Islam and International Relations: Contributions to Theory and Practice.

• Author: Sharma, Ananya
• Position: Book review

Islam and International Relations: Contributions to Theory and Practice

Edited by Deina Abdelkader, Nassef Manabilang Adiong and Raffaele Mauriello

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 232 pages, $105.00, ISBN: 9781137499318

The discipline of International relations (IR) is deeply rooted in the history, intellectual traditions, and agency claims of the west, thus obscuring the contributions of the non-western world. There is a pressing need for a departure from IR's historical complicity with the marginalization and silencing of alternative epistemologies, thereby opening the possibility of making its process of knowledge production truly global and democratic. IR scholars have conventionally turned a blind eye to analyzing religion as a variable in international politics. Over the past two decades, the study of religion within International Relations has gained credence from its origins in sparse, scattered works, into a vibrant body of scholarship. An outcome of the Co-IRIS team (International Relations and Islamic Studies Research Cohort), which was established to advance comparative research between International Relations and Islamic Studies, this edited volume highlights Islamic contributions in expanding the explanatory heuristics of International Relations. Its contributors question the dominance of secular logic in International Relations and provide a nuanced, comprehensive appraisal of the role of Islam in global politics. They point out that the positivist approaches of IR, focusing on empirical and material corroborations, fail to acknowledge the epistemological and ontological limitations of their analyses and the need to move beyond theoretical confines to engage with the perplexing realities of international politics.

The book is divided into three sections; part one lays the foundational framework in analyzing the contributions of Islam to the study of International Relations. The chapters delve into questioning the hegemonic status accorded to Western IRT and the resurgence and revival of interest in classical sources of Islam with the expansion of globalization. In the first chapter, Alikhani delineates the fundamental epistemic and cognitive principles drawn from the Quran pertaining to the establishment of an ideal international order. The first set of principles involve relationship to other human beings and conduct towards them, including equality, a respectful attitude towards others, and the recognition of the...