Introducing Sufism to International Relations Theory

A preliminary inquiry into epistemological, ontological, and methodological pathways

Deepshikha Shahi
Centre for Global Cooperation Research/Käte Hamburger-Kolleg,
University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
Email: deepshikha.shahi@gmail.com

European Journal of International Relations

DOI: 10.1177/1354066117751592
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1354066117751592

Introduction

One of the most commonly treaded pathways to address the widely recognized Eurocentric
biases in the academic field of International Relations (IR) has been the initiation of
intellectual efforts toward the incorporation of non-Western world views. However, the
greater assimilation of knowledge produced by non-Western scholars from local
philosophical-experiential vantage points — for instance, the integration of Chinese, Indian,
or Brazilian outlooks, often expressed under the rubric “non-Western IR” — cannot make IR
less Eurocentric or more “Global” if the following slippery grounds are overlooked: (1) if
non-Western IR theories employ non-Western philosophical resources for involuntarily
generating a derivative discourse of the same Western/Eurocentric IR theories (e.g. if the
Indian literary classic “Arthaśāstra” is evoked to create an Indian version of realism that is
identical to Western realism), thereby failing to produce fresh insights that could transcend
the conjectural boundaries of Western/Eurocentric IR; and (2) if non-Western IR theories
deliberately manufacture an exceptionalist discourse that is specifically applicable to the
narrow experiential realities of a native time–space zone (e.g. the “post-colonial” and “de-
colonial” debates that essentially endorse a rigid division between the delimited and
particularist politico-experiential realities of the colonizing and colonialized worlds), thereby
failing to put forward a universalist explanation that grants a broad-spectrum relevance to
Western/Eurocentric IR. In the light of these realizations, the present article intends to
explore if Sufism, as an established philosophy with a grand temporal-spatial spread across
the globe, is capable of conquering the aforementioned slippery grounds.

The article raises the following central question: is the non-Western intellectual resource of
Sufism capable of offering a fertile ground for crafting a non-derivative and non-
exceptionalist Global IR theory? In its attempt to find an appropriate response to this central
question, the article awakens the philosophical insights gained from the poetry of a 13th-
century Persian Sufi scholar, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī. The article hypothesizes that the
following “threefold attribute” emerging from the generalities of Sufi philosophy — as also
exemplified in the specificities of Rūmī’s poetry — gives it a peculiar exploratory base for
considering a non-Eurocentric Global IR theory: (1) epistemological monism; (2) ontological
immaterialism; and (3) methodological eclecticism. 1 While the epistemological dualism
characterizing Eurocentric IR presumes a knowledge-situation marked by an essential
subject–object distinction, the “epistemological monism” underlying Sufism imagines a
potential subject–object merger. In contrast to the ontological priority in Eurocentric IR
(which more often than not considers the “science of being” as the obligatory starting point
for knowledge production), Sufism supposes “ontological immaterialism” — an
acknowledgment of a multilayered reality wherein “non-being”/“non-
existence”/“nothingness” is the accepted originating point of “being”/“existence” — as a
precondition for knowledge acquisition. Furthermore, unlike particular reliance upon a
compartmentalized methodology for knowledge production in Eurocentric IR (which broadly
adheres to either rationalism/positivism or reflectivism/post-positivism), the “methodological
eclecticism” underpinning Sufism advances a heterogeneous platter of methodologies that
advocates an eclectic amalgamation of rationalist, reflectivist, and even extra-
rationalist/extra-causal methodologies for comprehending reality. The article sets out to
suggest how this distinctive threefold attribute of Sufism can be potentially employed to craft
a non-Eurocentric Global IR theory.

The article is divided into three sections. The first section attempts to situate Sufism in the
ongoing discourses on Global IR. The second section evokes Rūmī’s poetry to extract the
distinctive threefold attribute of Sufism that grants it an innovative non-Eurocentric
philosophical lens for envisioning a Global IR. Finally, the third section discusses the
credentials of this Sufi threefold attribute as interconnected threads in the propositional fabric
of a non-Eurocentric Global IR theory.

Eurocentric IR versus Global IR: A dissonant discourse on non-Western and post-

Western?

The limits of “Eurocentric IR” remain a widely recognized scholarly actuality (Acharya,
2011; Capan, 2017; Grovogui, 2006; Hobson, 2012; Hoffmann, 1977; Jones, 2006;
Kayaoglu, 2010; Schmidt, 2014; Wæver, 1998). Lately, the conceptualization of “Global IR”
has evolved as a conscious antidote to these limits. The conceptual parameters of Global IR
encompass all those research works that potentially propose to transcend the divide between
the West and the Rest by tracking any of the following multiple pathways: demonstrating a
commitment to pluralistic universalism; grounding in world history; redefining existing IR
theories and methods and building new ones from societies hitherto ignored as sources of IR
knowledge; integrating the study of regions and regionalisms into the central concerns of IR;
avoiding ethnocentrism and exceptionalism irrespective of source and form; and recognizing
a broader conception of agency, with material and ideational elements that includes
resistance, normative action, and local constructions of global order (Acharya, 2014: 647).

The prescribed multiple pathways to do Global IR seem promising in terms of their intrinsic
determination to surpass the limits of Eurocentric IR. Nevertheless, a fairly erratic labeling of
the research works pursuing these pathways as “non-Western” and/or “post-Western” has
generated a substantial ambiguity. To a great extent, this ambiguity emanates from the
haziness in developing a clear general definition of “non-Western” and “post-Western” on the
one hand, and the dissonance over the particular significance of “non-Western” and “post-
Western” research projects in the programmatic content of Global IR on the other. While
both non-Western and post-Western discourses — as viable constituents of Global IR —
claim to transcend the boundaries of Eurocentric IR, there is a lack of transparency on the
“perceived motive” behind such transcendence: whether the motive behind such
transcendence entails a displacement or an expansion of Eurocentric IR.
Announcing the inclusivist inclination of Global IR that implies bringing in the hitherto
excluded presence of the Global South, Amitav Acharya (2015) comments:

What is the difference between “non-Western” and “post-Western”? I cannot speak

for “post-Western”, but “non-Western” IR Theory (NWIRT), when it was first
advanced in 2007, called for making critical advances to existing IR theories with the
infusion of the ideas, voices and experiences from the Global South (China included).
But it did not call for displacing or supplanting existing IR knowledge and theories.
Displacement is both impractical and undesirable. I am not sure how far a “post-
Western” IR Theory would seek such displacement.

Acharya somewhat discards the “post-Western” as a viable component of Global IR on the

grounds of an anticipated skepticism toward its intent to displace Eurocentric IR. However,
Navnita Chadha Behera (2010) necessarily prioritizes an engagement with “post-Western,”
not “non-Western,” in the desirable course of painting IR non-Eurocentric. Remarking on the
preferred route of doing non-Eurocentric IR in India, she argues:

Re-imagining [non-Eurocentric] IR in India is not about creating an Indian school of

IR but redefining IR itself … [for] even if scholars were to succeed in creating an
Indian school of IR, it would at best, earn a small, compartmentalized space within
the master narrative of IR (read the Western IR). The challenge, therefore, is not to
discover or produce non-Western IR theory in India but for the Indian IR community
to work towards fashioning a post-Western IR. (Behera, 2010: 92)

Behera’s appeal to construct a post-Western IR — by means of exploring alternative sites of

knowledge construction; transgressing the disciplinary boundaries of IR; incorporating
everyday life experiences in theory building; rereading history and analyzing the political
thought of various philosophers; indigenizing the academic discourses in IR; and questioning
the a priori assumptions, procedures, and values embedded in the positivist enterprise —
gives the impression to expand, not displace, the acknowledged contents of Eurocentric IR.
Nevertheless, the goal of such an expansion remains unfulfilled by attaining a
“compartmentalized space within the master narrative of [Western] IR” or fabricating a
derivative discourse of Western IR.

