Author: Nassef Manabilang Adiong

Co-IRIS Panel: Islamic Perspectives on Theory and Praxis in International Relations

Chair: Nassef Manabilang Adiong

The 2nd Middle Eastern Congress on Politics and Society is organized by the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies of Sakarya University and will take place in Sakarya, Turkey on 14-17 October 2014.

1^st Presenter: [Yusuf Sayın] ABSENT

Editor of Strategic Outlook and PhD Candidate in IR at Selcuk University

Foreign Policy Analysis in Islam and International Relations

The relation of religion to International Relations is usually seen as a Western construct patterned through the historicity of Christianity in Western Europe. Thus, the historical patterns of other religions, particularly Islam, has been untowardly ignored or not given equal attention by IR scholars focusing on comparative studies between religion and IR. Generally, case studies are concentrated on foreign policy analysis and its impact of state and non-state actors with strong religious affinities. Consequently, religious influences in analyzing foreign policy oftentimes extend in both dimensions and angles, and are clear-cut and evidentiary due to an irrefutable reality of complicated structure of the nature of international politics. The paper seeks to present contemporary findings of Islamic contributions assisted by Islamic jurisprudence and law in foreign policy analysis including selected religious actors in the international system of the Muslim world.

2^nd Presenter: Tareq Sharawi

PhD student at the Alliance of Civilizations Institute in Istanbul

Comparative Analogy of War between Classical Islamicists and Hedley Bull

War, according to Hedley Bull, is presented as organized violence waged between political entities. This position, rightfully accepted in essence and meaning, presupposes that the interrelated ends of war are both political entities. In modern times, one could argue, these political entities are represented by states. In the Islamic discourse, however, war has traditionally been linked with the body of the Muslim community, the Ummah, as an entity. But the notion that the concept of war in Islam should necessarily be tied to a political entity has caused some confusion; certainly, groups who seem to lack proper political organization are conducting violence against groups far from political entities while giving the description of ‘war’ to their acts. In this paper, I will base my discussion on classical Islamic texts and historical pointers from the Medina period of the birth of Islam to argue that the concept of war in Islam does not escape Bull’s presentation. I will humbly try to draw from the historical insights a coherent understanding of the link between war, the Ummah as an organized political entity, and perhaps, the modern nation-state.

3^rd Presenter: Fadi Zatari

PhD student at the Alliance of Civilizations Institute in Istanbul

The Concept of Enemy in the Hamas Ideology

The Islamic movement of Hamas-controlled Palestine historically traces its roots from the Muslim Brotherhood, which was established in 1928 as the first Islamic movement in Egypt. The study aims to fulfill research gaps and look for alternative approaches to the analysis of the Hamas’ conception of Jihad and Hudna (truce), i.e., studying the Hamas charter, leaflets, and other disseminated informative sheets. Hamas uses the concept of ‘Hudna’ or truce, not directly meant for peace, for subsequent reasons. Firstly, it is possible to achieve ceasefire with Israel through Hudna without recognizing the ‘state of Israel’. Hence it is a legitimate theological concept since Prophet Mohammed signed Hudna (truce) with the people of Quraish in Mecca. Secondly, it includes limited duration of ceasefire so that Hamas will not concede for an indefinite truce. Therefore, this paper argues for further comprehension and research of Jihad and Hudna under the perspective of Hamas and their process of utilizations as tools of foreign policies towards Israel.

4^th Presenters: [Mehmet Ali Mert and Cenay Babaoğlu] UNCONFIRMED

PhD students at Hacettepe University in Ankara

The Impact of Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) to Turkish Foreign Policy

as an International Political Actor

International relations originally covered simply the relations between states and non-state actors were given a secondary status. But political and economic liberalization, technological transformation and particularly the effect of globalization challenged this approach and triggered governance (Benner, Reinicke and Witte, 2003: 18). Thisprocess pave way to the strengthening of international actors as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). NGOs similar to state, operates in a variety of global policy including participation in diplomacy. This process indicates new types of corporatism and the growing strength of the third sector. The growing role and influence of NGOs in national or international area, non-states actors have become important political actors in the global society. Detomasi (2007: 325) lists the stakeholders of the global governance in four levels: private sector, nation-state, international organizations and NGOs. From this point of view, a civil society organization is going to be examined as a case study in the context of its impact on Turkish foreign policy in the last decade. The growth number of NGOs, the scale of their activities, and the complexity of their transactions has had a major political impact. So international politics and diplomacy are not limited to Turkish government. IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation as an Islamic based institution can be considered as an effective actor in Turkish policy, both in national and international level without restricting its activities to a particular group, nationality, or country. IHH was set up to deliver humanitarian aid as a voluntary organization. Activities of the foundation began in 1992 and were institutionalized in 1995. IHH has reached out to 136 countries and regions in five continents and prioritizes at war-hit and post-war regions, disaster zones, impoverished countries and regions. IHH’s activities in international crisis areas and taking initiatives in human diplomacy such as Mavi Marmara flotilla aid campaign for breaking an Israeli blockade on Gaza, interference to internal conflict against minority Muslims in Arakan, taking active role in prisoner swap and as a mediator in releasing journalists in Syria, raised its influence on Turkish foreign policy. Therefore, the foreign policy of Turkey cannot be understood without knowing role of the civil organizations like IHH. Turkish foreign policy and diplomacy does not operate on some separate planet, cut off from such civil organizations. So, in this research IHH’s role on Turkish foreign policy and diplomacy will be examined in the context of NGOs influence on state policies.

