Author: Nassef Manabilang Adiong, PhD

You are cordially invited.

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.

Edited by Nassef Manabilang Adiong, Raffaele Mauriello, and Deina Abdelkader, and with contributions from Farhood Badri, Hanna Pfeifer, Jason E. Strakes, Marina Eleftheriadou, Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, Mohammed Hashas, Muhammad Haniff Hassan, Nicholas P. Roberts, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, Shaimaa Magued, and Sotiris Roussos. The volume is published under the Routledge’s Worlding beyond the West series.

Each activity in this series of book launches, chaired by distinguished scholars, will feature a 5-minute presentation on Co-IRIS by Dr Nassef Manabilang Adiong, a 15-minute talk on “Islam and Democracy: Lessons learnt from the Arab Spring” by Dr Deina Abdelkader, another 15-minute talk on “The Khamenei Doctrine: Iran’s Leader on Diplomacy, Foreign Policy and International Relations” by Dr Raffaele Mauriello, and an open forum. The events will be held at various locations, including CIMEL of SOAS, the Philippine Embassy in London, OXCIS, and Royal Holloway’s CIWAS. Please be guided of the schedules below:

January 15, 2019 (Tuesday, 6:00 – 8:00 pm)
Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law (CIMEL) at SOAS, University of London
Chair: Dr Jonathan Ercanbrack
Venue: Room G3, main SOAS building, SOAS University of London, 10 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Telephone: +44.20.7898.4095
To register, please contact Dr Ercanbrack at je6@soas.ac.uk.

January 16, 2019 (Wednesday, 10:00 am – 12:00 nn)
Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines in the UK
Chair: Second Secretary and Consul Rommel A. Romato
Venue: Exhibition Hall, Philippine Embassy, 10 Suffolk Street, London SW1Y 4HG
Telephone: +44.20.7451.1780
Registration via email (events@philemb.co.uk) is required.

January 17, 2019 (Thursday, 5:00 – 6:30 pm)
Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
Chair: Mr Richard Makepeace
Venue: Damascus Room, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Marston Road, Oxford OX3 0EE
Telephone: +44.1865.618543
To register, please contact the academic office at academic.office@oxcis.ac.uk.

January 18, 2019 (Friday, 5:30 – 7:00 pm)
Centre for Islamic and West Asian Studies (CIWAS) at Royal Holloway, University of London
Chair: Dr Mohammad R. Kalantari
Venue: Moore Auditorium, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham TW20 0EX
Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ciwas-book-launch-islam-in-international-relations-politics-and-paradigms-tickets-53017472688

You are welcome to submit your research monograph in the following publications edited, advised, and supported by the Co-IRIS team:
– International Journal of Islam in Asia (Brill Publishers)
– Islam and Global Studies series (Palgrave Macmillan)
– Islam and International Relations series (Gerlach Press)
– Islam in Southeast Asia series (Palgrave Macmillan)

Below is an excerpt from Inside Higher Ed‘s piece written by Elizabeth Redden.

Another scholar from overseas had a difficult time entering the U.S. for the conference. Nassef Manabilang Adiong, the founder of the Philippine International Studies Organization, came from Manila to Baltimore via Tokyo and Detroit. He said he was about to board his flight for the Tokyo-Detroit leg when he was taken from the line and questioned by a U.S. official about his address in Manila, his family, his background and the foreign countries he had visited.

“I thought that after this situation had happened to me, I would not have any difficulty at the port of entry in Detroit,” Adiong said. But upon arrival in the U.S., Adiong said, he was brought into a room for secondary screening and questioned for two hours by two immigration officials whose questions kept circling around issues of Islam and terrorism. They let him go about five minutes before his connecting flight to Baltimore was scheduled to leave. “It was just a random check, that’s what they said,” Adiong said.

Adiong, whose research is about Islam and international relations in the pre-modern era, described the experience as exasperating, exhausting and embarrassing. “I’m having second thoughts of coming back for future ISA conferences under the current USA administration,” he said. “Probably after this administration I may attend.”

Full article is available here.

School Harvard Divinity School

Position Description

Harvard University’s Faculty of Divinity seeks to make a full-time, tenured appointment to the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Chair in Contemporary Islam. We seek a scholar whose work engages the social, intellectual, political, artistic, economic, or any other aspect of contemporary Islamic life with specialization in Southeast Asia. The candidate should demonstrate a deep understanding of the historical, social, and cultural contexts of Islamic institutions, movements, and ideas in Southeast Asia with emphasis on the 18th-century to the present. The candidate should be also conversant with the broader, global history of Islamic religion and culture.

Basic Qualifications

Applicants should be competent in the appropriate research languages and be able to teach and advise at the doctoral and master’s levels. Applicants should also be able to contribute to the Divinity School’s degree programs, including its multi-religious Master of Divinity program, and be familiar with forms of analysis that address race, gender, and social location. The successful candidate will be expected to engage in the intellectual life of the Divinity School. The candidate will also teach undergraduates and doctoral students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Special Instructions

Letters of nomination should be sent to: Islamic Search Committee, c/o Matthew B. Turner, Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, or via email to:mturner@hds.harvard.edu. A letter of application and current curriculum vitae are required of all candidates. Preference is given to online applications made at:http://academicpositions.harvard.edu. Applications may also be submitted via postal or electronic mail to the addresses above. Review of applications will begin in December and continue throughout February 2015.

Contact Information

Islamic Search Committee
C/o Matthew B. Turner
Harvard Divinity School
45 Francis Ave
Cambridge, MA 02138

Contact Email mturner@hds.harvard.edu