As such, Behera’s “post-Western” comes close to Acharya’s “non-Western” in terms of its

“perceived motive” (i.e. the transcendence of Eurocentric IR by way of expanding, not
displacing, it), but remains distinct in terms of its “expected outcome” (i.e. the end result of
transcendence must disclose an uncultivated intellectual space or a non-derivative discourse
that is exterior, not interior, to Eurocentric IR). In this sense, all post-Western works in IR are
non-Western in terms of “input” (as they inevitably borrow from non-Western intellectual
resources), but not all non-Western works in IR are post-Western in terms of “output” (as
they may or may not produce a non-derivative discourse of Western IR — i.e. they may or
may not undertake a study of the exteriors of Eurocentric IR).

An ambition to explore the exteriors of Eurocentric IR is expressed by Giorgio Shani (2008:

722), who argues that post-Western IR must deploy non-Western intellectual resources for
creating a critique that goes beyond the mimicry of the derivative discourses of the modern
West. As Pinar Bilgin (2008: 5) informs us that “mimicry may emerge as a way of doing
world politics in a seemingly similar yet unexpectedly different way,” Shani (2008: 723)
asserts that a genuine post-Western IR must go beyond mimicry in interrogating not only the
positivist methodology of IR, but also the concomitant assumptions of Western cultural
distinctiveness and superiority. While Shani perceives post-Western IR as a non-derivative
critical discourse arguing against the hegemonic discipline of Eurocentric IR, Andrew Hurrell
(2016) argues that the overriding challenge is to try to move beyond critique and develop a
global study of international relations that insists on the importance of the systemic, the
“Global.”

The pertinent question, then, is how to include the non-derivative master-/meta-narrative(s)

of the Global South so as to build a Global IR theory for facilitating a global study of
international relations? Comparing the relative “globality” of the non-Western and post-
Western discourses in IR, Josuke Ikeda (2013) pronounces that the latter has an advantage
over the former because of its “post-colonial” leanings. He observes:

Perhaps one advantage of the latter [post-Western] over the former [non-Western] is
its postcolonial quality. The “provincialization” of Europe, borrowing the word from
Dipesh Chakrabarty (and its effective interpretations in IR by Giorgio Shani and Rosa
Vasilaki), or of international society, entails the decentralisation of a particular system
of knowledge at a deeper level.… Nevertheless, there is one possible pitfall even in
taking a post-Western approach … if the very foundation of post-Western IR, the
nexus between the critical in theory and the political in practice, is in fact Western in
its cultural ethos, how may we overcome the problem of “Westfailure”?

Ikeda’s observations, which tend to problematize the globality of post-Western IR, appear to
be evasively “essentialist” in at least three ways: (1) the post-Western is compulsorily
interpreted as post-colonial; (2) the post-Western is necessarily associated with the ethos of
critical theory and practice; and (3) the ethos of critical theory and practice is unavoidably
construed as Western. While each of these essentialist observations is independently
questionable, it is also obvious that the “post-colonial” — as an alleged tradition of critical
theory and practice that is based on non-Western political experiences, albeit Western
cultural ethos — principally “bifurcates” the restricted politico-experiential realities of the
colonizing and colonialized worlds in an incommensurable manner. As such, a post-colonial
fervor is bound to generate an exceptionalist, not a universalist, discourse, whereas a post-
Western IR — as a valid element of Global IR — is expected to avoid exceptionalism and
promote universalism.

In this context, it is crucial to admit that an attempt to suture together a “Global moment of
humanism” with a “postcolonial moment of listening-to-and-hearing the voices of/from
alternative loci of enunciation” has been made in IR by drawing inspiration from Edward
Said’s conceptualization of “contrapuntal reading” (Duvall and Varadarajan, 2007). This
contrapuntal reading impressively sets out to incorporate the missing narratives of/from the
“colonized” in order to fill in the gaps left in the dominant narratives of/from the
“colonizing.” As such, the chief thrust of contrapuntal reading is to generate a “synthesized
narrative” that offers a “holist view” of IR,2 thereby interrogating the biases of the “received
knowledge” of Eurocentric IR (Chowdhry, 2007). However, in this holist view of IR, the
“particularist” characteristics of both the colonizing and the colonized worlds are stingily
retained so as to be able to cautiously preserve an “anti-universalizing humanist” stance that
Said possessed (Cocks, 2000). As such, the “Global moment of humanism,” which is inserted
into IR via Said’s conceptualization of contrapuntal reading, meticulously blends Western
exceptionalism with non-Western exceptionalism. In so doing, it does not necessarily attach a
tone of parochialism to any of these exceptionalisms, but most certainly detaches these
exceptionalisms from any tendencies toward universalism.

In fact, a plausible initiative toward promoting “pluriversalism” (Not multiple

universalisms?) has been undertaken by de-colonial IR. The proponents of de-colonial IR aim
at promoting the pluriversality of knowledge-forms (as alternatives of Eurocentric/Western
knowledge-forms) via the awakening of the “subjugated” non-Western intellectual resources.
For instance, Walter D. Mignolo (2011) promotes an awakening of the subjugated non-
Western intellectual resources in order to design de-colonial theses that could follow the
route of “delinking” from two major Eurocentric macro-narratives, namely, capitalism and
communism. However, this route of delinking is supposed to be essentially perceived as the
“opposite of assimilation” (Mignolo, 2012: 90); as such, the delinking project of de-colonial
IR is expected to engender “pluriversal instead of universal horizons” (Mignolo, 2012: 189).
In its bid to oppose universal horizons, the pluriversalist de-colonial imagination of a Global
IR is helplessly inclined toward favoring “multiple loosely hanging local exceptionalisms”
(not “multiple closely interconnected global universalisms”). 3 By extension, this implies that
de-colonial IR aims at retaining the distinctions between the West and the Rest (read
exceptionalisms), whereas Global IR is keen to dissolve them.

How is it possible, then, to envisage a Global IR that is post-Western in a non-exceptionalist

or universalist (read non-post-colonial or non-de-colonial) sense? Although the contemporary
discipline of IR is not devoid of such post-Western theoretical imaginings of Global IR, 4 this
article aims to explore the philosophical underpinnings of “Sufism” that tend to approach
Global IR with a post-Western theoretical commitment — namely, a commitment to deploy
non-Western intellectual resources for a global study of IR by way of: (1) expanding (not
displacing) Eurocentric IR; (2) exploring the exteriors (not replicating the interiors) of
Eurocentric IR; (3) devising an alternative (not just critical) global study of IR; and (4)
offering a universalist (not exceptionalist) account of IR. As Sufism already survives as a
well-known “cosmopolitan meeting point” between the East and the West (Geaves et al.,
2009; Hatina, 2007), as a “global history” with widespread temporal-spatial, socio-political,
and theoretical-praxeological dimensions (Green, 2012; Raudvere and Stenberg, 2008), and
as a “global cult symbolizing a global community” (Raudvere, 2009; Werbner, 2003), the
possibilities of its deployment in post-Western Global IR theorization is worth contemplation.
The next section, therefore, contemplates the epistemological, ontological, and
methodological tenets of Sufism — via the poetry of a renowned Sufi scholar, Rūmī —
which could then be aroused to sketch a preliminary framework of a post-Western Global IR
theory.

