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 Zahra's 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 Zahra's 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 Zahra's 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.

KEYWORDS:

• Political Islam
• Islamism
• moderate Islam
• salafi-jihadist
• Abu Zahra
• international relations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Most of the academic references to Abu Zahra pertain to his books on the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, rather than his international relations discourse. For brief references to the latter see, however, Yitzhak Reiter, War, Peace, International Relations in Islam: Muslim Scholars on Peace Accords with Israel (Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press, 2011), pp.38, 40–3, 45, 46, 50, 51; Ahmed al-Dawoody, From Tripartite Division to Universal Humanism: Alternative Islamic Global Relations in Deina Abdelkader, Nassef Manabilang Adiong and Rafaele Mauriello eds, Islam and International Relations: Contributions to Theory and Practice (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp.104–23, 111–7. Salmi, Majul and Tanham briefly discuss Abu Zahra's views on international relations in their section on Modern Islamic Thinkers in Ralph H. Salmi, Cesar Adib Majul and George K. Tanham eds, Islam and Conflict Resolution: Theories and Practices (Lanham and New York: University Press of America, 1998), pp.90–1. Hashmi refers in one sentence to Abu Zahra's influence on the study of international relations. Sohail H. Hashmi, Interpreting the Islamic Ethics of War and Peace in Sohail H. Hashmi ed., Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism and Conflict (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp.194–216; p.208. For references by Arab academics, see, in particular, ʿAdnan al-Sayyed Hussein, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliya fi al-Islam (Beirut: al-Mu'assa al-Jamiʿiya lil-Dirasat wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawziʿ, 2006), pp.50, 170, 187, 234.

2. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1995). First published in 1964.

3. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam (Cairo: Wizarat al-Awqaf, al-Majlis al-Aʿla lil-Shu'oun al-Islamiya, 2008). First published as an article in al-Majala al-Masriya lil-Qanun al-Duwali, 1958.

4. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-ʿArabi, 2011). First published by Cairo: Dar al-Jihad, 1958.

5. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtama‘ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam (Jeddah: al-Dar al-Saʿudia lil-Nashr wa al-Tawziʿ, 1981).

6. For an exhaustive account of al-Afghani's life and thought, see Nikki Keddie, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani: A Political Biography (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1972).

7. For a review of the political views of Abdu, which also briefly reviews the influence of al-Afghani on Abdu, see Malcolm H. Kerr, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966). See also Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1789–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

8. There are quite a number of writings on the life and thought of Rida. A good start is Rida's own autobiography: Muhammad Rashid Rida, al-Manar wa al-Azhar [al-Manar and al-Azhar] (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Manar, 1923), pp.133–200. See also Shakib Arslan, al-Sayyid Rashid Rida aw ikha’ Arbaʿin Sana [al-Sayyid Rashid Rida or the Brotherhood of 40 Years] (Damascus: Matbaʿat Ibn Zaydoun, 1937). For academic works in English, see inter alia, Simon A. Wood, Christian Criticisms, Islamic Proofs: Rashid Rida's Modernist Defence of Islam (Oxford, England: One World Publications, 2007); Ahmad Dallal, ‘Appropriating the Past: Twentieth Century Reconstruction of Pre-Modern Islamic Thought’, Islamic Law and Society Vol.7, No.3 (2000), pp.325–48; and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

9. Mahmoud Shaltut, Al-Quran wa al-Qital [The Quran and Fighting] (Cairo: Matbaʿat al-Kitab al- ʿArabi, N.A.)

10. For works on the reformist current in al-Azhar, and more generally in contemporary Islam, see inter alia, Kerr, Islamic Reform, and Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age.

11. There is an abundance of works on ‘salafi-jihadi’ thought and movements. See, inter alia, Shiraz Maher, Salafi Jihadism: The History of an Idea (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Daniel Byman, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); and Daurius Figueira, Salafi Jihadi Discourse of Sunni Islam in the 21st century: The Discourse of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Anwar al-Awlaki (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Books, 2011). For definitions of salafi-jihadism, see, in particular: Joas Wagemakers, A Quietist Jihadi: The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp.9–10; and Daniel Lav, Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp.121–2.

12. For al-Banna's life and thought, see, inter alia, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013), esp. pp.20–26, 37, 42, 64, 68, 197, 276; and Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age, pp.19–20, 23, 114.

