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 Zuhaili's 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 Zuhaili's 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.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Joas Wagemakers, A Quietist Jihadi: The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). See also Joas Wagemakers, ‘The Transformation of a Radical Concept: al-wala’ wa al-bara’ in the Ideology of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’, in Roel Meijer, ed. Global Salafism: Islam's New Religious Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp.81–106.

2. See, inter alia, Laura Mansfield, His Own Words: A Translation of the Writings of Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri (Old Tappan: TLG Publications, 2006); Daniel Lav, Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Ideology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp.170, 199, 201; and Lawrence Pintak, Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam and the War of Ideas (London: Pluto Press, 2006), p.60, 108, 124, 285.

3. James Toth, Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellectual (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

4. Jonathan Randal, Osama: The Making of a Terrorist (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004); Michael Scheuer, Osama Bin Laden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

5. We contend that Zuhaili is an Islamist because he subscribes to the Islamist dictum that Islam is simultaneously a religion and a state (al-Islam din wa dawla). See, inter alia, Zuhaili, Haq al-Huriya fi al-ʿAlam (The Right to Freedom in the World) (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2000), p.79. For us, the distinction between Islamic and Islamist is purely semantic, as the overwhelming majority of Islamic thinkers maintain (to varying degrees) that religion should guide politics and that the Islamic Sharia should provide the bases for all laws. For discussions of the meaning of the term ‘Islamist’, see inter alia, Mohammed Ayoub, The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World (Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 2011), esp. pp.6–14; Bassam Tibi, The Sharia State: Arab Spring and Democratization (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp.1–25; and Asef Bayat, ‘Post-Islamism at Large’ in Asef Bayat, ed., Post-Islamism: The Changing faces of Political Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp.3–32, esp. pp.3–4.

6. Minor references to Zuhaili's work can be found in Asma Afsaruddin, Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Mohamad Hashim Kamali, The Middle Path of Moderation in Islam: The Quranic Principle of Wasatiyyah (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Abdul Hamid A. Abu Sulayman, Towards an Islamic Theory of International Relations, 2^nd Revised Ed. (Herndon, VA: The International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1993); and Reuven Firestone, Jihad: the Origin of Holy War in Islam (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Reiter offers a more detailed treatment of Zuhaili's views, focusing in particular on his views on peace with Israel. Yitzhak Reiter, War, Peace, International Relations in Islam: Muslim Scholars on Peace Accords with Israel (Brighton: Sussex Academic press, 2011), pp.28, 40–2, 45–6, 48, 50, 52–3, 56–7, 59, 66.

7. Biographical information derived mainly from the below websites: https://sabq.org/KNDgde; http://shamela.ws/index.php/author/1052; http://articles.islamweb.net/Media/index.php?page=article&lang=A&id=206125;http://www.islamist-movements.com/30764.

8. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina (Effects of War: A Comparative Jurisprudential Study), 4th ed. (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2009). Our study relies on the fourth edition of Athar al-Harb which includes some new material, especially on the distinction between jihad and terrorism. The work's core argument has not changed at all since the first edition appeared in early 1963.

9. Zuhaili, Al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam: Muqarana bil-Qanun al-Duwali al-Hadith (International Relations in Islam: in Comparison to Contemporary International Law) (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2011).

10. Zuhaili, Al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani wa Huquq al-Insan: Dirasa Muqarina (International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights: A Comparative Study) Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2012).

11. (Zuhaili, Haq al-Huriya fi al-‘Alam (The Right to Freedom in the World) (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2000).

12. The Conference was held in Doha, Qatar between 20 and 22 January 2007. The opening session featured presentations by renowned Islamic figures, including the Iranian Ayatollah Mohammad-Ali Tashkiri and Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi who clashed at the session. For Zuhaili's intervention see http://mindakini.com/al-imam-yusuf-al-qaradawi/. Accessed 21 July 2015. The programme of the Doha Conference can be accessed at http://www.qatarconferences.org/mazaheb/english/program.php. Accessed on 21 July 2015.

13. Zuhaili's intervention can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE3QVmPGuJY. Accessed on 1 September 2015.