Locating Rūmī in Global IR: The Sufi way forward

It is crucial to grasp Rūmī’s lived-experiences5 before venturing out to map the philosophical
contours of his Sufi poetry. Rūmī was born to a family of learned theologians in 1207 in
Balkh (a small town near present Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan). At that time, Greater Balkh
was a major centre of Persian culture, where Sufism had evolved over several centuries
(Nasr, 1987). Rūmī’s life and thoughts remained profoundly influenced by three personalities
— namely, his father Baha al-Din Valad, who was the king of clerics, his mentor Sayyid
Burhan al-Din Muhaqqiq of Termez, and his famous and infamous companion Shams al-Din
Tabrizi (Lewis, 2000). In an attempt to escape the Mongol invasion between 1215 and 1220,
Rūmī and his family traveled extensively in the Muslim lands, performed pilgrimage to
Mecca, and finally settled in Konya, Anatolia, then part of the Seljuk Empire (present
Turkey). After settling in Anatolia, Rūmī’s father Baha al-Din Valad became the head of a
religious institution. Later on, when Baha al-Din passed away, Rūmī succeeded his father as a
professor of religious science in 1231. Rūmī conducted a rigorous study of varied Sufi texts
with his father’s former student Sayyid Burhan al-Din Mahaqqiq. Burhan, who was himself
an eccentric hermit apathetic to prevailing beliefs and lineages, familiarized young Rūmī with
numerous fasting retreats. Rūmī was eventually introduced into the spiritual path by a
wandering dervish, Shams al-Din Tabrizi. In fact, it was his meeting with Shams in 1244 that
completely altered his life. Shams esprit de corps transformed Rūmī from an accomplished
teacher and jurist into an ascetic. Rūmī’s love for Shams and his bereavement for Shams’s
death found expression in an outpouring of music, dance, and poetry — Divani Shamsi
Tabrizi. Rūmī himself died in 1273, and ever since, the night of his death has been celebrated
as Sebul Arus (the night of “union”).

The Sufi charm of Rūmī has identifiably grown across the globe.6 Although the
interdisciplinary study of the political implications of Sufism in general (Akhtar, 2017;
Hannoum, 2016; Lingwood, 2014; Rozehnal, 2016; Van Bruinessen and Howell, 2016) and
of Rūmī in particular (Cihan-Artun, 2016; Furlanetto, 2013; Vaziri, 2015) has gained
momentum in recent years, the philosophical qualifications of Sufism as a rich non-
Eurocentric resource remain untapped in the academic discourses on Global IR. Before this
article sets off to fill in this existing lacuna, it is significant to note that Rūmī’s works remain
organized across various categories: the poetry is divided into the Quatrains (Rubayāt), the
Odes (Ghazal) of the Divan, and the six books of the Masnavi (Gardet, 1977); whereas the
prose is divided into the Letters (Makatib), the Seven Sermons (Majāles-e Sab’a), and the
Discourses (Fihi ma Fihi) (Schimmel, 1991). It is significant to note that the aforementioned
Rūmī’s works often contain an ambiguous symbolic representation of his theological visions.
Nevertheless, Rūmī not only explicitly warns against a “strict literalism” in his theological
interpretations of the Quran, Sharia, and so on (Sumner, 2017), but also unequivocally
belittles the supremacy of theology and jurisprudence as unfailing knowledge-forms. His
Masanavi presages:

Your passions lead your reading of Quran

How base and bent you make the clear intent …
“I know what is licit, what’s illicit”
But what about yourself?
You cannot say if you’re licit or illiterate …
You know religion’s grounds and rules, and yet
Look to your own roots, are they sound or not? (Lewis, 2009)

Since Rūmī’s poetry openly showcases his unhesitant skepticism toward the academic
disciplines of theology and jurisprudence, this article employs Rūmī’s poetry (not his prose
on theology or jurisprudence) as a preferred theoretical pathway for approaching a Sufism-
inspired Global IR. An exhaustive analysis of the prodigious poetry unleashed by Rūmī’s
phenomenal life cannot be credibly undertaken in the constrained space of an article.
Nonetheless, it is feasible to embark upon a selective reading of it with an objective to unfold
Rūmī’s elementary approach to the epistemological, ontological, and methodological aspects
of reality, which could then be stretched forward toward a revelation of the Sufi philosophical
realities of Global IR. The idea is not to trivialize Rūmī’s poetry by attempting to capture his
widespread poetic writings into relatively narrow prisons of epistemology, ontology, and
methodology. Rather, the epistemological, ontological, and methodological capturing of
Rūmī’s widespread poetic writings is stirred by the sole purpose of identifying the theoretical
components of Sufism-inspired non-derivative and non-exceptionalist Global IR.7

So, what are the epistemological, ontological, and methodological perspectives on reality that
one gathers from Rūmī’s poetry? Rūmī’s epistemology — understood as the source of
knowledge — is reliant upon the philosophy of “monism.” The philosophical tradition of
monism is distinct from that of “dualism” and “holism.” While dualism presumes a separate
existence of two kinds of reality — namely, material (physical) and immaterial (spiritual) —
and holism views reality in terms of interacting wholes (as of living organisms), which are
“more”/“greater” than the mere sum of “elementary particles”/“constituents,” the philosophy
of monism sanctions an image of reality wherein a variety of existing things — the whole as
well as its constituents — can be commonly explained in terms of “one core reality.” 8 In the
Sufi philosophy of monism, this one core reality is perceived as a “single hidden entity” that
commonly characterizes a variety of existing things, thereby divulging a fundamental
“universal oneness.”

Rūmī unveils this integral universal oneness of reality when he announces: “I have put
duality away; I have seen that the two worlds are one; One I seek, One I know, One I see,
One I call” (Nicholson, 2013: 127). In line with the philosophy of epistemological monism,
Rūmī presumes that the universal oneness of reality — as manifest in the “globe of union” —
has a single hidden entity, often read as “single hidden divinity” and frequently referred to as
“You” or “I” in his poetry. This single hidden divinity engulfs not only the “material reality
of creation,” but also the “ideational reality of the purpose of creation.” Explaining how
“hiding is the hidden purpose of creation” (Hiling, 2007: 44), Rūmī recites:

You play with the great globe of union,

You that see everyone so clearly and cannot be seen.
Even universal intelligence gets blurry when it thinks you may leave.
You came here alone, but you create hundreds of new worlds. (Barks, 2003: 50)

Rūmī goes further to reveal that the “once-realized oneness” — material and ideational
oneness — of two or many worlds, however, slowly but surely turns into a “forgotten reality”
or “lost reality,” thereby generating deep agony and longing for union. Exposing the most
intense and distressing cry that comes from the one who had once known the union and lost
it, Rūmī hints:

But one who last year drank ecstatic union, the pre-eternity agreement,
Who this year has a hangover from bad-desire wine,
The way he cries out for the majesty, he’s lost,
Give me that longing! (Barks, 2002: 151)

The pangs of longing, as a reminder of forgotten/lost union (i.e. once-realized oneness), seem
unbearable. Yet, Rūmī begs — “Give me that longing!” — precisely because the notion of
“longing” in Rūmī’s poetry is not only a sign of departure, but also a promise of arrival —
that is, a recipe to arrive at a regained union. Rūmī declares: “The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union… This longing you express is the return message!” (Levoy, 2014:
132).