13. Qutb's views are conveyed in a number of works that became the core of the radical Islamist school. See, especially, Milestones (Damascus: Dar al-ʿIlm, N.A). For academic references to Qutb's political views, see, inter alia, James Toth, Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellectual (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); and John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Emergence of Radical Islamism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010).

14. Omar Abdel-Rahman, Mawqif al-Qur'an min khusumeh [The Stance of the Qur'an Towards Its Critics] (Cairo: Dar al-Mahrousa, 2006). This book is based on Abdel-Rahman's doctoral dissertation at al-Azhar. It articulates extremely well the doctrine of offensive jihad, firmly anchoring it in a lengthy exegesis of the Sura of Repentance (al-Tawba) in the Quran. Abdel-Rahman did not receive much attention in the political Islam literature. He gained notoriety in the West after his conviction in the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York. The US authorities turned down several pleas from his lawyers to release him due to deteriorating health. Subsequently, he died in prison from diabetes and coronary artery disease in February 2017.

15. For works on Bin Laden, see, inter alia, Michael Scheuer, Osama Bin Laden (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); and Jonathan Randal, Osama: The Making of a Terrorist (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005).

16. For references to Zawahiri's life and ideas, see, inter alia, Fawaz Gerges, A History of ISIS (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2016), esp. pp.7, 29, 72, 90, 91, 97, 163, 225, 252, 291; Wagemakers, A Quietist Jihadi, pp.1, 15, 39, 72–74, 137, 183, 186.

17. It goes without saying that each of Abdu, Abu Zahra, Qaradawi and Zuhaili either studied or taught at al-Azhar. The same applies to Mahmoud Shaltut whose views, especially on the lawful causes of fighting, are very close to those of Abu Zahra. For works on al-Azhar in the contemporary era and its influence see, inter alia, Masooda Bano and Keiko Sakurai, Shaping Global Islamic Discourses: The Role of al-Azhar, al-Medina and al-Mustafa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), Malak Badrawi, Al-Azhar and the Arab World: Molding the Political and Ideological Consciousness (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2014), Indira Falk Gesink, Islamic Reform and Conservatism: Al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009).

18. For reviews of Qaradawi's conceptualization of international relations, see, inter alia, 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 and Rodolfo Ragionieri, Constructing an Islamic Theory of IR: The Case of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ummah, Jihad and the World in Abdelkader, Adiong, and Mauriello eds, Islam and International Relations: Contributions to Theory and Practice (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp.184–206.

19. Zuhaili's principal works on international relations include: Athar al-Harb: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina [Effects of War: A Comparative Jurisprudential Study] (4th ed, Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2009); al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam: Muqarana bil-Qanoun al-Duwali al-Hadith [International Relations in Islam: In Comparison to Contemporary International Law] (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2011); and al-Qanoun al-Duwali al-Insani wa Huquq al-Insan: Dirasa Muqarina [International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights: A Comparative Study] (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 2012). For a review of Zuhaili's perspectives on International Relations, see Sami E. Baroudi and Vahid Behmardi, ‘Sheikh Wahbah al-Zuhaili on International Relations: The Discourse of a prominent Islamist scholar (1932–2015)’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.53, No.3 (2017), pp.363–85.

20. ʿAdnan al-Sayyed Hussein, Al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, esp. pp.37–47. Al-Sayed Hussein went on to become a minister in the Lebanese cabinet and then president of the Lebanese University.

21. For academic treatments of the views of classic and contemporary Islamic thinkers on Jihad, see inter alia, Reuven Firestone, Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Asma Afsaruddin, Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); and Ron Geaves, Aspects of Islam (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005), pp.165–89.

22. The biographical information is drawn from http://www.arabnews.com/node/216148; http://shamela.ws/index.php/author/1153; http://www.feqhweb.com/vb/t13390.html; http://www.worldlibrary.org/articles/muhammadsunnah.or/history; http://www.islamsyria.com/portal/cvs/show/496. All accessed July 2016.

23. http://www.arabnews.com/node/216148. Accessed 5 July 2016.

24. http://www.arabnews.com/node/216148. Accessed 5 July 2016.

25. http://shamela.ws/index.php/author/1153. Accessed 5 July 2016.

26. In 1961, in a major reform of al-Azhar, the Islamic Research Academy replaced the Committee of Senior Scholars (Hay'at Kibar al-‘Ulama’) as al-Azhar's leading body.

