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

Abstract

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 Fadlallah's 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 Fadlallah's 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.