In fact, Rūmī’s epistemological monism depicts a picture of reality that remains fraught with
a core hidden oneness; the very throbbing pain of separation from oneness ultimately leads to
the much-sought pleasure of union with oneness. As such, human reality stays disturbingly
yet ecstatically driven by an “emotional circularity” that moves away from and then goes
back to the same core hidden “oneness of reality,” as epitomized by the Sufi
conceptualization of wahdat al-wajud.

However, does this epistemologically monist Sufi concept of wahdat al-wajud

correspondingly imply an obvious “oneness of being” at the ontological level as well? The
answer is “no”! As the oneness underneath the globe of union remains hidden, the ontological
reality — understood as the “science of being” — gets willingly or unwillingly characterized
by the norm of an observable “variety of things” or “plurality of existence.” To the extent that
this plurality of existence remains visible, the ontological reality appears non-singular (read
plural). Rūmī discerns:

The disc of the sun does exist,

But if you see only the ray-bodies, you may have doubts.
The human–divine combinations are a oneness.
Plurality, the apparent separation into rays … (Barks, 2003: 177)

Rūmī reiterates the doubtful ontological impressions that crop up from the myth of a plural
glimpse:

If ten lamps are present in one place,

each differs in form from another;
yet you can’t distinguish whose radiance is whose
when you focus on the light. (Helmminski and Helmminski, 1999: 28)

A careful reading of Rūmī’s poetry suggests that even though the ontological reality rests
marked by plurality, it rigidly follows the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo — a doctrine according
to which the plurality of being arises from “non-being” or “non-existence” or “nothingness.”
Rūmī probes: “New creatures whirl in from nonexistence, galaxies scattered around their
feet. Have you met them?” (Barks, 2003: 27). In fact, the multilayered ontological reality in
Rūmī’s poetry gets defined in terms of an “oppositional mixture” of “being” (hast) and “non-
being” (nist) — expressed through the Sufi concept of wahdat al-shuhud. Illustrating how the
ontology of wahadat al-shuhud gets governed by the rule of superficial “oppositional
existence,” Rūmī recounts:

Nothing can be clear without a polar opposite present.

Two banners, one black, one white, and between them something gets settled.
Between Pharaoh and Moses, the Red Sea. (Barks and Moyne, 1988: 62)

Rūmī believes that the oppositions originate from unity in the same way as the apparent
plurality originates from unapparent singularity/oneness — the existence/being (wujud/hast)
originate from non-existence/non-being (nist), the colors originate from colorlessness, and the
wars originate from peace. This oppositional existence of wahadat al-shuhud follows the
principle of “ontological immaterialism” — a principle which presumes that the invisible
single non-being is the originating point of visible plural being. As such, the principle of
ontological immaterialism becomes the primary prerequisite of creaturely existence. In other
words, the entire creation comes out from non-existence/non-being toward existence/being
(Zarrabi-Zadeh, 2014). The principle of ontological immaterialism — whereby “being”
erupts from “non-being” — echoes the divine command, as stated in the Quran, “His
command, when He desires a thing, is to say to it ‘Be’, and it is” (Quran, 36: 82).

What, then, is Rūmī’s recommended methodology to approximate the epistemologically

monist and ontologically immaterial make-up of reality? Rūmī most certainly demonstrates
contempt for superficial ontological plurality of appearance/form (zāhir) and insists upon a
hard effort toward arriving at the core epistemological meaning of oneness (bātin). Rūmī
demands: “If you want peace and purity, tear away the coverings!” (Akhavan, 2012: 182).
However, the coverings that mask the oneness of reality acquire a more confusing trait in the
face of plurality. Rūmī cautions: “If you give them musk or any fragrance of soul
intelligence, they find it unpleasant and turn away. Others sit in the hot bathwater and get
clean. They use the world differently” (Barks, 2003: 73). Nevertheless, despite the plural
ever-fluctuating rational orientations of plural beings, Rūmī proposes a wide range of
methodologies that could be uniformly operationalized in the process of approximating the
oneness of reality, such as: (1) abrogating the rationality of mind (Abou-Bakr, 1994); (2)
opening up of heart to love and pain (Mannani, 2010); (3) recognizing the limitations of
words; and (4) comprehending the language of silence (Barks, 2003).

In order to explain the concept of “abrogation” as a partial shutdown of mind, Omaima Abou-
Bakr scrutinizes a few lines from Rūmī’s poetry:

Wine, by its light, is an abrogation of the mind,

Just as the sun isolates and wipes out the stars …
The mind cajoles …
So avoid every prudent wheedler …
Wine is wings to the intoxicated;
It abrogated all cares, but not out of inadvertence;
It nourished the minds and provided them with pollen … (Abou-Bakr, 1994: 56)

Elaborating upon the procedure of abrogation as a unique way of apprehending reality that
replaces traditional mental perception without neglecting or cancelling it so as to be able to
enter into a deeper zone of consciousness, Abou-Bakr (1994: 44) comments:

Rūmī uses five variant forms of the term aql (mind) … to point out the loss of human
reason in the face of [an] illuminating vision… First, nuha [or mind that is]
“captivated by this extraordinary wine”… Then the mind is given the attributes of
cajoling, misleading, and deceiving (al-’aql massah al-zamān)… [It is] advised to
avoid any person who relies on the use of mind, that is who is “aqil”, aware, sober,
and rational. Such a person who [constantly] engages in the application of systematic
thought will be a deceiver… The last reference is to “uqul” [or minds that are]
enriched by the wine with seeds of growth… [Herein] the mind is suspended — not
completely cancelled — to be replaced by another superior form of human perception.
The outcome of this mental abrogation — as we see towards the end of the poem — is
the creation of a new mental life, another form of consciousness.

Abou-Bakr’s analysis resonates in a different poem, wherein Rūmī proclaims: “Far-sighted

reason — I have tested it. Henceforth, I’ll make myself demented” (Lewis, 2000: 400).

Although the rationality of mind stands refuted in Rūmī’s poetry, the heart occurs as “the
comprehensive human reality” — a way of love, a path of annihilation, of the beatitude of “as
though it had never been” (Barks, 2003: xviii). Since the original state of reality is non-being,
an abundant amount of energy goes into trying to let the heart break free of matter and mind
— so as to go back into the deep region of non-being. An acknowledgment of the dark sides
of being and a deliberate contact of the heart with the unpleasant and painful internal states,
thoughts, sensations, and emotions remains a recurrent theme in Rūmī’s poetry. Rūmī
explains: “The cure for pain is in the pain. Good and bad are mixed. If you don’t have both,
you don’t belong to us” (Mirdal, 2012: 1207).

