Hashmi Examines World of International Ethics

In ancient Islamic culture, the tradition of rihla involved seeking knowledge through travel. Scholars would journey for months, often years, through the Muslim world learning about history, religious practices and interpretation, social customs, trade, travel conditions, and geography. Their stories, sometimes commissioned by local rulers, would be recorded as journal accounts called rihla. Mount Holyoke's Sohail Hashmi, assistant professor of international relations, set out on his own version of such a journey in 1990. In four years and four separate forays, he visited nine countries—from Morocco to Malaysia, all the while working on his Ph.D. dissertation for Harvard University.

“It gave me the opportunity to travel to the farthest reaches of the Muslim world and to speak with leading scholars at the centers of Islamic learning,” says Hashmi, a practicing Sunni Muslim who was raised in America's Baptist South, and who is today a leading scholar in the field of Islamic politics. When he completed his travels, he married, began teaching at MHC, and settled down to write. He has now developed his dissertation into a nearly completed book, The Islamic Ethics of War and Peace, which is currently making the rounds of publishers.

The book evaluates classical and contemporary Islamic perspectives on international relations. In it Hashmi examines ideas of jihad or “just war,” the ethics of nuclear deterrence, and intervention in cases of massive violations of human rights. Questions about the compatibility of classical and modern Islamic theory with the contemporary international system, and the ramifications of Muslim accommodations to this system, are discussed within the framework of historical examples, including the Arab-Israeli dispute, the Iran-Iraq war, and the Persian Gulf war.

“A principal concern of this study,” says Hashmi, “is the degree to which the ethical discourse on international relations has influenced, or has the potential to influence, the domestic as well as international politics of the Muslim countries.” The book looks at how modern Muslims are adapting their classical law of the thirteenth century to modern times and raises questions as to “how these classical theories work in terms of international realities in a world made by Europe—not a world prevalent in medieval Islamic times,” says Hashmi.

International ethics is an area of special interest to Hashmi. As a relatively young subfield of international relations, international ethics was identified merely twenty years ago, he says, as a valid area of scholarship. Pioneered by European academics, the idea that ethical concerns must play a major role in charting policy first took hold in the United States in the 1970s. Hashmi credits former American president Jimmy Carter with being among the first American political leaders to articulate the idea. “Carter felt that the promotion of moral concerns leads to promotion of our own national interest,” says Hashmi. “Particularly in a democracy, moral concerns are so important to determining policy.”

Hashmi notes that MHC emphasizes this distinctly humanistic approach in its international relations department's curriculum. “We are looking at international relations as history as opposed to science,” he says. Rather than using mathematical modeling to explain behavior, or resorting to “quantifiable” decision making, Hashmi says the “ethics” approach to international relations emphasizes looking to the past for lessons for the future. “History is where the most fruitful answers are found,” he says. Indeed debates in politics are not new, he adds. “Debates on the morality of war, for example, have been going on for millennia.”

Hashmi's own history bridges the Muslim world of South Asia, America's Baptist South, the Ivy League Northeast, and the Pioneer Valley. Born in Hyderabad, a city in south central India, he moved with his family to Savannah, Georgia, when he was six. Although he and his parents and sisters spoke English, at home they spoke Urdu, an Indo-Aryan language widely spoken by Muslims in urban areas of India, and an official language of Pakistan, his father's native country. (Hashmi also has a working knowledge of Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and French.) He notes that growing up in a Bible Belt area made his own isolated Muslim family “close and strong.” “We never experienced difficulties,” he says. “We were always very welcome in the community.” Hashmi's father taught in the international relations department at Georgia Southern University.

Hashmi earned his master's degree from Princeton and his Ph.D. from Harvard. He currently lives in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. His wife, Samah, is a physician and researcher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. The recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, he has edited several books, including State Sovereignty: Change and Persistence in International Relations (1997), and was coeditor of Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives (forthcoming this year), and Islam and Constitutionalism, which is currently being prepared for publishers' review. He has also authored numerous essays, including several that compose chapters of his book. At MHC, he teaches courses in international relations theory, comparative politics from North Africa to Iran, and Islamic political thought.

“Sohail's gifts are impossible to enumerate,” says MHC's Vincent Ferraro, chair of international relations, and Ruth C. Lawson Professor in International Politics. “He navigates one of the most explosive political minefields in the world today, and students praise his objectivity. They love him.”