The most important academic development that, at least to date, has made an attempt to address the question of Islam’s conception of politics and, more specifically, whether it contains an approach to international relations meaningful is the study of global IR. Although this academic agenda has not yet reached maturity, it is possible to argue – albeit prematurely – that global IR studies are a candidate to become a new area of debate within the discipline of IR, given the interest it has received. As is well known, the most important developments that have brought the discipline into existence and evolved historically are the debates within the discipline, which can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The process, which is generally accepted to have started with the realism-idealism debate, has the potential to continue with global IR debates. Although Western-based IR experts and thinkers seem to be hesitant to contribute to the current debates, there is a serious excitement in non-Western academic circles. There is no doubt that those who are ready to contribute to this emerging ground of research and theoretical reflection with non-Western approaches are subjecting Western concepts, theories and sources of knowledge to a critical debate and want to articulate what their own ontological centers have to say on behalf of the discipline of IR.
The same can essentially be said for bringing Islam to a central position in global IR debates. Global IR, which legitimizes the integration or at least the alternative articulation of non-Western interpretations that have the power to develop within the discipline and determine its current orientation and content, is an important opportunity for those who want to develop and present both a theory of the state and a theory of interstate relations with reference to Islam.
A review of the literature reveals that attempts to offer an Islamic perspective to these global IR efforts and initiatives have begun to take shape around certain concepts and developments and in fact repeat themselves. While these concepts and developments are not insignificant, this attempt to develop a theoretical framework based on Islamic history and the Qur’an, Hadith, Ijma and Qiyas, which are considered to be the main sources of Islam, without being subjected to a serious critique, remains sterile in many respects and makes the fundamental problems it contains more evident. Again, it should be noted that while there is no problem in taking history as a reference in any theoretical endeavor, how this history is interpreted and what kind of analytical process it is subjected to also gains importance. In this regard, those who want to present a political theory with reference to Islam are unable or unwilling to go beyond a certain framework.
So, what are these problems? Since there has not yet been a comprehensive critical discussion of attempts at an Islamic political theory, my points here are perhaps doomed to be limited in terms of the essence of the debate. However, if it is to claim a theory of politics and the state, and more importantly, a conception of IR, there are some very important fundamental problems that the Islamic interpretation must address. Chief among these problems is the a priori assumption that the Islamic is normatively and morally superior. This, of course, does not apply to Orientalists. However, one cannot ignore the fact that this approach dominates the thinking of ‘insider’ contributions in one way or another. This manifests itself in two ways: either that Islam is superior and offers the most correct interpretation, or that Islam actually conforms to the currently accepted value judgments, and therefore Islam and the West, which is already reigning supreme both materially and intellectually in the name of creating a common world and a common future, can surely be reconciled somewhere. In fact, it is possible to say that both views can be valid at times. Historically speaking, it is an uncontested claim that the West has learned a great deal from Islam. Likewise, it is also clear that the West and Islam can actually agree on many issues. But this does not change the fact that the Muslim assumption about Islam is essentially born from an incomplete starting point.
The second important problem is that the line between law and politics is not clearly drawn in the Islamic perspective. In fact, this is not a major problem if we talk about the periods when Islamic law emerged. However, in the West, for example, theories of law and politics have become intertwined, feeding or excluding each other, and have become on different grounds as they develop and evolve. This has not happened in Islamic legal and political theory. While it is understandable that law and politics are intertwined and at times indistinguishable, it is difficult to claim the same for Islam today, when we can speak of an independent discipline of law and an independent discipline of politics. There are two main reasons for this problem. The first is that Islamic law is seen more as an intellectual activity, thus being defined and protected, so to speak, as a field reserved only for ‘scholars’. As a result of this, the interpretations and thoughts of Islamic thinkers could not be codified and become a source of legislation and law-making, whereas law-making was almost exclusively left to the sultan or ruler, which allowed politics to maintain its dominance over law. The second reason is the almost irreversible general acceptance of a deep-rooted misconception about what is meant by Islamic law. As noted above, while Islamic law is an intellectual activity largely the province of Islamic thinkers, it is fundamentally about method. The Islamic sects themselves are in fact schools of thought that emphasize their methods that differ from others. In this respect, Islamic law, which was once the source and basis of an important intellectual richness and vitality, has today been detached from its context and turned into a reference for claims about the essence rather than the method. In other words, it is no longer possible to seriously argue against the content of what was determined as Islamic law at the time. When considered together with the general validity of the self-evident claim that the door of ijtihad is closed, which can never be accepted in terms of the practice of making and producing law, no one today dares to interpret Islamic law in a way different from its content at the time when it was able to reveal its richness and claim.
The third major problem is the ontology and even epistemology of a possible theory of politics and IR. As is well known, the traditional Islamic perspective is based on the claim and narrative of establishing the political sovereignty of Allah and maintaining this sovereignty by proxy. As such, it faces an ontological crisis. On the other hand, it is not easy to come up with radical proposals on the source of knowledge that will feed and ground this theory of politics and IR. What the politically and legally regulated sphere looks like, should look like, and where the Islamic perspective should stand in this regard is an important and urgent question. Will the ‘Islamic’ intellectual community, which has so far refrained from focusing directly on this question, be able to abandon the claim of divine sovereignty that has been made impossible to discuss and challenge from the start? Likewise, will it continue to see revelation and to some extent hadith as the main source of knowledge, in line with this ontological existence?
While it is possible to expand further on the obstacles and problems that are crucial for an Islamic IR, it is also necessary to consider some of the opportunities that this situation presents. First of all, the emergence of a global IR agenda is in itself an important development. The importance of this agenda can be better understood when one considers that the overwhelming majority of the significant thinking and theorizing that has been done to date on understanding the current ‘polity’ and what the ‘polity’ should look like has been Western-centered and Western-originated. Therefore, since the mere existence of this agenda is of great importance in itself, attempts to include Islam in this agenda in one way or another will not face any serious objection. While the future of the current global IR debates is uncertain, it will be interesting to see what kind and value Islamic IR will contribute.