Disproving the importance of words in this heart- or emotion-based experiential methodology

of knowing reality, Rūmī counsels: “Close the door of words, that the window of your heart
may open; the moon’s kiss only comes through an open window” (Star, 1997: 158).9
Promoting “silence” as a preferred mode of overcoming mind/intellect/rationality and
proceeding along the emotional trip to reality via “love,” Rūmī illuminates:

Some commentary clarifies,

But with love silence is clearer.
A pen goes scribbling along,
But when it tries to write love, it breaks!
If you want to expound on love,
Take your intellect out and let it lie down in the mud.
These words are an alternate existence.
Hear the passage into silence and be that. (Barks, 2003: 102)
Rūmī calls forth a merger of the “self” with the “other(s)” as a culminating stage in the
overall methodological journey of capturing the hidden core oneness of reality. He confirms:
I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea …
My place is the placeless; my trace is the traceless;
‘Tis neither body nor soul,
For I belong to the soul of the Beloved [read “other”] (Ganguly, 1990: 134)

Rūmī concludes:

If you could get rid of yourself just once,

The secret of secrets would open to you.
The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe
Would appear on the mirror of your perception! (Minhas, 2016: 71)

It is noticeable that Rūmī’s grand eclectic methodology for realizing the oneness of reality —
by means of abrogating mind, activating intense sensitivities of heart, surpassing the barriers
of language, diving into silence, and ultimately losing one’s self and dissolving it in the
other(s), thereby bringing alive an epistemologically monist knowledge-situation underlined
by a subject–object merger — could be either experience-based (ma’rifah) or revelation-
based (‘ilm).10 While the experience-based methodology remains congruent with standard
empirical knowledge techniques, the revelation-based methodology surpasses the empirical
borders, thereby stepping into the realm of extra-empirical/extra-rational/extra-causal
methods of knowing reality. William Harmless (2007) expounds that the Sufi treatises
contrast the mystic’s inward experiential knowledge (ma’rifah) with the scholar’s knowledge
of religious externals (‘ilm). Rūmī, despite his fine theological education, is often
contemptuous of scholarship. He affirms: “Love resides not in science and learning, scrolls
and pages, whatever men chatter about, that way is not the lover’s way” (Yarshater et al.,
2010: 49).
The Sufi philosophy guiding Rūmī’s road to reality — as it transpires through a selective
reading of his poetry — clearly maintains a threefold attribute, namely, epistemological
monism, ontological immaterialism, and methodological eclecticism. The next section
examines the prospects of utilizing this threefold attribute in conjuring up a Sufi theory of
Global IR.

Toward a Sufi theory of Global IR: Epistemological, ontological, and methodological

outlines

Could Rūmī’s Sufi knowledge-forms (i.e. the epistemological awareness of the oneness of
reality, the ontological realization of a non-being as the source of plural being, and the
methodological expedition leading to a self–other(s) merger) be preliminaries for anticipating
a non-Eurocentric Global IR theory? In this context, it is important to bear in mind that the
basic axiom that provides support to Eurocentric IR and to the multiple positivisms that it
endorses is precisely “epistemological dualism” (Shahi and Ascione, 2016). Broadly
perceived, the presumption of epistemological dualism conveys an obligatory separation
between the subject and object of a knowledge-situation. The theoretical spectacle of
epistemological dualism in Eurocentric IR has engendered a dichotomized rationalist–
reflectivist debate: the rationalist theories of IR (such as different versions of realism,
liberalism, and structural Marxism) put emphasis upon reality as it is. By contrast, the
reflectivist theories of IR (for instance, critical international theory, feminism,
postmodernism, post-colonialism, de-colonialism, etc.) give importance to reality as we make
of it. As such, the epistemological placing of reality remains “objectified” in rationalist
theories and “subjectified” in reflectivist theories: the rationalist theories use analytical and
conceptual tools to discover the reality of the world as it already is, thereby assuming a “total
externality of reality” — the reality (object) is positioned out there, outside the knowledge
practices of human observers (subject) — whereas the reflectivist theories offer a perspective
on the reality of the world as it is perceived to be, thereby supporting the “relative internality
of reality” — the reality (object) is slightly situated within, somewhat inside the knowledge
practices of human observers (subject). Nevertheless, both the rationalist and reflectivist
theories locate reality somewhere in or between the mutually separated “externalized object”
and “internalized subject.”

Amid the “total externality” and “relative internality” of reality as estimated by rationalist
and reflectivist theories, respectively, a more nuanced statement on the subject–object
relationship has been presented by Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism. Bhaskar (1998) discusses
that the “internality” of human observers (or subjects) with respect to their objects of study
must be distinguished from the “existential intransitivity” of those objects of study: an
object’s existence (or not), and properties, are quite independent of the act or process of
investigation of which it is the putative object, even though such an investigation, once
initiated, may radically modify that object. In IR, Alexander Wendt’s social constructivism
gains stimulation from Bhaskar’s critical realism while endeavoring to bridge the void
between rationalist and reflectivist theorizations (Chernoff, 2002; Patomaki and Wight, 2000;
Wendt, 1999). Nonetheless, the operative uniqueness of social constructivism (which strives
to assign equivalent performative capability to both the subject and object in the process of
registering reality) gets diluted in the epistemological commonality that it shares with the rest
of Eurocentric IR — that is, the approval of “epistemological dualism”: the thoughts of
human observers (subject) stand separated from the world (object), and the presence or
absence of a “factual correspondence” or “perspectival consensus as intersubjectivity”
determines the consistency of the constructivist knowledge about reality. As such, the
presupposition of epistemological dualism (subject–object distinction) continues to direct the
multiple theorizations in Eurocentric IR:

[The works of] contemporary realists and liberals are generally quite explicitly dualist
by virtue of the split between “material” and “ideational” (or “cognitive”) factors on
which their claims of causal efficacy rest.… [T]he challenge faced by many IR
constructivists [is defined as] a tension between their scientific ontology
(knowledgeable actors engaged in transformative social practices) and their
philosophical ontology (dualist, such that the dispositional essences of such actors and
their practices may be revealed in a more or less classically objective fashion) [by
scholars].… [As such] constructivism rests on an odd combination of ontological
presumptions: the knowledge practices of actors are held to be in some sense
continuous with the world in which they live, but the knowledge practices of scholars
are somehow exempted from this internality so that they can establish truer accounts
of situations. (Jackson, 2008: 150–151)

[The] reflectivists are monist in that they do not believe that knowledge corresponds
to a mind-independent world, but they are committed to the proposition that a
systematic effort to analyze their own role as knowledge-producers [or subjects] and
to locate themselves with reference to their broader social contexts will yield
knowledge not only of things experienced [object 1], but valid knowledge of social
arrangements [object 2] that order and give rise to those experiences. (Jackson, 2016:
174)

In principle, the reflectivists (as subjects) obtain a separation from both — the objects of their
direct experience (i.e. object 1) and the social arrangements that surround them and those
objects of direct experience (i.e. object 2), thereby retaining the presumption of
epistemological dualism.