27. A list of his publications is found at http://www.almeshkat.net/vb/showthread.php?t=125220. Accessed 10 July 2016.

28. These four books were Abu Zahra's only works to be translated into English under the title The Four Imams: Their Lives, Works and their Schools of Thought (translated by Aisha Bewley) (New Delhi: Millat Book Centre, N.A.); Abu Zahra, Ibn Taymiyya: Hayatuh wa-‘Asruh: Ara'uh wa Fiqhuh [Ibn Taymiyya: His Life and Era: Opinions and Jurisprudence] (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-ʿArabi, 2005); Abu Zahra, Ibn Hazm: Hayatuh wa-‘Asruh: Ara'uh wa Fiqhuh [Ibn Hazm: His Life and Era: Opinions and Jurisprudence] (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-ʿArabi, 2005); Abu Zahra, Al-Imam Zaid, Hayatuh wa-‘Asruh: Ara'uh wa Fiqhuh [Al-Imam Zaid: His Life and Era: Opinions and Jurisprudence] (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-ʿArabi, 2005); Abu Zahra, Al-Imam al-Sadiq: Hayatuh wa-‘Asruh: Ara'uh wa Fiqhuh [Al-Imam al-Sadiq: His Life and Era: Opinions and Jurisprudence] (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-ʿArabi, 2005).

29. For one of dozens of references to the Shias as a sect within Islam, see Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.246–9.

30. Ahmed al-Dawoody, From Tripartite Division to Universal Humanism, pp.246–9.

31. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, pp.14, 15, 46.

32. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.14, 17; al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.14.

33. Robert Schuett, Political Realism, Freud and Human Nature in International Relations: The Resurrection of the Realist Man (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

34. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.25; al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.51.

35. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.14, 15. See also al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.38.

36. For a detailed discussion of these overarching principles, see Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, pp.63–143.

37. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.45. For similar broad construal of the umma in the western academic literature, see, inter alia, Ron Geaves, Aspects of Islam (Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 2005), pp.75–95.

38. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.13. For a similar view from an Islamist thinker of Abu Zahra's generation, albeit of lesser renown, see Mustafa al-Sibaʿi, Nizham al-Silm wa al-Harb fi al-Islam [The System of Peace and War in Islam] (2nd printing, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Dar al-Wariq, 1998). First published in 1953, esp. p.17.

39. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, pp.45–6.

40. For his endorsement of the United Nations, see Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.60.

41. Richard Falk, Humanitarian Intervention and Legitimacy Wars: Seeking Peace and Justice in the 21st Century (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2015); Andrew Linklater, The Problem of Harm in World Politics: Theoretical Investigations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (3rd ed, New York: Basic Books, 2000).

42. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.29.

43. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.41.

44. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, pp.51–6.

45. See, inter alia, Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.192. Mustafa al-Sibaʿi makes the same point. Al-Sibaʿi, Nizham al-Silm wa al-Harb fi al-Islam, p.29.

46. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.37–46.

47. For contemporary conceptualizations of the meaning of the Sharia and its role in Muslim societies, see inter alia, Wael B. Hallaq, Sharia: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Bassam Tibi, The Shari'a State: Arab Spring and Democratization (New York: Routledge, 2013); Bernard G. Weiss, The Spirit of Islamic Law (Athens, Georgia and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2006); and Robert W. Hefner (ed.), Sharia Politics: Islamic law and Society in the Modern World (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2011).

48. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.50–5.

49. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.51.

50. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.192; al- ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.51.

51. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.54. See also Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.29–30.

52. See, in particular, the following works by Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, esp. pp.106, 126, 127, 131, 132, 146, 147, 220, 227, 236; al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.105-6; and al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, p.95; See, in particular, Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Wasatiyya al-Islamiyya: Maʿalem wa Manarat [The Jurisprudence of the Islamic Moderate and Balanced Approach: Landmarks and Signposts] (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2010), esp. pp.54–6; 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.

53. Mark Sedgwick, Muhammad Abduh (Makers of the Muslim World Series) (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2010), p.58.

54. Sedgwick, Muhammad Abduh, p.58.

55. Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (New Jersey: Law Book Exchange Ltd., 2010); R. Salmi, C. Majul, G. Tanham, Islam and Conflict Resolution (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998), pp.72, 74, 82, 92, 93, 95, 108, 109, 111, 129, 130, 137, 138.

56. Abu Zahra, al- ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.54–5.

57. Abu Zahra, al- ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.60.

58. Abu Zahra, al- ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.54–5.

59. Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Jihad: Dirasa Muqarna li-Ahkamih wa Falsfatih fi Daou’ al-Quran wa al-Sunna [The Jurisprudence of Jihad: A Comparative Study of Its Rules and Philosophy in Light of the Quran and the Sunna] (Vol.2, Cairo: Wehbe Press, 2009), pp.893–900; Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, pp.220–376-7; and al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.152, 155.

60. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.52.

61. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.36–8; Al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, esp. p.16.

62. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.37.

63. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.16.

64. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.16.

65. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.37.

66. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.38.

67. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.38.

68. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.70–3.

69. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.40.

70. See, inter alia, Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, pp.203–9.

71. He also quotes two prophetic hadiths which exhort believers to honor their vows. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.40; al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.203.

72. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.40.

73. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.34.

74. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.44–9.

75. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.44.

76. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.190.

77. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.44–5.

78. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.45.

79. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.26–8.

80. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.39.

81. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.20–6.

82. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.13, 45, 87.

83. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.207.

84. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.52–4.

85. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.95.

86. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.96.

87. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.35; Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.23–46.

88. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.35; Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.22–6, 70–5.

89. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.35; Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, p.23; al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.194. Abu Zahra anchors this view in the often-quoted Quranic verse 2: 256: ‘There is no compulsion in religion. Right guidance has been distinguished from error…’.

90. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.95–8.

91. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.54.

92. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.99.

93. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.67.

94. Shaltut, Al-Quran wa al-Qital, esp. pp.10, 15, 22, 35, 36; Mustafa al-Sibaʿi, Nizham al-Silm wa al-Harb fi al-Islam [The System of Peace and War in Islam] (2nd printing, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Dar al-Wariq, 1998). First published in 1953, esp. pp.38–9.

95. al-Sayyed Hussein, Al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, esp. pp.37–47.

96. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.98; al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.54.

97. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.21–30.

98. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.43.

99. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.101; Al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.56.

100. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.100–23.

101. See in particular the following works by Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Jihad: Dirasa Muqarina li-Ahkamih wa Falsafath fi Daou’ al-Qur'an wa al-Sunna [The Jurisprudence of Jihad: A Comparative Study of Its Rules and Philosophy in Light of the Quran and the Sunna] (Cairo, Wehbe Press, 2009), pp.743–81; Al-Islam wa al-ʿunf: Nazharat Ta'siliyya [Islam and Violence: Some Fundamental Views] (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2007), pp.25–6; Al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya min al-Murahaqa ila al-Rushd [The Islamic Awakening from Adolescence to Adulthood] (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2002), p.289; Zuhaili, al-Qanun al-Duwali al-Insani, pp.88, 89, 98, 99; Athar al-Harb, pp.52, 53, 133.

102. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.59–69.

103. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.109.

104. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.121. See also Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, p.18–21.

105. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, esp. pp.59–69.

106. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, p.17.

107. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.109–13; Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.69–79.

108. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.113. Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, pp.95–102. Qaradawi offers a very similar, albeit more detailed, treatment of these three most commonly recognized ways of ending war. Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Jihad, esp. pp.815–61.

109. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, pp.113-4, 118–9.

110. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.113; al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.74.

111. Classic and post-classic jurists (roughly until the early days of the Ottoman Empire) based their objections to permanent peace treaties to the practice of the prophet of limiting the duration of any truce with the polytheists to a maximum of ten years. Contemporary mainstream Islamists like Abu Zahra, Zuhaili and Qaradawi argue that this view was triggered by the incessant struggles between the Islamic state and its non-Muslim neighbors (especially Byzantium) and later on the crusades and the wars between the Andalusian princes and their Christian neighbors who sought (and eventually managed) to drive them out of Spain. A fairly detailed and critical treatment of this traditional view is found in Qaradawi's Fiqh al-Jihad, esp. pp.820–6. In his seminal work on war, Zuhaili notes that ‘the [classic] jurists were in agreement that any truce with the enemy had to be limited in time; since a permanent truce, that is not time-bound, is invalid for it would entail abandoning jihad’. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, p.670. Like Qaradawi, Zuhaili distances himself from this traditional view arguing repeatedly that open-ended truces, or permanent peace accords, are valid under Islam as long as they serve the interests of Muslims and do not include provisions that contradict the sharia. Zuhaili, Athar al-Harb, esp. pp.334–42, 655–764. In one of the most comprehensive treatments of the subject, Khadduri writes: ‘The inhabitants of the territory of war were eligible to enter into a peace treaty with Islam, which placed them in a state of temporary peace for a period not exceeding ten years, according to some jurists’. Khadduri argues that it was only in the sixteenth century that the Ottoman Sultan started to explicitly enter into open-ended peace agreements with Christian European rulers. Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani's Siyar (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), p.22.