14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE3QVmPGuJY. Accessed on 1 September 2015.

15. The movement's official name is Jamʿiyat al-Mashariʿ al-Khayriya al-Islamiyya (the Society of Islamic Philanthropic Projects) and has been primarily active in Lebanon, especially during the period of Syrian hegemony over Lebanon: 1990-2005. For studies on the movement, see, inter alia A. Nizar Hamzeh and R. Hrair Dekmejian, ‘A Sufi Response to Political Islamism: al-Ahbash of Lebanon’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2 (May, 1996), pp.217–29; Mustafa Kabha and Haggai Erlich, ‘Al-Ahbash and Wahhabiyya: Interpretations of Islam’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Nov., 2006), pp.519–38

16. Zuhaili's remarks are found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR_TuQ1IbxQ. Accessed on 1 September 2015.

17. For al-Ahbash attack on Zuhaili see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW7s2WI4cgM. Accessed 1 September 2015.

18. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.47.

19. For coverage of the Bouti killing, see, inter alia, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/world/middleeast/senior-pro-assad-sunni-imam-in-syria-is-assassinated.html?_r=3&. Accessed on 10 August 2015.

20. Zuhaili's eulogy can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAKB9OztE0g. Accessed on 10 August 2015.

21. Radwan el-Sayed, ʿAl-Sheikh Wahbah al-Zuhaili wa al-Taqlid al-Fiqhi wa al-Thawra al-Souriya’ (Sheikh Wahba Zuhaili, the Jurisprudential Tradition and the Syrian Revolution), al-Sharq al-Awsat, 13 August 2015. http://aawsat.com/node/429266. Accessed 14 August 2015.

22. For a similar reading of the stance of another prominent contemporary Sunni scholar, the late Egyptian preacher Sheikh Muhammad Metwali Sha^crawi (1911-1998), see Jacquelene G. Brinton, Preaching Islamic Renewal: Religious Authority and Media in Contemporary Egypt. (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2016). Brinton writes: ʿBut even when he was able to, Sha'rawi rarely criticized the government.’ p.206.

23. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.129.

24. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.139.

25. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.136.

26. Zuhaili writes that the Islamic state was the first federal state to appear, preceding the United States, which he depicts as the first federal state to appear outside the Islamic world. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.139–40. The notion that the United States would serve as the model for the Islamic state is quite interesting, but clearly this is not the place to dwell on this point.

27. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.12; Athar al-Harb, pp.718–20.

28. See, inter alia, Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), esp. pp.43–7; Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), esp. p.88; Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp.205–6; and Janice Thomson, ‘ State Sovereignty in International Relations: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Empirical Research’, International Studies Quarterly, No. 39, 1995, pp.213–33; esp. p.215.

29. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.138.

30. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.134.

31. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.139.

32. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.33.

33. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.33–4.

34. Zuhaili, Haq al-Huriya fi al-ʿAlam, p.95; Athar al-Harb, pp.141–2.

35. Zuhaili, Haq al-Huriya fi al-ʿAlam, p.96; Athar al-Harb, pp.142, 687.

36. In this essay, the term Muslim states is used throughout to depict existing majority-Muslim states (e.g. Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia). Zuhaili uses the term Muslim states (al-Duwal Islamiya), albeit not frequently, but keeps reverting to the (ideal) notion of the single Islamic state.

37. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.141, 198–99, 201; al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.130–38, 141,165; Haq al-Huriya fi al-ʿAlam, p.148, 156.

38. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.68–9.

39. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.69.

40. See, inter alia, Yusuf Qaradawi, Umatna Bayn Qarnayn (Our Umma between two Centuries) (Cairo, Dar al-Shuruq, 2000), pp.128–30, 140. In this regard, Ayoob writes: ʿ… despite some ostensible denials by some of them, Islamists have internalized the notion that the international system is composed of multiple territorial states – and that it will continue to do so into the indefinite future.’ Mohammed Ayoob, The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World (Ann Arbor: the University of Michigan Press, 2008), pp.6–7. In our view, Ayoob underestimates the theoretical ambiguities surrounding the notion of the ‘Islamic state’ in the discourses of Islamist thinkers.

