Books

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. This comprehensive collection will be of great interest to students, scholars and policy-makers with a focus on the Muslim world. [Download the flyer here]

Citation: Adiong, Nassef Manabilang, Raffaele Mauriello, and  Deina Abdelkader (eds.) Islam in International Relations: Politics and Paradigms. London: Routledge, 2018.

Islam and International Relations: Contributions to Theory and Practice conceives of International Relations (IR) as an intellectual platform, and not as a unilateral project. It is in this vein of thought that each contributor explores Islamic contributions to the field, addressing the theories and practices of the Islamic civilization and of Muslim societies with regards to international affairs and to the discipline of IR. The inclusion of Muslim contributions is not meant to create an isolationist, judicious divide between what is Islamic and what is not. Instead, this study supports the inclusion of that knowledge as a building block in the field of IR. An outcome of the Co-IRIS team (International Relations and Islamic Studies Research Cohort), this study draws together the combined expertise of scholars of Islam in international affairs. [Download the flyer here]

Citation: Abdelkader, Deina, Nassef Manabilang Adiong, and Raffaele Mauriello (eds.) Islam and International Relations: Contributions to Theory and Practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

SERIES BOOKS

“European Muslims and their Foreign Policy Interests: Identities and Loyalties” authored by Imène Ajala

In a global context marked by terrorist threats, Muslim communities in the West have come under increasing scrutiny. Sensitive questions on identity arise with regard to their foreign policy interests and their loyalties.

Topics covered include:
– Relations between European Muslims and international issues
– Political opportunity structures
– Organization and institutionalization of Islam
– Diaspora and transnational dimensions
– The securitization of Islam
– Foreign policy and loyalty

This book investigates the foreign policy interests and political mobilization of Muslims in Europe, specifically in France and Great Britain, contributing to shed light on these difficult questions.

“Manufacturing Terrorism in Africa: The Securitisation of South African Muslims” authored by Mohamed Natheem Hendricks

This book uses Securitisation Theory to explore how Muslims have been constructed as a security issue in Africa after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. The centrality of Africa as an arena to execute the GWOT is the focus of this book. It explores, particularly, how western-centred security discourses around Muslims has permeated South African security discourse in the post-apartheid period. And claims that the popular press and the local think-tank community were critical knowledge sites that imported rather than interrogated debates which have underpinned policy initiatives.

It further confirms that non-institutional voices have securitised the African Muslims by equating them with terrorism.

“Reason, Revelation and Law in Islamic and Western Theory and History” edited by R. Charles Weller and Anver Emon

This book engages the diverse meanings and interpretations of Islamic and Western law which have affected people and societies across the globe, past and present, in correlation to the epistemological groundings of those meanings and interpretations. The volume takes a distinctively comparative approach, advancing dialogue on crucial transnational and global debates over the history of Western and Islamic approaches to law, politics and society and their relevance for today. It discusses how fundamental concepts are understood and even translated from one historical or political context or one semantic domain to another. The book provides focused studies of key figures and theories in a manageable, accessible format useful for specialized academic courses and research as well as general audiences.