5th Presenter: Yasser Salimi

MA Candidate at the Islamic Azad University

West vs. Islamic World: From Clash to Dialogue

This research wants to argue that dialogue among civilizations and other similar initiatives resulted to a paradigm shift in international relations. After the end of cold war, efforts for defining situation of post cold war era have started. Most of these efforts were made by scholars in US as the only super power in the world that theories made by Huntington and Fukuyama are the most famous ones. After introducing his theory Huntington developed it and answered to critics and did not only make theory and made some suggestion to US government as post cold war strategy. During the cold war attention of world powers to multilateralism decreased and world issues was focused on security and armament. Leaving international organizations such as UNESCO by US is a proof to that. US had been founding member of UNESCO since 1946 but in 1984 left it and in 2003 rejoined it again. George W. Bush administration by declaring war against terrorism and invading Afghanistan and Iraq displayed return of unilateralism and realism. After Obama came to power a U turn is visible in US foreign policy that pulling troops out of Iraq is one example. U.S. did not oppose openly Dialogue among Civilizations initiative in 2001 despite its contradiction to US hawkish foreign policy. Secretariat of international year of dialogue among civilizations was based in Seton Hall University in New Jersey and Leslie H. Gelb emeritus president of Council of Foreign Relations was also member of prominent group of UN SG for dialogue among civilizations. Bush for the first time appointed an envoy to OIC in 2008 and after that Britain and Russia did the same. Though change from clash to dialogue backs to last years of Bush administration. Hillary Clinton also appointed Farah Pandith as special rep. to Muslim Communities in 2009. US joined Alliance of Civilizations Group of Friends after Obama came to power, 5 years after its establishment also shows the change. After Madrid bombings which are speculated to be in response of Spain military involvement in Iraq Afghanistan its PM proposed Alliance of Civilizations initiative. Its main goal is decreasing tensions between west and Islamic world through dialogue and cooperation.

Presenter’s Biography:

Yusuf Sayın is the editor of Strategic Outlook and PhD candidate in International Relations. He earned his master’s program in IR from Selcuk University in 2011. His master thesis was on the role of religion in international relations and IR theories. He currently completes his PhD thesis regarding the relations between Turkey and Iran in the context of integration and unity under the model of Seljuk Empire. He has published several articles, reviews, and translation works. He is fluent in English, Arabic, and German. He also works as English-Turkish translator.

Tareq Sharawi is a Jordanian PhD student at the Alliance of Civilizations Institute of Fatih Sultan Mehmet Waqf University, Turkey. He received his Masters degree in International Relations from The University of Bristol, UK. His research interests include Religious Nationalism and political organization in classical Islamic traditions.

Fadi Zatari is a Palestinian PhD student at the Alliance of Civilizations Institute of Fatih Sultan Mehmet Waqf University, Turkey. In 2009 he received his first Masters degree in International Studies from the Birzeit University, and in 2013 his second Masters degree in Political Theory from the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.

Mehmet Ali Mert is a research assistant in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Hacettepe University, Turkey. He obtained his BA in International Relations at Fatih University (Turkey) in 2006. He also continues his PhD studies at the same department. He works at some academic projects. His research interests include Islamic political thought, political science, Turkish and Middle East studies, state and religion.

Cenay Babaoğlu is a research assistant in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Hacettepe University, Turkey. He also continues his PhD studies at the same department. His research interests include comparative and international public administration, Turkish administrative history, public policy analyses and ICT in public administration.

Yasser Salimi is an MA Candidate in International Relations at the Islamic Azad University Science & Research Branch in Tehran, Iran.