In fact, it is this presumption of “epistemological dualism” that makes IR Eurocentric: as

such, Eurocentric IR essentially revolves around epistemological dualism (read subject–
object separation), which is central to the notion of “modern science” (and even “postmodern
anti-science”) that first originated in Europe and then eventually acquired a universalist claim
through its spread across the colonized parts of the globe (i.e. the non-West). In an effort to
challenge the universalist claims of Eurocentric IR, post-colonial and de-colonial IR present a
holist view of reality: a holist view that emphasizes the “suturing together” of the “missing
particularist narratives of/from the non-Western (non-Eurocentric) parts” with the
“provincialized particularist narratives of/from the Eurocentric parts” for seizing the
whole/holist reality of IR. However, this holist view of reality presented by post-colonial and
de-colonial IR endorses the same Eurocentric epistemological dualism: while Eurocentric IR
maintains the separation between the West (as subject) and the Rest, post-colonial and de-
colonial IR reverse this knowledge-situation and retain the separation between the Rest (as
subject) and the West. As the rigid subject–object separation via epistemological dualism in
“Western/Eurocentric IR” and “non-Western/post-colonial/de-colonial IR” eliminates the
possibility of effective West–Rest merger in the universalist imagination of a Global IR, it is
the epistemological monism of Sufism that creates room for alternatively realizing this
possibility by foretelling a potential “subject–object merger.” It is in this context that the Sufi
epistemological monism gains a specific theoretical importance in the discourses on Global
IR: it becomes particularly promising in terms of its capacity to unleash a Global IR that
expands (not displaces) Eurocentric IR by releasing a wide array of perspectives that have
hitherto remained exterior to it.

For instance, the Sufi monist conceptualization of the “oneness of reality” (wahdat al-wajud)
is situated on the precept of ana al-haqq — literally meaning “I am the truth.” This precept of
“I am the truth” clearly gives a hint of “one truth” (one reality) that gets reachable only when
the subject (“I”) itself becomes the object (“truth”); that is, the subject gets completely
merged with the object, thereby eliminating the possibility of a subject–object distinction.
This Sufi monist probability of “subject–object merger” (as different from the subject–object
distinction characterizing the rationalist, reflectivist, and constructivist theoretical traditions
of Eurocentric IR) could be mobilized to problematize and alternatively explain a variety of
dualist conceptual categories in Eurocentric IR — namely, identity (self–other), power
(strong–weak), time (pre–post), space (here–there), ethics (good–bad/civilized–
uncivilized/decent–rogue), and so on. The understanding of the “identity question” in
Eurocentric IR continues to grapple with the problems of “self–other difference” (Tsygankov,
2008). By contrast, Sufism offers a concept of a dynamic self — that is, the self of a moment
(nafs) — which does not permanently carry a selfhood, but carries a core monist essence of
selflessness (Chittick, 2007). As such, the identity question in IR is likely to get reified if the
seemingly static self–other differences stand theoretically reconfigured by the common
dynamic/momentary property of nafs that entraps both the self and the other. Likewise,
Eurocentric IR discusses variations of outward-looking “outer power” — hard power, soft
power, smart power (Nye, 2013) — whereas Sufism suggests the idea of an inward-looking
“inner power” (Ayub, 2016). As the Eurocentric theoretical delineations of time and space
revolve around dualism — wherein the notion of “time” is presumed to possess either a
“linear” or “non-linear” (cyclical or crisscross) character (Schulz-Forberg, 2013), and the
discussions on “space” oscillate between “spatial fetishism” (space as material) and “spatial
exorcism” (space as discourse) (Kleinschmidt and Strandsbjerg, 2010) — Sufism throws light
on a variety of non-dualist expositions of time and space (Böwering, 1992).11 While
Eurocentric IR readily recognizes “rigid dualism” as an obstacle to a sober ethic of
international responsibility (Coady, 2002), Sufism recommends an unconventional ideational
frame of ethical monism in a global age (Smirnov, 2007).

The Sufi principle of ontological immaterialism (which acknowledges a multilayered reality

wherein the “non-being”/“non-existence”/“nothingness” is the accepted originating point of
“being”/“existence”) can be activated to introduce a set of new ontological conceptions into
Global IR. While the Kyoto School has already mobilized Nishida Kitaro’s (1987)
conceptualization of “nothingness” as a thematic element in non-Western IR (Shimizu et al.,
2014), the Sufi thought on non-being/non-existence/nothingness can be further integrated to
enrich the continuing discourses on nothingness as a non-Eurocentric ideational contribution
to IR theory. Moreover, the Sufi principle of ontological immaterialism — posited through
the concepts of: “universe as a mixed appearance of being and non-being” (wahdat al-
shuhud); human existence as a possible assortment of non-being (nist), being (hast), and
integrated/universal being (al-insan al-kamil); and the “non-repetitive vastness of existence”
(al-tawassu’ al-ilahi) — can offer an alternative (not just critical) understanding of diverse
explanations of reality in Eurocentric IR.

In effect, the absorption of the concept of nothingness can transform the customary
discussions on the goal of international politics (i.e. “what is” versus “what ought to be”) and
the dependability of this goal on the character of human nature (i.e. virtuous versus evil), and
so on. Typically, Eurocentric IR contends that international politics is concerned with
competing visions of how the world is and how it should be, thereby pushing forward the
belief that politics is ontology (Wight, 2006). It further presumes that the biological roots of
this international politics (understood as ontology) remains buried in a simple or complex
portrayal of human nature (Crawford, 2009). Alternatively, Sufism not only underestimates
the importance of ontology, but also denies the ontological location of the world into several
hierarchical realms — such as the descending schema of the four ontological worlds: world
of divinity (lahut); world of domination (jabarut); world of dominion (malakut); and world of
humanity (nasut) (Zarrabi-Zadeh, 2014). In fact, the inconsequentiality of ontology in Sufi
understanding of human nature is emphasized by the concept of al-insan al-kamil, which
aims to represent a universalist (not exceptionalist) standard of human perfection through an
inquiry into the “inner state” of human consciousness. As such, the exoteric ontological
dimensions of human beings, including biology, are considered irrelevant (Shaikh, 2009).

Against the certain reliance upon a compartmentalized methodology for knowledge

production in Eurocentric IR (which sticks to either rationalism or reflectivism), the
assemblage of wide-ranging methodologies in Sufism (which advocates methodological
eclecticism) can be utilized to conduct a non-Eurocentric study of Global IR.
Methodologically, the rationalist/positivist theories of Eurocentric IR depend upon
establishing a “subject–object correspondence” (Neufeld, 1995) that largely employs Karl
Popper’s technique of conjectural refutation for catching reality. By contrast, the reflectivist
theories of Eurocentric IR — as informed by the Frankfurt School’s criticism of Karl
Popper’s inconsideration of the social conditions under which scientific knowledge is shaped
— construct reality in terms of tracing interest-guided “intersubjectivity,” not in terms of
subject–object correspondence (Fluck, 2017).12 In fact, both the techniques of “rationalist
subject–object correspondence” and “reflectivist intersubjectivity” are methodological
upshots of the epistemological dualism that underlines Eurocentric IR: the technique of
subject–object correspondence relates the mental representations of the subject with the
intrinsic properties of a separately lying object, whereas the technique of intersubjectivity
relates the perspectives of various subjects with regard to a separately lying object. Since
Sufism refutes the separation between the subject and object of a knowledge-situation, it puts
forward an unexplored methodology based on a potential annihilation of a subject–object
distinction at the level of consciousness — namely, baqa wa fana (literally meaning
“subsistence and annihilation,” respectively). While baqa denotes the imperfect subsistence
of subject into the consciousness of a plural world (object), fana implies an annihilation of
the subject by passing away into the consciousness of a singular world (object). In fact,
Sufism considers the combined experiences of baqa and fana as an “ongoing process” that
gives recognition to both the plurality and singularity (oneness) of reality (Milani, 2014).

