Islamic World: Inter-State Relations

It was in 1856 that for the first time a non-Christian nation, Turkey, was considered fit to benefit from the European Public Law of Nations, and this was the true beginning of internationalising the public law of Christian nations. That, however, does not mean that international law, with its modern connotation, was born then and there; it already existed elsewhere. For, Islam had recognized that all states, irrespective of religion or race, have similar rights and obligations. Unlike any other nation of antiquity, the public law of nations evolved by Muslims was not meant to regulate the conduct of a Muslim state with regard to Muslim states alone, excluding all the non-Muslim world. Even as a separate and independent science, “international law” owes its origin to Arab Muslims of the Umaiyad period, who divorced it from political science and law general thought not displacing it from its ethical basis. With the loss of their empires, average Muslims have forgotten their rich cultural heritage.To write on Muslim international law meant describing the very first phase of this science after it became a self-contained and independent branch of learning.This pioneering work, is organized in four parts consisting of seventeen chapters.Authored by a renowned historian, this book will serve as authoritative work of reference on Muslim international law.