Sami E. Baroudi

Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi on International Relations: The Discourse of a Leading Islamist Scholar (1926–)

This paper examines the perspectives on international relations of a leading Islamist scholar, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The discussion of Qaradawis views is organized around seven themes that feature prominently in his international relations discourse. The paper argues that Qaradawis views are central to how Islamists conceptualize international relations; and that they intersect with the views of secular Arab nationalists, Third World and Western critics of the prevailing international order, as well as neoclassical and righteous realists. Finally, the paper sheds light on the centrality of the sacred text (the Qur’an) to the international relations discourse of Islamists, such as Qaradawi.

Spiritual authority versus secular authority : relations between the Maronite church and the state in postwar Lebanon : 1990–2005

The voluminous literature on religion and politics in the Middle East has paid scant attention to state relations with national Christian churches. In most cases, these churches were in existence for centuries before the appearance of the modern Middle East state. This neglect can be justified partly on the grounds that those churches rarely step into the political domain and, unlike the radical Islamist movements, do not pose any threat to the stability of Middle East regimes. It also reflects the difficulty of conducting research on minorities in the Middle East, due to the sensitivities of Arab governments, most Arab academics, and Arab public opinion at large, toward this subject. Nevertheless, Christian churches in the Middle East represent minority groups, and there is a vital need to examine minority issues in the region, not only because those minorities often are subjected to official (and societal) discrimination, but also because a focus on minorities can help to shatter any lingering myths about the monolithic nature of Middle Eastern societies. A proper analysis of the Maronite church’s relationship to the state requires that this relationship be situated in the context of the dominance of confessional politics in

Divergent Perspectives among Lebanon's Maronites during the 1958 Crisis

Between May and October 1958, Lebanon was in the midst of a ‘mini civil war,’ a precursor of the far more destructive violence to grip the country between 1975 and 1990. What came to be known as the 1958 Crisis (or Insurrection) centered on President Camille Chamoun’s pro-Western foreign policy orientation and his failed bid to secure a second presidential term, which required amending the Constitution. Most Muslim leaders, some Christian politicians, and the head of the Maronite Church opposed President Chamoun, who was supported by the multi-confessional Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), the Christian Kataib (Phalangist) Party, and a number of politicians. Only a few academic studies have been made in relation to the 1958 Crisis, however, and the most important ones focus on the regional and international dimensions of the conflict. An article by Ephraim Frankel on Patriarch Meouchi is more a brief narrative of the political role of the Maronite Church over the centuries than an analysis of the Patriarch’s role during 1958. Furthermore, Frankel does not elaborate on the causes of the conflict between Chamoun and Meouchi, understates the intensity of Meouchi’s opposition to Chamoun, and is totally oblivious to the personal side of the conflict between the two leaders. Other scholars, such as Samir Khalaf and Nasser Kalaoun, have dealt with the 1958 Crisis as part of their broader work about Lebanon. Arabic sources on the crisis

Countering US Hegemony: The Discourse of Salim al-Hoss and other Arab Intellectuals

It is undoubtedly in the Middle East that one encounters the most manifest signs of opposition to US hegemony. While this opposition is steeped in the history of America’s policy towards the region – mainly its seemingly unconditional backing for Israel especially since 1967, and its repeated confrontations with Arab nationalistic movements such as those in Egypt, Syria and Yemen in the 1950s and 1960s – it grew in intensity in the 1990s with the emergence of the United States as the world’s only remaining superpower. For many Arab intellectuals it was not purely coincidental for the George Bush Senior administration to wage a brutal and highly successful war against Iraq as it was about to declare America’s victory in the Cold War. The renowned Egyptian writer and political analyst Mohammad Hassanain Haikal was quick to draw a link between America’s triumph in its historic conflict with the Soviet Union and its renewed interest in dominating the Arab region. The 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States and the subsequent American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which were carried out under the provocative title of the ‘war on terrorism’, represented the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, as far as the problematic relationship between Arab intellectuals and the United States is concerned. Alarmed at how the United States was using its dominant position in the international system to redraw the political and even geographic map of their region (as with the Greater Middle East Initiative), Arab intellectuals turned to a counter-hegemonic discourse that aimed at ‘uncovering’ the real motives behind American foreign policy, especially towards the Middle East. Since intellectuals ‘fight with pens not swords’, it is fitting to examine their writings in order to understand the image they project of the United States and its foreign policy to the broader Arab public. What follows is not an exhaustive study of how Arab writers represent the United States; the sheer volume of writings on this subject renders this a daunting task. Rather what is proposed is a more modest enterprise that focuses primarily on how the United States and its foreign policy are represented by one Arab writer, Salim al-Hoss (hereafter Hoss). An indepth study of Hoss’s writings should yield valuable insights into how Arab Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 44, No. 1, 105 – 129, January 2008

Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra (1898–1974) on international relations: the discourse of a contemporary mainstream Islamist