One of the most important opportunities that Islamic IR has is that Islamic studies, including Islamic law, has largely existed as an intellectual activity. While this may be a shortcoming in practical terms, it is not difficult to appreciate how much of an advantage this can be in the context of theoretical studies. In other words, it would be possible to expect Islamic thinkers and jurists to play a similar role to that of, say, Kant, Hegel, Grotius or Vitoria in Western intellectual life and the theoretical initiatives that emerged thereafter, which are also relevant to the discipline of IR. At present, there is no political or IR theory that can be called modern in which, for example, Ibn Khaldun, Maverdi, Imam Muhammad, Serahsi and other important figures in the history of Muslim thought are at the center. Although there have been a number of independent and unrelated studies referring to these names, there is no Islamic theoretical perspective that can express all of them.
Therefore, for those who wish to engage in the ongoing global IR efforts and debates from an Islamic perspective and interpretation, there is an opportunity to offer a theory or theories from the history of Islamic thought that has not yet been said, tested, and has the potential to gain acceptance and interest. This possibility is also related to considering law and politics together, or separating the boundaries of the two. Since, as mentioned above, the relationship between law and politics remains ambiguous in Islamic thought, contemporary debates will be able to address this untouched problem from different perspectives. More concretely, an Islamic version of global IR could draw an IR perspective through an Islamic international law, or it could draw a more distinct line between these two fields. To a large extent, this is closely related to how the historical material is used.
From here, I would like to move on to the discussion of a possible relationship between Islamic international law and IR and how this relationship can be established. Those who engage in contemporary debates with a ‘Muslim’ identity, as I have partly pointed out above, are in my opinion mistaken because they act from the assumption of the authenticity and authenticity of Islam. While it is not right to expect that the identities we carry should not influence our conclusions, this assumption leads to repetition in what is said about Islamic international law or IR and further entrenches the boundaries of an impenetrable circle. Therefore, at this point, I think it is worth mentioning two important points of departure for a more analytical Islamic IR framework that is likely to be more fruitful. The first is the need to accept in advance that the research agenda that will emerge will evolve gradually. A related point is the need to deal with both Islamic history and the geographies and peoples over which Islam has, in one way or another, dominated and claimed to have established political and legal order within the framework of a certain methodology, in cross-sections, without committing the mistake of treating the entire history of Islam in one go and from one window. Second, it is essential for a more analytical and coherent theoretical framework to act on the assumption that what is Islamic is neither superior nor inferior. The Islamic way of thinking has the right and the ability to speak for a new and alternative interpretation of IR and international law; on the one hand, this needs to be acknowledged, but on the other hand, it is necessary to determine how and on what grounds it will be expressed.
It seems that the history of Islamic thought provides important data on how to weave an Islamic interpretation of the relationship between IR and international law in two ways. The first one is related to a potential Islamic political theory. A political theory that does not have a direct Islamic concept at its core, but answers the most fundamental questions and problems, such as how and on what principles the state or an alternative political entity should be constructed and how the ruler-subject relationship should be established, would allow the ‘Islamic’ subject or subjects of international law to be defined. In other words, beyond an Islamic state as understood by reactionary Islamist movements, does Islamic political theory have a conception of an Islamic state? Is it possible to go beyond a Taliban-like ahistorical proposition in which only those who drink and commit adultery are brutally punished according to today’s standards, and is there an Islamic interpretation that can put the ruler-subject relationship on a deep-rooted and solid ground? Or is it realistic to have an Islamic public law system that is unique and has its own claims, rather than an Islamic law limited to civil law, which may be partly ahistorical, as in some rich and prosperous Gulf countries? These and similar questions point to important issues that this theoretical agenda can address.
The second important potential is related to the order that Islamic interpretation can envision. It is clear that Islamic interpretation claims to establish and maintain an order. Although it is observed that this claim partially varies according to historical conditions, at first glance, an understanding of international law accompanied by responsibilities and legal arguments derived from unilateral sovereignty is evident. In other words, since Islam spread through an expansionism based on conquest and force, but at the same time established a dominance based on religious and cultural tolerance, the basic concepts such as sovereignty and sovereign equality on which contemporary international law is thought to be based are essentially alien to this approach and interpretation. A natural consequence of this is that Islamic international law only limits itself and does not expect at least an explicit response from its interlocutors in return for these limitations. Of course, in the absence of a theory of Islamic IR and international law that can be called up-to-date, it is necessary to be cautious in making such a sharp interpretation. But the pinnacle of Islamic thought and legal interpretation is also the pinnacle of Islamic political domination. Therefore, it is natural that the legal interpretations expressed at a time when the claim of Islam reached large masses and geographies did not impose any obligations on the Islamic interlocutors. Be that as it may, this finding is at least a point of departure and provides an idea of what kind of order Islamic international law envisions.
Further work on an Islamic IR and international law agenda in accordance with contemporary conditions and methods may at some point bring to light the commonalities and disparities with Western-centered or non-Islamic options. When it comes to the conception of order, it should be expected that different approaches may be similar in many respects in terms of wishes and wishes. This brings us to the point that an emphasis on ethics is inevitable, especially in the ways in which international legal order is established. It is not difficult to predict and identify important similarities in the ethical foundations of both a Western-centered and an Islamic international legal order. In my personal view, just as modern Western-centered international legal thought is built on debates around war and peace, it would be appropriate to begin the intellectual construction of an Islamic international law with the Islamic law of war and conflict.