However, what are the empirical implications of this Sufi methodology of baqa and fana? In
addition, how do these empirical implications provide an alternative to the techniques of
rationalist “subject–object correspondence” and reflectivist “interest-guided intersubjectivity”
for studying IR? While the rationalist “subject–object correspondence” and reflectivist
“interest-guided intersubjectivity,” as methodological upshots of epistemological dualism,
concentrate only on the “phenomenal” world of plurality, the Sufi methodology of baqa and
fana embraces this phenomenal world of plurality but situates its origination on the
presuppositions of a “noumenal” world of singularity: the noumenal singular world —
understood as “nothingness”/“non-being” in Sufism — is presumed as the source of the
eruption of the phenomenal plural world. The very acknowledgment of the noumenal world
as the source of the phenomenal world can grant distinctive empirical inferences (Lebow,
2014): while the focus on phenomenal plurality presumes the world as “already fragmented”
parts waiting to be interconnected, the emphasis on the hidden noumenal singularity assumes
the seemingly fragmented parts of phenomenal plurality as “already interconnected.” The
empirical investigation of already-fragmented plurality follows Hegelian dialectics of “two-
ness” — that is, a two-dimensional interaction between phenomenal subject and phenomenal
object. By contrast, the Sufi empirical investigation of already-interconnected singularity
(which gives birth to seemingly fragmented plurality) pursues an alternative dialectics of
“three-ness” (Ling, 2017) — that is, a three-dimensional interaction between phenomenal
subject, phenomenal object, and noumenal oneness. As such, in Sufi empirical investigation,
the presumption of “noumenal oneness” continuously remains in the background as a
“referential point” in mapping the spatio-temporal characteristics of the seemingly separated
phenomenal subject and phenomenal object.

Since this noumenal oneness (“nothingness”/“non-being”) is free from phenomenal spatio-

temporal distinctions, it is also free from the risks of identifying any “centrisms” or “central
spatio-temporal locations” as preferred or restrictive vantage points for navigating
phenomenal plural reality. Although Sufism embraces the phenomenal plurality as a dualist
experience of subject–object distinction (identical to Eurocentric IR), it approaches this
phenomenal plurality as a manifestation of a presumed noumenal singularity that flows from
a monist experience of subject–object merger. As such, the identity of the “self” (e.g. West,
Rest, etc.) is presumed to be already merged/immersed in that of the “other(s)”: in this
process of unfolding the “West–Rest merger,” the knowledge about the self implies
knowledge about the other(s), and lack of knowledge about the other(s) implies lack of
knowledge about the self. The “ongoing process” of baqa and fana, which gives recognition
to both the plurality (many-ness) and singularity (oneness) of reality, gives an alternative
methodology to decode the apparent phenomenal gaps, rivalries, frictions, conflicts, and wars
that are deeply rooted in the under-known identities of the seemingly distinct self and the
other. As Sufism combines the plural and singular experiences of reality, the overarching Sufi
methodology of baqa and fana essentially becomes accessible as an eclectic amalgamation of
diverse rationalist, reflectivist, and even extra-rationalist/extra-causal methodological
options.13 The origins or applications of these diverse rationalist, reflectivist, and even extra-
rationalist/extra-causal methodological options cannot be strictly tied down to specific spatio-
temporal locations/centers of situated knowledge-forms. The diverse methodological options
presented by Sufism — as illustrated through the concepts of: “rational thought” (aql);
“rational teaching” (kalam); speech (guyai); “repetition” (dhikr); “lack of repetition” (takrar);
“imagination” (khayal); “interpretation” (tawil); “unveiling” (kashf); silence (khamushi); and
“experience-based and revelation-based knowledge-forms” (ma’rifah and ‘ilm) — can be
speculated for attaining non-exceptionalist and universalist comprehension of various
relevant themes in Eurocentric IR.14

Put in a nutshell, the preliminary framework of a non-Eurocentric (or non-centric) post-

Western Sufi Global IR theory can be fabricated through the following epistemological,
ontological, and methodological threads:

● The oneness of the world as a political entity remains a hidden reality.

● The political non-experience of the hidden reality of “one world” gives birth to the
oppositional political experience of the apparent reality of “many worlds.”

● In IR, the apparent reality of many worlds — as separated from the hidden reality of one
world — is nonetheless a naturalized political experience of pain. The seemingly differential
politico-experiential realities of many worlds flowing from various selectively identified
constituents (namely, individual, state, class, community, culture, civilization, etc.) are more
often than not evoked as “rational grounds” for painfully politicizing a variety of gaps,
rivalries, frictions, conflicts, and wars.

● A forthright acknowledgment of the limits of the “rational grounds” of experiencing reality

could imaginably create fresh political space for making an appeal to the “emotional
grounds” for forging equality, companionship, cooperation, negotiation, and peace in IR.

● An overt admittance of the fragmentations inherent in plural dualist master-/meta-

narratives of reality could stimulate the theoretical-practical agenda of revealing not only the
hitherto overlooked material–ideational connections across many worlds, but also the hitherto
ignored monist master-/meta-narratives of one world in IR.

An expansion of the aforementioned preliminary epistemological, ontological, and

methodological principles can go a long way in impressively advancing a non-Eurocentric
post-Western Sufi Global IR theory. However, it is crucial to remain critically attentive
toward the political receptivity of such a theory among the practitioners of Global IR.
Bukhari, Ahmad, and Nyang (2012: 99) warn:

Broadly speaking, the tone of studies of Sufism may vary from “Sufism is true”,
“Sufism is nice”, to “Sufism is a topic worthy of study for social, historical, or any
number of analytic reasons, within a humanities or social science framework”. Post-
9/11, a political trope emerged in American public discourse on Sufism as the
“moderate” or “good” Islam but this seems to have remained largely the purview of
neo-con think tanks, and government policy, rather than impacting the patronage or
research agenda of academic studies in any substantive way … scholars interested in
how Sufi ideas might speak to larger social or political issues are developing a
liberatory theology of Sufi activism or “engaged Sufism” which may be associated
with the idea of an emerging progressive Islam movement among scholars who are
Muslim or Muslim sympathizers.

As the puzzlement over the political allegiance of scholars engaged with Sufi theoretical and
praxeological explorations linger, the theoretical discourses on the possibilities of a post-
Western Global IR resolutely stand to benefit from the myriad uncharted non-Eurocentric
intellectual pathways of Sufism.