ABSTRACT The literature on Political Islam has not devoted ample space to the intellectual contributions of contemporary moderate Islamists. This article attempts to rectify this by examining the international relations discourse of a twentieth-century Egyptian religious scholar: Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra. Despite Abu Zahras prominence in the Islamic world, his writings have received scant attention from academics. The article provides a close reading of his three principal works on international relations: al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, Nazhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam and al-Wihda al-Islamiyya; as well as a fourth work with a significant bearing on the subject: al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam. It contends that Abu Zahras international relations discourse is part of a more than a century-old tradition of theorizing on international relations that dates back to the religious reformers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdu. Accordingly, Abu Zahra is treated here as an exemplar of what I refer to as the moderate and reformist school in contemporary Islam, in contradistinction to the radical school that is associated with salafi-jihadist figures and movements. A close analysis of Abu Zahras international relations discourse thus provides penetrating insights on one pivotal, albeit understudied, dimension of this reformist/moderate current in contemporary Islam: its perspectives on international relations.

Sheikh Wahbah al-Zuhaili on international relations: the discourse of a prominent Islamist scholar (1932–2015)

ABSTRACT In recent years, radical and violent Islamist movements – such as al-Qaeda and its offshoot the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – have seized the spotlight. A corollary of this preoccupation has been the proliferation of studies on the political thought of radical Islamist figures such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin-Laden. By contrast, scant attention has been paid to the thought of moderate contemporary Sunni Islamist scholars. This article attempts to rectify this situation by focusing on the international relations discourse of a prominent Syrian Islamist thinker Sheikh Wahbah al-Zuhaili (hereafter Zuhaili). The article examines Zuhailis views on three central and interrelated topics: (1) the nature and underpinning principles of international relations; (2) war; and (3) the role of international law and international norms and conventions in international relations. By shedding light on Zuhailis thought and situating it in its proper ideational and historical contexts, the article concludes that radical Islamist ideology is at the periphery of contemporary Islamist conceptualizations of international relations while the epicentre is held by mainstream Islamists whose perspectives on international relations are fairly compatible with prevalent western views, especially those emanating from the Realist school.

The Islamic Realism of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi (1926–) and Sayyid Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010)

Abstract The article sheds light on the core realist assumptions—regarding international anarchy, the centrality of power to international relations and human nature—that underpin the international relations perspectives of two leading contemporary Islamist thinkers, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi (1926–) and the late Sayyid Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010). It further asserts that the law of mutual restraining—which Qaradawi and Fadlallah derive from the Qur’an—bears a major affinity to realism’s balance of power principle. It argues that Qaradawi and Fadlallah articulate a non-western variant of realism that this article refers to as Islamic realism. After defining Islamic realism, the article compares it to four strands of realism: structural, neoclassical, classical and Christian realism. The conclusion suggests that realism should not be viewed as exclusively a product of European experiences and western ‘secular’ thought, but as a mode of theorizing about international relations that transcends cultural boundaries. In addition, it underscores the links between religion and realism, calling for research into the likely sources of realism in the three Abrahamic religions.

Mohamed Hassanein Heikal on the United States: The Critical Discourse of a Leading Arab Intellectual

The renowned Egyptian journalist and commentator Mohamed Hassanein Heikal (b. 1923) is arguably the doyen of Arab writers critical of the United States. Heikals career as an author spans more than half a century and his access to regional and international audiences has been greatly enhanced in recent years by his regular appearances on the al-Jazeera television station. Drawing on Heikals extensive published work, this paper offers a detailed treatment of his views on US politics, society and especially foreign policy in order to highlight the elements constituting the image of the United States that he projects. The article argues that Heikal’s critical representation of the United States has been central to the discourse of Arab nationalists since the late 1950s and their reconstruction of Arab nationalist ideology along anti-American lines. It further argues that Arab nationalists and Islamists subscribe to essentially the same critical reading of the United States and its foreign policy, especially towards the Middle East. Because intellectuals help shape public opinion, this convergence of views between nationalists and Islamists represents a principal source of the negative image of the United States among Arab publics. Understanding the discourse of Arab intellectuals is thus instrumental for comprehending Arab views of the United States. The Arab Spring, with its tribulations and promises of change, brings an urgent need to properly understand and contextualize the discourse of Arab intellectuals, both nationalists and Islamists.

Islamist Perspectives on International Relations: The Discourse of Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010)

The academic literature on political Islam has paid scant attention to how contemporary Islamists conceptualize international relations. By examining the writings on international relations of one leading Islamist thinker - the recently deceased Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah - this article attempts to deepen our understanding of this key aspect of contemporary Islamist thought. The article highlights Fadlallahs views on a range of theoretical and substantive issues which are at the core of international relations in the post-Cold War era. These issues revolve around: the underlying principles of international relations; the nature of the current (post-Cold War) international order and the role of the United States therein; the relationship between the United States (and the West, in general) and the Arab and Islamic worlds; Israel and the Palestinian question; and the prospects for Islamic unity and the form that it can take in the modern era. It also relates Fadlallahs discourse on international relations to that of other Islamists, secular Arab nationalists, and other critics of the prevailing international order, as well as to the writings of Christian realists and in particular Reinhold Niebuhr.