for
lateral thinking) and basically at those puzzles you can find answers. And
lastly, he humbly suggested that probably I might alter my research inquiry
instead of developing an Islamic theory of IR why not divert my attention to
postcolonial studies because (in his words) it is appropriate and
plausible.
Islam and
International Relations, Strange Bedfellows
Islam and IR, two
intricate terminologies, but how can I make them tangent (meeting along the
same line or point)? This is not to sound like an orientalist; projecting the “incompatibility enterprise” thus you
cannot find harmony or manipulating the study based on their upbringing or normative
biases, e.g. Western culture as point of
reference and making it superior than oriental culture. The orientalist has done such a great deal to make
Islam incompatible, or worst, hostile with Western values, ideas, norms and traditions. Declaring and
pronouncing Islam’s incompatibility with democracy (hinting on
Western “democratic peace theory” that democratic countries or democracies do not go
to war with one another, though this argument can also be associated to opposed
totalitarian governments), human rights particularly of
women and gay rights, international law, etc.
How can we advance our scholarship if we already have
a preconceived perception, notion, impression and biases against Islam and its
adherents, i.e. the Muslims? Why most IR scholars wrote that the area studies
of Middle East in the US
failed miserably? According to them, experts of Middle Eastern studies in
America failed to predict the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, failed to warn the
West about the rise
of radical or fundamental Islamic revivalist movements, failed to suggest and give guidelines for policy
making procedures or to their foreign policy that would have prevent wars or
mitigate hostilities or tensions of the West with the Muslim world.
I would argue that the reasons above were not the
causes that made Middle Eastern studies vulnerable. There is a remarkable
preconceived perception that Middle Eastern experts were unimportant in policy
making and moreover, most of them were neoconservatives with ‘attached’ Israel
propaganda on their belt, e.g., Daniel Pipes (director of the Middle East Forum and
Taube), Fouad Ajami (Harvard CIA/Nadav Safran Chair on Middle East Politics), Mark
Steyn (a self-proclaimed expert on Muslim culture), Ibn Warraq (founder of the Institute for the
Secularisation of Islamic Society), and among others.
Other reasons were my following assumptions or
hunches: (1) you cannot penetrate the government’s circle of advisers to the
president, the Congress and the Judiciary if your views are pro-Islamic world,
(2) you cannot survive the academia in the US if you are straightforwardly
criticizing Israel of course with an exception of established with security of
tenure ‘Edward Said’ and ‘Noam Chomsky’, and (3) be so outwardly visible and outspoken in
the US public opinion of your rants against its foreign policy to the Middle
East and Israel.
Anti-Israel has become a “taboo” in the public and academic spheres of the
US.
Even Edward Said experienced the
orientalist backlash. It
was right after the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, many reports were pointing out
that the suspects were of Middle Eastern origin. Said’s office was bombarded
with calls and emails from the media who wanted to know his opinion regarding
the matter while he was in Canada giving lectures. Said thought that the reason
they were calling him because he was apparently from the Middle East; he was a Christian Palestinian. Little did they know
that the suspect(s) was/were homegrown white American citizen(s).
How can we avoid, mitigate, and solve this
“orientalist enterprise?” I
suggest that Muslim countries or even non-Muslim countries who sympathized with
the goals of Muslim countries can create a multilateral agreement condemning
anti-Muslim acts. Muslim countries can invest in the international media to
establish a worldwide News company vis-à-vis BBC or CNN. Invest more in the
popular culture by creating
movies, TV series, documentaries, concerts, and other tools propagating or
germinating informative means that would directly hit or influence the people
about the stories in the Muslim world. Muslim countries particularly the Arab world can extensively
invest in ‘international education’ by funding researches about Islam, Middle East, and Muslims around the world without political
strings attached to it. However, this all changed after the 9’11 event.
