Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
New York: Palgrave Macmillan (St. Martins Press), 2009; xii & 239pp.
with Glossary of Arabic terms (pp. 217219), references (pp. 221232), & index.
ISBN- 13: 978-0-230-61483-3. / reviewed by Karim D. Crow
Halim Rane is Deputy Director of the Griffith Islamic Research Unit, and lecturer in
Islamic Studies, at Griffith University in Australia. His work is a unique combination of
perspectives drawn from international relations theory with reference to conflict
resolution, and the methodological approaches of Islamic legal studiesspecifically its
objective-oriented (maqid) dimension applied to re-envisioning jihadwith both
being directed at offering a realistic path toward a just resolution of the Israel-Palestine
conflict. Hardly anything along these multidisciplinary lines has ever been attempted
before, despite the huge number of books written on the situation of Palestinians.
He poses three basic research questions (p. 5):
What is the main obstacle to a just peace in Israel-Palestine? What is
the mechanism through which the Israel-Palestine conflict can be
resolved? What is required of the Palestinians in order to advance
this process? Briefly, a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict is
obstructed by the direct competition that exists between its two most
central international norms, namely: self-determination, the
fundamental claim of the Palestinians, and self-defense, the
overriding concern of Israelis.
The post9/11 world has elevated the norm of self-defense to a higher priority,
weakening the salience of Palestinian self-determination. It may strike some readers
that by framing the issue in this manner Rane is ignoring the asymmetrical geopolitical
realities of the Middle East, with the unique role Israels patron the United States
continues to play in the region not to mention: What is required of Israelis to achieve
a just peace? Rane is aware of such perceptions, and his well-researched and carefully
argued work dispels the assumption that he is bending over backward to accommodate
Israeli and/or Western requirements. Yet he operates securely within the parameters of
western social sciences (p. 5): A resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict must be
understood in terms of international norms and identity factors.
Rane is quite ambitious when stating his unique objectives in the Preface:
This book makes a significant contribution to the literature on
international norms by exploring the implications for conflict
resolution when two equally legitimate norms compete. With the
norm of self-defense predominant in the peace process, Palestinian
Mubarak Awad personally intervened with Yasir Arafat in Tunis and persuaded PLO leaders to endorse an
uprising without guns. He later established the international NGO Nonviolence International, which now
has branches in Jerusalem, Bangkok, Banda Aceh, Moscow, Central America, and Washington DC. and
underground hiding in mosques before being apprehended and expelled by the Israeli
authorities.) Rane strongly suggests that there exists a viable alternative to violence for
Palestinians, while recognizing the obstacles impeding this path: The Center for the
Study of Nonviolence in Palestine concluded that the perception among
Palestinians of nonviolence as strange to Islam is widespread and difficult to
combat. armed resistance is a right of the Palestinian people (p. 131).
This brings Rane to re-thinking Jihad in the final part of his book. He seeks to
incorporate the constructivist perspective of international relations into a
reformulation of jihad based on the contextualist and maqasid-oriented approaches of
Islamic studies (p. 10). He stresses that the militant understanding, interpretation, and
application of jihad have endured as the predominant norm among Muslims; whereas
nonviolent resistance is yet to be recognized in the Islamic tradition as a legitimate and
normative form of jihad.2 Applying these observations to the contemporary realities of
the Israel-Palestine conflict, he asserts these not only render the use of violence
detrimental to the Palestinian cause of self-determination and further entrench the
occupation and repression endured by the Palestinian people, but are contrary to the
higher objectives of jihad as enshrined in the Quran itself (pp. 78). This conviction
leads him to offer persuasive reasons why shifting from violent to nonviolent resistance
by Palestinians would not merely promote the acceptance of the predominant
international norm of self-determination in their favor, but would be a preferable option
in terms of the higher objectives of jihad enshrined in the Quran. The main challenge in
making this shift to active nonviolence is convincing the Islamically oriented.
Part Three of his book in two chapters (Reformulation pp. 135201) is devoted to
persuading Muslim legal minds and community leaders to make this shift in mindset.
Chapter 5 The Islamic Doctrines of War and Peace presents a brief sketch of the
classical Muslim juridical doctrine on jihad as expounded in the Siyar writings. Here,
Rane relies on scholarly works in English or translated into English (Ghunaimi,
Khadduri, Peters, AbuSulayman, Hamidullah, al-Buti, Kamali) to assemble his
snapshot of legal jihad. He treats the juristic problem of abrogation (naskh) of the
earlier Quranic verses teaching tolerance, long-suffering or peacable persuasion, by the
later Madinan sword verses (Q 9:5 & 9:29), citing evidence that this juridical dogma
was projected back onto the Quran for political and social reasons. Rane reviews
contemporary Muslim discourses on jihad relating to Palestine, as well as its
appropriation by Jihadists as legitimate warfare, and the centrality of understanding
supports nonviolent efforts in a variety of societies. Born in Jerusalem into an Antiochian Orthodox family,
Awad advocates active nonviolence (abr) as authentic Christian and Islamic practice.
Rane has overlooked many significant precedents by Muslim thinkers and activists who might have been
invoked to support his contention that nonviolence is an authentic application of jihad (e.g. Abdul Ghaffar
Khan, Nursi Said & jihad manavi, or Ustaz Jawdat Said).