112. Hashmi, ‘Islamic Ethics in International Society’, p.156.

113. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.143.

114. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.80–5.

115. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.100. A few pages later (p.152), he names around 15 of the Prophet's companions who, according to the Shia tradition, thought that the first Caliph should have been Ali and not Abu Bakr. He neither accepts nor rejects this Shia narrative. See also Tarikh al-Mazhaheb al-Islamiyya, pp.13, 23.

116. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.99–123.

117. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.172–207.

118. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.172–4.

119. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.128.

120. For Abu Zahra, the Sunnis, whom he usually refers to as al-jamaʿa form one group, although they belong to different schools of jurisprudence. The Shias, on the other hand, form different sects, primarily the Yazidis, Ismailis, the Twelvers, and the Batinis. For him, the sectarian problem in Islam emerged with the Sunni–Shia divide in the caliphate of Imam Ali. He, however, refrains from blaming either group for the schism. While a prominent Sunni, he often adopts the Shia narrative on landmark events in the early history of the schism, such as the conflict between Ali and Muawiyah and the reign of the Umayyads, whom he depicts as unjust. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.204–6.

121. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.163–71.

122. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.146; Tarikh al-Mazhaheb al-Islamiyya, pp.17, 274–5. His critique of the Umayyad rule as corrupt and unjust echoes that of Mawdudi. See, especially, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Mawlana Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p.92.

123. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.144–6.

124. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.199; Tarikh al-Mazhaheb al-Islamiyya, p.14. While there is no English word for al-shuʿoubiyya, it can be defined as a social and cultural trend in the Abbasid age which claimed the superiority of urban culture, represented by the old nations such as the Persian and Byzantine, over nomad culture, represented by the Bedouin Arabs and the values they represented. This conflict had a significant impact on literature in the Abbasid age, and raised serious religious and political argument.

125. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.177.

126. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.195.

127. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.195–9.

128. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.150.

129. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.176.

130. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.200

131. See, for example, Nasr, Mawlana Mawdudi, esp. Chapter 5, The Islamic State, pp.80–106. Other academic works on Mawdudi include Roy Jackson, Mawlana Mawdudi and Political Islam: Authority and the Islamic State (London & New York: Routledge, 2011). Abu Zahra and Mawdudi co-authored a short pamphlet that was translated into English which attests to their intellectual and probably personal affinity. Sayyid Abu al-Aʿla Mawdudi and Mohammad Abu Zahra, ‘The Role of Ijtihad and the Scope of Legislation in Islam’, Muslim Digest Vol.9. No.2 (January 1959), pp.15–20.

132. Nasr, for example, reads Mawdudi as advocating the use of force to establish the Islamic state. Nasr, Mawlana Mawdudi, esp. pp.81–3.

133. Nasr, Mawlana Mawdudi, pp.80–2.

134. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.220–1.

135. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.201–16.

136. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.218.

137. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.208–9.

138. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.208–9.

139. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.279–81, 313.

140. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.281–3.

141. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.291.

142. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.213.

143. See, inter alia, Michael Doyle, ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs Vol.2, No.3 (Summer 1983), pp.205–35; and Doyle, ‘Kant, Liberalism and World Politics’, American Political Science Review Vol.80, No.4 (December 1986), pp.1151–69; and Kenneth Waltz, ‘Kant, Liberalism and War’, American Political Science Review Vol.56, No.2 (June 1962), pp.331–40.

144. See, inter alia, Karl W. Deutsch, et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957).

145. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.269–72.

146. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.277–8.

147. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.254–7.

148. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.225–42.

149. Abu Zahra, Tarikh al-Mazhaheb al-Islamiyya, p.19; al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.224.

150. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.220–68.

151. Jack Snyder, Introduction in ed. Jack Snyder, Religion and International Relations Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), p.9.

152. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.210–1, 225–42.

153. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.214–6.

154. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiya, p.77.

155. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, p.79; al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, p.54.

156. Abu Zahra, Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, p.22.

157. Abu Zahra, al-ʿAlaqat al-Duwaliyya fi al-Islam, p.51; Nazhariyyat al-Harb fi al-Islam, p.22.

158. Abu Zahra, al-Mujtamaʿ al-Insani fi Dhil al-Islam, pp.142–3.

159. Abu Zahra, al-Wihda al-Islamiyya, pp.279–81.