41. Wael B. Hallaq, The Impossible State: Islam, Politics and Modernity's Moral Predicament (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), p.1. Shani draws a clear distinction between the Muslim Umma and the modern state, noting: ʿThe Umma is, however, emphatically not a nation-state; rather it is an association of Islamic societies which share the same “thick” values and seek to integrate them into the social and political life.’ Giorgio Shani, ʿToward a Post-Western IR: The “Umma”, “khalsa path”, and Critical International Relations Theory’, International Studies Review, Vol. 10, No. 4, December 2008, pp.722–34, p.729.

42. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.837–44.

43. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.837. See also Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.106.

44. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.106. For a similar construal by another lesser known contemporary Islamist scholar see, Hilmi Zawati, Is Jihad a Just war? War, Peace, and Human Rights under Islamic and Public International Law (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), p.12.

45. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.106, 126–7, 131–2 146–7, 220, 227, 236; Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.105–6; Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.95

46. For Zuhaili's explication (tafsir) that reconciles these apparently contradictory verses see, inter alia, Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali fi al-Islam, pp.95–100; al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.107–8; and especially Athar al-Harb, esp. pp.103–13, 177-178. In his ‘Fiqh al-Jihad: Dirasa Muqarana li-Akhamihi wa Falsafath fi Daou'al-Qurʿan wa al-Sunna’ (The Jurisprudence of Jihad: A Comparative Study of its Rules and Philosophy in Light of the Qurʿan and the Sunna) (Cairo: Wehbe Press, 2009), Qaradawi presents an almost identical tafsir. Sami E. Baroudi, ʿSheikh Yusuf Qaradawi on International Relations: The Discourse of a Leading Islamist Scholar’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2014, pp.2–26 (pp.6–6).

47. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.106, 531; Al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.94–5.

48. Zuhaili here reproduces the well-known hadith: ‘Do not wish to meet the Enemy; and ask God for safety’, Athar al-Harb, p.125; al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.97.

49. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.748. The same story is highlighted in the work of the renowned Azharite reformist Sheikh Mohamad Abu Zahra. Zuhaili cites repeatedly a famous article by Abu Zahra entitled ‘Nadhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam’ (The theory of War in Islam), which was published in 1958 in al-Majallah al-Misriya lil-Qanun al-Duwali (The Egyptian Magazine for International Law). The article formed the basis of Abu Zahra's al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam. Several editions of this influential work were published, the latest in 1995 by Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi in Cairo. This is the edition used in this paper. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.21.

50. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.108–9.

51. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.30–1,105; Athar al-Harb, pp.125–7.

52. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.126.

53. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.231. See also al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.106, 114

54. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.105–6. For a brief and accessible introduction to Shafiʿi and his thought, see Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), pp.32–4.

55. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.106; al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.98.

56. Most of the academic literature acknowledges the intellectual indebtedness of contemporary Salafi-Jihadists to Ibn Taymiyya's thought. See, inter alia, Luv, Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Theology, p.30; and Naser Ghobadzeh and Shahram Akbarzadeh, ‘Sectarianism and the Prevalence of “othering” in Islamic Thought’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4, 2015, pp.691–704, pp.695–6. In line with Zuhaili, however, Zawati maintains that Ibn Taymiyya rejected the notion that the aim of jihad is to fight unbelievers because of their kufr. According to Zawati, for Ibn Taymiyya, ‘killing unbelievers who refuse to adopt Islam is worse than disbelief and inconstant with the spirit and message of the Holy Quran’. Zawati, Is Jihad a just war? p.12.

57. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.103.

58. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.113; see also Athar al-Harb, p.103, 106,

59. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.115–26.

60. Zuhaili traces this binary division to Abu Hanifa (699-768) the founder of the Hanafi School of jurisprudence. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam. p.129; Athar al-Harb, p.231.

61. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.23, 29–31, 113–4; Athar al-Harb, pp.121–8. Zawati makes the same point. Zawati, Is Jihad a just War, p.11.

62. This account clearly leans on the famous work of Mohammad Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam (International Relations in Islam) (Cairo: Dar al Fikr al-Arabi, 1995), p.33.

63. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.130.

64. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.220, 376–7; Al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.152, 155.

65. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.152.

66. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.146–65.

67. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.130. Zuhaili most probably did not seriously contemplate the implications of this sweeping statement as far as the relations between Muslim states and the state of Israel are concerned. It is extremely unlikely that he considered Israel to be part of dar al-ʿahd rather than dar al-harb. The sparse references to Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict clearly indicate that he does not view Israel as part of dar al ʿahd. For his negative views of Israel, see, inter alia, Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.773; and al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.22.

68. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.129

69. For references to al-Shafiʿi views of the world (one abode versus three abodes), see Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.24, 116–122, 129–30.

70. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam , p.106; al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.96–7; Athar al-Harb, p.220, 227.

71. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.24, 106, 115.

72. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.98.

73. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.313.

74. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.66–7.

75. Quoted in John A. Vasquez, The War Puzzle Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p.31.

76. Vasquez, The War Puzzle Revisited, p.31.

77. It is unlikely (but not altogether impossible) that Zuhaili was familiar with Wright's work. One probable source of this legalist view of war is the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius (1583-1645). Zuhaili refers to Grotius's work in his preface to Athar al-Harb while Wright acknowledges the influence of Grotius on his definition of war. Vasquez, The War Puzzle Revisited, p.30.

78. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.96–7.

79. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.96–7.

80. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.142. This is also the stance of other mainstream Islamists such as Qaradawi and Fadlallah. See Sami E. Baroudi, ‘Islamist Perspectives on International Relations: The Discourse of Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010)’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1, 2013, pp.107–33; pp.115–6; and Sami E. Baroudi, ‘Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi on International Relations: The Discourse of a Leading Islamist Scholar (1926-)’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2014, pp.2–26; p.5.

81. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.141–2; 768–9.

82. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.35–7.

83. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.52.

84. For Zuhaili's brief discussion of the different meanings of jihad, see Athar al-Harb, pp.45–6.

85. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.166.

86. The chapter is entitled ‘al-jihad wa al-irhab: tawafuq am tanaqud’ (Jihad and terrorism: similarity or contradiction), Athar al-Harb, pp.163–83.

87. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.167–8.

88. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.45 78, 80, 90, 103.

89. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.35, 38, 42, 110, 143; al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.97, 99, Athar al-Harb, pp.50, 93, 718–9.

90. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.130–2,

91. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, esp. pp.167–8.

92. Zuhaili is clear that as members of the United Nations, Islamic states must act in light of the UN charter as far as respecting the sovereign rights of other states and not interfering in their internal affairs. His discourse on the obligations of Islamic states vs. other states suffers from some internal contradictions, as he keeps on referring to the right of Islamic states to assist Muslims facing oppression and injustice, irrespective of where they live. Exercising this tight is nonetheless left to the discretion of wulat al-amr (and not individual Muslims).

93. A similar treatment is offered by Zawati, Is Jihad a Just War? pp.41–5.

94. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.44. Zawati makes exactly the same point. Zawati, Is Jihad a Just War, p.14.

95. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.45, 48; Athar al-Harb, pp.91, 152–61, 170–1.

96. Zuhaili notes that paying the jizya was one option offered only to the people of the Book, whereas the polytheists of Arabia had only two options: embrace Islam or fight. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.100.

97. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.131–3.

98. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.88–9, 98–9.

99. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.52–3, 133.

100. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.526–36.

101. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.83–5;

102. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.83, 532–3; al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.128.

103. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.97.

104. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.52–3; al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.85, 88–89.

105. For the many references to this verse in Zuhaili's work, see, inter alia, Athar al-Harb, pp.412–7, 423–4; al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.121; Haq al-Huriya fi al-ʿAlam, p.108.

106. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.411, 424. Abu Zahra makes this same argument, stating explicitly that the enslavement of prisoners was permitted at the outset of Islam in the narrowest of senses, as reciprocal treatment. Abu Zahra is adamant that the Quranic text does not legalize either the killing or the enslavement of prisoners. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.38.

107. Zuhaili, Haq al-Huriya fi al-ʿAlam, p.110.

108. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.404.

109. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.407–21.

110. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.120.

111. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.412.

112. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.390–7.

113. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.408.

114. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.86.

115. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.145.

116. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.720.

117. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.153.

118. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.66–7; 341–2; 655–6.

119. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.105–6, 114–5, 129–30; Athar al-Harb, p.133; al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.95.

120. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, esp. pp.1, 69, 94–5, 128.

121. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.655–63

122. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.69–84.

123. Zuhaili, Haq al-Huriya fi al-ʿAlam, p.36.

124. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.721–2.

125. Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, esp. pp.21–2; Athar al-Harb, esp. pp.341–2.

126. These assumptions underpin the works of twentieth century classic realists such as Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Fifth Edition, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978); George Kennan, American Diplomacy, Sixtieth-Anniversary expanded edition with a new introduction by John F. Mearsheimer, (Chicago and London; The University of Chicago Press, 2012); and Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, with a New Introduction by Andrew J. Bacevich, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2008). Structural realists, however, claim that their theories are not premised on any conceptions of human nature but are derived from the anarchic nature of the international system. See in particular, Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979); and John H. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Powers (New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001).

127. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.829.

128. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.127.

129. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.130.

130. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.130.

131. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.718–28; 831–2.

132. Reiter treats Zuhaili along with Shaltut and Abu Zahra as part of the second generation. In our view, Zuhaili was a student of these two scholars and it is best to treat him (along with Qaradawi) as part of the third generation of Azharite reformers. Reiter, War, Peace and International Relations in Islam, pp.40–2.

133. Qaradawi, Ibn al-Qarya wa al-Kuttab, (The Son of the Village and the Kuttab) Vol. 2 (Cairo, Dar al-Shuruq, 2004), pp.280–3.

134. There are several references in Athar al-Harb to a three-page treatise by Shaltut simply titled Al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam (International Relations in Islam), esp. p.70, 76, 91, 103. Zuhaili borrows two central ideas from Shaltut: 1) peace is the norm in relations with non-Muslims; and 2) the aims of jihad (when construed as fighting) are to defend Muslims and to protect the freedom of peacefully calling for Islam. Shaltut's treatise was published in the Egyptian gazette al-Risala, No. 414, 9 June 1941, pp.846–8. http://archive.sakhrit.co/newPreview.aspx?PID=2055713&ISSUEID=12349&AID=241944. Accessed on June 8, 2016.

135. Mohammad Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam (Cairo, Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1958). There are several reprints of this influential work; the latest appeared in 1995.

136. See, inter alia, Abdel Bari Atwan , al-Dawla al-Islamiyya: al-Juzhur, al-Tawahush al-Mustaqbal (The Islamic States: The Roots, the Savagery and the Future) (Beirut: Dar al-Saqi, 2015); Nidal Hamadeh, Khafaya wa-Asrar Daʿish) (Hidden Facts and Secrets about ISIS) (Beirut: Bissan, 2015); Muhammad Alloush, Daʿish wa-Akhawatiha Min al-Qaeda ila al-Dawla al-Islamiyya (ISIS and her Sisters: from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State) (Beirut: Riad el-Rayyes Books, 2015); and Yasser ʿAbd al-Hussein, al-Harb al-ʿAlamiya al-Thalitha: Daʿish wa al-ʿIraq wa Idarat al-Tawahush (World War III: ISIS, Iraq and the Management of Savagery) (Beirut: Sharikat al-Matbuʿat lil-Tawziʿ wa al-Nashr, 2015). For a review of Arab intellectuals’ negative reactions to the rise of ISIS see also Sami E. Baroudi, ‘ISIS through Arab Eyes: The “Islamic State” in the Discourses of Arab Intellectuals’, Paper presented at the 2016 Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, 16-19 March 2016, Atlanta, GA, USA.

137. Zuhaili, for example, stresses the duty of ‘obedience to the ruler, as long as he applies the sharia’. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, p.134.

138. Zuhaili, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam, pp.134–8; Athar al-Harb, pp.165–8.

139. Zuhaili, Haq al-Huriya fi al-ʿAlam, pp.171–3.