War for Peace: Genealogies of a Violent Ideal in Western and Islamic Thought

353 Pages·2018·3.318 MB·English

by  Murad Idris

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War for Peace
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War for Peace
Genealogies of a Violent Ideal in
Western and Islamic Thought
MURAD IDRIS
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Idris, Murad, 1984– author.
Title: War for peace : genealogies of a violent ideal in Western and Islamic
thought / Murad Idris.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University
Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018018995 (print) | LCCN 2018035332 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190658021 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190658038 (Epub) |
ISBN 9780190658014 (hardcover : acid- free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Peace (Philosophy) | War (Philosophy)
Classification: LCC B105.P4 (ebook) | LCC B105.P4 I35 2019 (print) |
DDC 327.1/ 72— dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/ 2018018995
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Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
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In the loving memory,
of twenty- six years,
for it is all that remains.
as promised, for my brother,
Mohamad Idris
1982– 2011
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface: Troubling Peace xiii
Introduction: Beyond Universal Peace 1
1. Assigning Symmetry: Plato’s Laws and the Polis’s Wars 19
2. Summoning Hostility: Al-F ārābī, Aquinas, and Warlike Peace 70
Interlude I— Deflections: Friends, Neighbors, Advisers 124
3. Loving Necessity: Erasmus between Christianity and Islam 131
4. Ordering Legality: Gentili, Grotius, and Law for War 178
Interlude II— Refractions: Missionaries, Nomads, Pirates 215
5. Colonizing Frontiers: Ibn Khaldūn, Hobbes, and Commodious
Violence 226
6. Policing Humanity: Immanuel Kant, Sayyid Quṭb, and Shades
of Empire 260
Epilogue: Unmaking Peace 314
Index 323
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Acknowledgments
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to retrace all the conversations that made this book’s present
form possible. War for Peace has never been mine alone, even if all responsi-
bility for faults and shortcomings is. I began writing what became this book at
the University of Pennsylvania. From Philadelphia, the manuscript traveled with
me to Ithaca, New York City, Cambridge, MA, and Charlottesville. Along the way,
I have incurred more debts than I can recount here.
My first thanks go to Anne Norton, my teacher. For her guidance, support,
friendship, and so much more, she always has my deepest gratitude. She is a con-
stant source of inspiration; working with her is an honor. At Penn, I was fortunate
to be surrounded by supportive faculty who created a rare intellectual world. Jeffrey
Green, Nancy Hirschmann, and Joseph Lowry have been generous interlocutors,
critical and helpful, always pushing the manuscript in productive directions. Ellen
Kennedy, Bob Vitalis, Ian Lustick, and Roger Allen introduced me to new worlds
of thinking. Since graduate school, Nicholas Harris, Rose Muravchick, Elias Saba,
and Chris Taylor have provided both friendship and intellectual companionship.
They have helped me think through so many questions essential to this book over
the years. I am forever in their debt. Elias took on the task of copyediting the final
manuscript, and Nick of completing the final proofs and index; they have been
with this book from inception to end, and with me throughout. Asma al-N asser,
Nesrine Chahine, Ola Shtewee, Omar al-Ghazzi, Ameed Saabneh, and Adam
Miyashiro made Philly feel like home.
At Cornell University, the examples and hospitality of Peter Katzenstein, Mary
Katzenstein, Gerard Aching, Leslie Adelson, Richard Bensel, Jason Frank, Isaac
Kramnick, David Powers, and Shawkat Toorawa made my time in Ithaca a pre-
cious gift. Nicole Giannella and Suman Seth read multiple chapter drafts, and they
both continue to enrich my life with their friendship and brilliance. In New York
City, the Columbia Society of Fellows in the Humanities, under the guidance of
Eileen Gillooly and Christopher Brown, brought together an amazing group of
scholars; my fellow fellows Maggie Cao, Brian Goldstone, Hidetaka Hirota, and