Chair: Raffaele Mauriello

Discussant: Deina Abdelkader

The first section discusses the theoretical and empirical comparative analogies on nation-state between Islamic and Western scholars. It includes three categorical responses whether there is an Islamic nation-state, then comparing Western and Islamic understandings of nation-state which the author concludes that there is probable applicability of modern nation-state paradigm in light of Islamic law. The third panelist seeks to contribute a redefinition of geopolitics, which may generate a theoretical framework for modern geopolitical analysis that is compatible with Islamic interpretations of world politics. The last two panelists will provide special case studies of foreign policies of Iran and India, and how their processes are influenced by elements of Islamism or Islamic politics in their interactions with other nation-states in international affairs.

1. Nassef Manabilang Adiong’s “Is There an Islamic Nation-State?”[1]

Placing an adjectival term ‘Islamic’ before ‘nation-state’ entails that it carries all characteristics and may be deduce in a way that its nature is not peculiar to Islam. That is, the idea, concept, and utility of nation-state may find traceable tracks from the historical development of Islamicate (Hodgsonian term) civilization and their encounters with Greek, Roman, Indian, Sinic, and European civilizations. This is difficult to surmise and contemplate since some elements of European nation-state, e.g. sovereignty, secularism, modernity, and level of analysis, have different understandings and interpretations for Islamicists (scholars of Islam). To ameliorate our focal understanding, the paper will firstly present the Islamic jurisprudential and political understanding of nation-state, i.e. how Islamicists responded with the colonial project and forceful application of European-styled nation-state to the entire Islamicate civilization regardless of existing polities such as the caliphate and sultanate systems. Secondly, the paper will provide critique on Wael Hallaq’s “The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament” (Columbia University Press, 2013). And lastly, it will argue that there were three dominant answers whether there is an Islamic nation-state and these are traditional, reformative, and progressive categorical responses coming from selected Islamicists.

2. Hossam El Din Khalil Farag Mohammad’s “Contemporary Problems of the Modern Islamic State: A Comparative Study”[2]

Prior to the twentieth century, the Islamic character of the state in the Muslim world was axiomatic. However, political transformations since the abolition of the Islamic Caliphate, emancipation from colonialism, and the spread of modernity has raised the problem of identifying characteristics of the State in the Islamic world.  Attempts at alignment between the modern state and Islamic State have created ideological and political conflict in the Arab world between advocates of adherence to revealed doctrine and advocates of Westernization and secularization. Through comparative and inductive analysis, I explore the religious foundations of the modern Islamic State by identifying the characteristics and definition of both modern Western and Islamic states.  I then go on to identify the political form of the state in Islam and address key problems, including opposing visions of national and religious loyalty and its effect on citizenship, the conflict between secularism and application of Islamic law, and promotion of virtue and prevention of vice (Hisbah).  I conclude that just as many Western countries have applied the modern state concept to fit their context and definition of secularism, Islamic countries can apply the modern state paradigm in light of Sharia, solving problems of the modern state.

3. Jason E. Strakes’ “Towards an Islamic Geopolitics: Reconciling the Ummah and Territoriality in Contemporary IR”[3]

The contemporary study of Islamic perspectives in international relations has often been occupied by an internal contradiction. While the global role of Islam was originally defined by the classical Quranic conception of a borderless community of faith (Ummah) rather than the sovereign territorial state, the relationship between Muslim-majority and non-Muslim societies has historically been represented by Islamic jurists as a spatial and territorial construct, or a division between geographic zones belonging to the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-harb). The present study seeks to reconcile this tension by examining the gradual redefinition and adaptation of spatial dualism by clerical and political elites that has occurred alongside the evolution of the modern post-colonial state, particularly in North Africa and the Middle East. It draws upon two concepts introduced by the medieval Muslim geographers, the absence of literally defined borders between nations and the degrading of power projection across distances between capital cities, to identify variations in the definition of boundaries within and between Muslim and non-Muslim populations as manifest in physical territory. These are applied in order to generate a theoretical framework for modern geopolitical analysis that is compatible with Islamic interpretations of world politics.

4. Amir Mahdavi’s “Iran’s Direct Negotiations with the United States: Ideological or Pragmatic [Foreign Policy]?”[4]

Did Iran utilize Islamism in its international affairs? The paper is aimed to address the posited question by examining terms of direct negotiations between Iran and the United States. According to Iranian political elites, the hostility between Iran and the USA symbolizes a clash of divine rights and blasphemous actuations. Therefore, studying their direct interactions will manifest whether Iranian foreign policy is ideological, pragmatic or both. Iran and the USA have had three rounds of direct negotiations over the past four decades. These negotiations include:

• The Algerian-mediated talks in 1980 which aimed to resolve Iran’s hostage conflict.