Moving on, we should intensively and rigorously look
into the etymology of Islam and
International Relations. If we talk about Islam are we referring to the
religious aspects of it or the political Islam? Are we speaking of Islam as a
total way of life that transcends beyond its religious status? How will Islam
provide a structure of explanation in interpreting international relations
theory? Is IR embedded within the realms of Islam naturally or constructively?
IR scholars see Islam as ‘the Other’ while most of the Islamic scholars
interpret IR as alien. I think this is because of the dogmas or fatwas imposed
by the Hanafi school of law
which delineated Muslims from non-Muslims by identifying two abodes, the abode
of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the abode of war (Dar al-Harb). Sometimes most of the early Muslim jurists
relegated abode of war as abode of unbelievers (Dar al-Kufr).
We should be careful in contextualizing these terms
and apply it to the present. During the Ottoman Empire, the
Muslim jurists placed a third abode which is at the middle or between the first
two abodes, the abode of covenant (Dar al-Ahd). It refers to non-Muslim governments which have
peaceful relationship (through binding agreements or treaties) with Muslim
governments that prioritizes protection and security of Muslims’ land and
property. The abode of Islam does not only
refer to Muslim nations or states, it also refers to Muslims practicing their
faith in a non-Muslim country. The
concept of ijtihad or making some
independent interpretation for legal decisions had greatly impacted Islam. Since
the inception of the four schools of Islamic laws and jurisprudence within the
strand of the Sunni tradition, the
Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’I, and Hanbali have developed
Islam (on a positive note) more colorful and evolving.
But on the other hand, weakened Islam because of
their different legal interpretations concerning hadith (sayings of Prophet
Muhammad) and sometimes they no longer refer to the original source of Islam,
the Holy Qur’an. They made conflicting and contradicting fatwa
(binding or nonbinding) and legal decisions implemented under the Shari’ah law, a combination of the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah (practices of
Prophet Muhammad). But how this will affect in finding convergence with
International Relations? Declaring and imposing different interpretations of
Islam by Muslim jurists themselves made possible for other Muslim jurists in
other parts of the world, e.g. in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco and etc, to make their own interpretation
and sometimes based it on their culture to express
appropriateness or approximation, applicability, and adjustment.
IR scholars tend to perceive and study Islam on the prism of
secularist epistemology of great
Judeo-Christian tradition, i.e. the concept of separation of Church and
government. How is it possible to find a middle way between two ends of
spectrum? Islam, where religion and politics are in unison,
and in contrast with IR, where religion and politics are totally separated. It
sounds like a melodramatic sentiment with ingredients of Rudyard Kipling famous
saying, “Oh, East is East, and
West is West, and
never the twain shall meet.”
Finding a Remedy?
If we are going to look for some putative solution and
avoid hindrances whether ascribing Islam as an ideology
or religion towards
international relations, then we might find answers. Katerina Dalacoura’s text
on "Political Islam and
International Relations: A Dangerous Case of Mutual Neglect?" in 2004
talks about the concept of globalization as a via media framework. She
argued that “Islamist movements can be seen as examples of non-state actors par
excellence and their impact on the international system can be
understood in their capacity to bypass the state and establish direct relations
with other societies” The problem I see here is how she will be able to
differentiate those movements that were state-driven with irredentist
motivation from those with Islamicate characterizations. The context of
globalization is still debatable whether how Muslim societies are affected and
of course how they respond or react from it.
The remedy I can think of is to construct or
reconstruct ontological propositions and find
appropriate epistemology to decipher
Islam in the ‘schema’
or views of a specific or certain international relations theory. Put simply
all possible ideas and concepts together and initially develop a theoretical or
conceptual framework. It will guide me in determining what things or variables
I should look for. Though I don’t want to use the word ‘variable’ because
it’s a scientific term, however, I see it as a useful word for this initiative
to denote cases supporting my claim or main idea. Consequently, most of what I
have written here is inquiring ideas that bedazzling my mind regarding Islam
and IR.
