Knowledge, Repetition and Power in Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Thought: Some Preliminary Comments on Methodology

Year 2015, , 39 - 50, 09.01.2015

Ali Balcı

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.167331

Cited By: 5

Abstract

Knowledge, Repetition and Power in Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Thought: Some Preliminary Comments on Methodology

Abstract

This paper’s major motivation is to contribute to the debate on how international relations (IR) scholars can develop an alternative method for studying power. A focus on Islamic Sufi thinker Ibn Al-‘Arabi is suggested to demonstrate the early philosophical conceptualization of power relations in a non-Western context. For Ibn Al-‘Arabi, in a world in which unrepeatability is the rule, creating repeatability and fixation through interpretation is certainly done for worldly purposes. His work suggests that any attempt to understand “the cosmos” is an arbitrary intervention, which strictly reflects power relations among actors. Therefore, Ibn Al-‘Arabi’s work can trigger scholarly questions on not only methodology but also on the sociology of the IR discipline and foreign policy in a non-Western context. His arguments can be utilized in critical and poststructuralist conceptions of power in IR. 

Keywords

Ibn al-‘Arabi, the cosmos, knowledge, repetition, interpretation, delimitation, power

References

• Acharya, Amitav. “Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories Beyond The West.” Millenium: Journal of International Studies 39, no. 3 (2011): 619-37.
• Acharya, Amitav, and Barry Buzan. “Why is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory? An Introduction.” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7, no. 3 (2007): 287-312.
• Almond, Ian. Sufism and Deconstruction: A Comparative Study of Derrida and Ibn’Arabi. London: Routledge, 2004.
• Aydınlı, Ersel, and Julie Mathews. “Periphery Theorising for a Truly Internationalised Discipline: Spinning IR Theory Out of Anatolia.” Review of International Studies 34, no. 4 (2008): 693-712.
• Behera, Navnita Chadha. “Re-imagining IR in India.” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7, no. 3 (2007): 341-68.
• Biltekin, Gonca. “Batı-dışı Uluslararası İlişkiler Teorileri ve Özgün Kuram.” In Uluslararası İlişkiler Teorileri, edited by Ramazan Gözen, 517-64. İstanbul: İletişim, 2014.
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for ‘Indian’ Pasts?” Representations 37 (1992): 1-26.
• Chittick, William C. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʻArabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination. Albany: Suny Press, 1989.
• Crawford, Robert M.A. “Where Have All Theorists Gone- Gone to Britain? Everyone? A Story of Two Parochialisms in International Relations.” In International Relations—Still an American Social Science?: Toward Diversity, edited by Robert M.A. Crawford and Darryl S.L. Jarvis, 221-42. Albany: SUNY University Press, 2001.
• Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
• Haj Yousef, Mohamed. Ibn ‘Arabi’: Time and Cosmology. New York: Routledge, 2008.
• Heidegger, Martin. “‘Only a God Can Save Us’: Der Spiegel Interview with Martin Hedegger (1966).” In The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Wolin, 91-116. U.S.: MIT Press, 1993.
• Hoffmann, Stanley. “An American Social Science: International Relations.” Daedalus 106, no. 3 (1977): 41-60.
• Holsti, Kal J. The Dividing Discipline. Winchester, Mass.: Allen & Unwin, 1985.
• Ibn al-ʻArabī. The Bezels of Wisdom. Translated by Ralph Austin. New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1980.
• Ibn Arabi, Muhyiddin. Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries. Translated by Cecilia Twinch and Pablo Beneito. Oxford: Anqa Publishing, 2008.
• -- . Fütuhat-ı Mekkiye. Translated by Ekrem Demirli. 18 vols. Istanbul: Litera Yayıncılık, 2006-2012.
• Norbu, Dawa. “Tibet in Sino-Indian Relations: The Centrality of Marginality.” Asian Survey 37, no. 11 (1997): 1078-95.
• Pasha, Mustapha Kamal. “Untimely Reflections.” In International Relations and Non-Western Thought, edited by Robbie Shilliam, 217-26. London & New York: Routledge, 2011.
• Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin Classics, 2003.
• Scholem, Gershom. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. The United States of America: Schocken Books, Scholem, 1996.
• Smith, Tony. “Requiem or New Agenda for Third World Studies.” World Politics 37, no. 4 (1985): 532-62.
• Spivak, Gayatri C. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, 217-313. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
• Tickner, Arlene B. and David L. Blaney. Claiming the International: Worlding Beyond the West.London: Routledge, 2013.
• Wiarda, Howard. “The Ethnocentrism of the Social Science: Implications for Research and Policy.” The Review of Politics 43 (1981): 163-97.
• Wæver, Ole. “The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations.” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998):687-727.
• Xuetong, Yan. Ancient Chinese Thought and Modern Chinese Power. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011.
• -- . “Xun Zi’s Thoughts on International Politics and Their Implications.” Chinese Journal of International Politics 2, no. 1 (2008): 135-65.