• A focus on Iraq’s internal crisis in Baghdad in 2007.

• Nuclear program after Iranian’s presidential election in June 2013.

Consequently, by analyzing these negotiations, the paper will investigate and assess the relevance and impact of Islamism on its foreign policy making procedures.

5. Joerg/Jörg Friedrichs’ “Hindu-Muslim Communalism and Indian Foreign Policy”[5]

The claim that Indian-Muslim relations are fraught with communalism is as often stated as rebutted, but usually without much consideration of its substantive merits. This paper takes the communalism hypothesis seriously and assesses it against other approaches to explaining Hindu-Muslim segregation and occasional violent clashes. Alternate explanations familiar from the literature include elite-driven electoral politics, competition over economic turf, and lack of inter-group social capital. Most such explanations are not mutually exclusive, although they are often treated as such. At the international level, Hindu nationalism is frequently seen as a game changer for India’s policy not only in its regional neighborhood but also in the wider “Muslim world”. After the recent victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), some observers expect an Indian fall-out with Muslim-majority countries. While similar expectations were hardly fulfilled during the BJP’s tenure from 1998 to 2004, the paper provides another assessment nine months after the party’s 2014 victory. Is there an intensification of communalism under Modi, and what implications does the landslide of the BJP as India’s sole ruling party have for the quality and management of India’s diplomatic and business relations with Muslim-majority countries from Pakistan to Bangladesh and from Iran to Saudi Arabia?

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[1] Nassef Manabilang Adiong is a student of theories of International Relations and politics of Islam(icate) with research interests in the concepts of nation-state and civilization. He is the author of the following articles: “Nation-State in IR and Islam” in the Journal of Islamic State Practice in International Law, “The U.S. and Israel Securitization of Iran’s Nuclear Energy” in The Quarterly Journal of Political Studies of Islamic World, “The Palestinian Refugee Question: A Constitutive Constructivist Interpretation” in Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, “Ideology that Spawns Islamist Militancy” in Frank Shanty’s Counterterrorism: From the Cold War to the War on Terror, and encyclopaedic entries such as civilization, nation, nation-state, International Relations, nationalism, pan-Islamism, Philippines, Qatar, and Suez Canal for various publishers including ABC-CLIO, SAGE Publications, Inc., and Wiley-Blackwell. His first edited book entitled “International Relations and Islam: Diverse Perspectives” is published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing on August 2013.

[2] Hossam El Din Khalil Farag Mohammad (Hossam E. Mohamed) is a Researcher at the Qaradawi Center for Islamic Moderation and Renewal, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies.  Previously he was a member and expert for the Islamic Legal Opinion Committee at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Qatar. Mr. Mohammad holds an M.A. from Cairo University in comparative law, an M.A. from the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies in Islamic Jurisprudence, a B.A. in Islamic Law from Qatar University, and a B.A. in Commerce from Helwan University.  He is currently a PhD candidate at Cairo University completing his thesis on Political Reform Theory in Islamic Law in light of the modern state.

[3] Jason E. Strakes is an associate researcher in the Department of Modern History and Politics of the Middle East at the G. Tsereteli Institute for Oriental Studies, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. He received an M.A. in International Studies and a PhD in Political Science from the School of Politics and Economics, Claremont Graduate University. His current research interests include alternative perspectives of international order, non-Western IR theory, interactions between the former Soviet and developing world/Global South, and comparative politics of the Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia.

[4] Amir Mahdavi is the editor of many Iranian newspapers. He was also a member of the board of Mujahedin Enghelab, the Iranian main reformist party. Mahdavi holds an MA in Conflict Resolution from Brandeis University. Currently, he is a junior researcher at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies. His op-eds have been published in The Guardian and Al-monitor. His research papers have been accepted by the Iranian International Society of Iranian Studies and the International Association of Conflict Management conferences. Mahdavi will contribute to the Near Eastern Studies Department of New York University during the next academic year a graduate student.

[5] Joerg/Jörg Friedrichs is University Lecturer at the Department of International Development and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford. His latest book, on climate change and energy, has appeared with MIT Press (2013). He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals such as International Organization, Asian Survey, and European Journal of International Relations. Recently, Jörg has worked on global Islamism and cosmopolitan world society as rival globalization projects. Following up, he is now interested in the topic of situating Islam in a post-Western world. More specifically, he is interested in the quality and management of Chinese-Muslim, Indian-Muslim, and Russian-Muslim relations.