Concluding remarks

The rationalist, reflectivist, and constructivist frames of Eurocentric IR remain bounded by

the theoretical presumptions of epistemological dualism, ontological priority, and
methodological compartmentalization. These theoretical presumptions, in turn, breed
naturalized strategic responses while actually conducting international relations between
human groups scattered across the globe: the epistemological, ontological, and
methodological gaps between human groups located in different parts of the world (which
create an illusion of living in many worlds) are rationally mobilized for pushing naturalized
strategic hierarchies. Against this backdrop, the alternative imagination of a non-Eurocentric
post-Western Global IR can become achievable by way of surpassing these identified
Eurocentric theoretical presumptions and strategic responses. One such imagination is
attainable through the introduction of Sufism to conventional IR thinking. An extensive
engagement with Sufi epistemological, ontological, and methodological choices, as this
article has attempted to demonstrate, could inspire a non-Eurocentric post-Western Global IR
theory. In fact, the threefold attribute of Sufism, as reinforced by Rūmī’s poetry, offers a
productive ground for forming a post-Western Global IR theory in a non-derivative and non-
exceptionalist manner. While epistemological monism expands Eurocentric IR by promoting
an alternative presumption of the “oneness of reality,” ontological immaterialism investigates
the exteriors of Eurocentric IR by ideationally blending the plural visible strands of this
oneness — that is, the seemingly clashing pluralities of an otherwise “connected” global
politics — into an unknown melting point of “nothingness.” Furthermore, methodological
eclecticism permits an unusual mixture of rationalism, reflectivism, and extra-rationalism
(read emotionalism), thereby potentially enabling an alternative explanation of recognized
practices of IR, and proposing an unexplored generative ground for fresh universalist
theoretical inquiries of IR. As the scholarly engagement with Sufism is likely to cause
political bewilderment, the philosophical dilemma of Rūmī, also voiced by J. A. Morrow
(2012: 30), is likely to reverberate: “What is to be done, O Moslems? For I do not recognize
myself!”.

Endnotes
1.
There is an absence of scholarly consensus over the historical origins of Sufism. The
traditional view holds that Sufism is the mystical school of Islam that began in the first
centuries following the life of the Prophet Mohammad. Another view suggests that the pre-
Islamic roots of Sufism are traceable in the early Christian mystics of Syria and Egypt, to the
Essenes, the ancient Pythagorean orders, and the mystery schools of the Egyptians and
Zoroastrians, among others. It is generally believed that Sufism entered into a “Golden Age”
in 1200–1500 CE, especially in the 13th century, when many Sufi brotherhoods (turuq)
flourished. One of the first Sufi orders was the Yesevi order (named after Khwajah Ahmed
Yesevi) in modern Kazakhstan. The numerous additional Sufi orders included the Kubrawiya
order in Central Asia, the Qadiriyyah order in Iraq, the Chisti order in India, and the Mevlevi
order in Turkey — the one founded by Rūmī. As Sufism grew and as the Mongol Empire
expanded from Persia through Central Asia, Sufism absorbed ideas from multiple ancient
philosophical traditions such as Zoroastrianism, Vedanta, Gnosticism, Buddhism, and
Shamanism. It is noticeable that the features of epistemological monism, ontological
immaterialism, and methodological eclecticism constitute a “philosophical commonality” in
diverse orders of Sufism. For understanding the “assimilative” (non-exceptionalist) attitude
of Sufi philosophy, see White (1965).
2.
A holist view of reality stitches together the seemingly scattered constituents to generate a
“synthesized narrative” of the whole. As such, the whole enjoys a greater epistemological
status than its constituents. However, a monist view of reality — as entertained by Sufism —
is distinct from a holist view of reality. In a monist view of reality, the whole as well as its
constituents remain commonly characterized by a single hidden entity — that is, “universal
oneness.” Since the whole and its constituents remain commonly characterized by this
universal oneness, both acquire equal epistemological status. In the context of IR
theorization, the holist drive of Said-inspired post-colonial debates calls for safeguarding the
particularist tendencies of the constituents (read the West and the Rest). By contrast, the
monist inclination of Sufism makes an appeal to shed the particularist tendencies of the
constituents (read the West and the Rest) so as to be able to grasp the “oneness” of the West
and the Rest (read West–Rest merger) in a “universalist” manner — the empirical derivations
of this point have been elaborately explained in the last section of the article.
3.
This problem of multiple loosely hanging exceptionalisms in theorizing IR has been defined
as “Eurofetishism” by Hobson and Sajed (2017), who argue that, all too often, the non-West
is considered as distinct from the West such that a completely “relational” conception of the
West — one in which the non-West shapes, tracks, and inflects the West as much as vice
versa — is either downplayed or dismissed altogether, thereby missing “global
interconnectivities.” While Hobson and Sajed’s appeal to global interconnectivities resembles
Edward Said’s strategy of postcolonial contrapuntal reading (wherein both the West and the
non-West “suture together” or “speak to each other” to jointly produce a
relational/holist/synthesized narrative of the “Global” that connects the
particularisms/exceptionalisms of the West with those of the non-West without succumbing
to the pressure to universalize), it is noticeable that the pluriversality of de-colonial IR is
consciously against the theory and practice of global interconnectivities. In fact, Blaney and
Tickner (2017a, 2017b) — as proponents of de-colonial IR — discredit the notion of global
interconnectivities as a viable theoretical-practical option for tackling the problems of
ontological differences in international relations, thereby dangerously backing an almost
Huntingtonian rigidity in jealously preserving the disconnected, irreconcilable, and
exceptionalist ontological identities (if not civilizational identities); they declare an outright
rejection of a non-exceptionalist (read universalist) Global IR. Unlike Blaney and Tickner,
who assert a total closure of the spirit of tracing theoretical-practical global
interconnectivities, Odysseos (2017) considers the hybridity of human ontological identities
resting on de-colonial pluriversality as an “unfinished project.”
4.
For an in-depth study of post-Western IR that attempts to not only inspire a global study of
international relations, but also raise alarm against an exceptionalist/nativist interpretation of
such a study, see Zhao (2009), Ling (2014), Shimizu (2015), Shih and Yu (2015), Shahi and
Ascione (2016), and Kavalski (2017).
5.
For a detailed biography of Rūmī, including an analysis of his texts and their reception in
the Muslim world and the West, see Iqbal (1984), Lewis (2000), Wines (2000), and Gooch
(2017).
6.
As new translations of Rūmī’s work come into print and resonate, a wide range of scholars
— Brad Gooch, Anne Waldman, Lee Briccetti, Coleman Barks, and Robert Bly — opine that
Rūmī’s global influence is likely to continue and grow in future (see Ciabattari, 2014).
7.
Since Sufi philosophy does not promote exceptionalism (it rather advocates self–other
assimilation), Rūmī cannot be justifiably dragged into the exceptionalist/non-universalist
theoretical traditions of post-colonialism and de-colonialism. For a fuller discussion on Sufi
Islam as an antidote to Political Islam, in particular, the Senegalese Sufi model of
cooperation-, coexistence-, and toleration-based pluralism, see Leichtman (2016).
8.
There are different versions of dualism and monism. For an elucidation of various types of
dualism and monism, see Friesen (2005).
9.
Quoting Rūmī in Fihi ma Fihi, Baldock (2005) states that words are useful as they prompt a
search, but the object of the search cannot be captured through words. If it were so, there
would have been no need for striving and self-annihilation. Similarly, human speech
stimulates the search for the meaning even if it cannot assist in seeing the meaning of reality.
10.
For a detailed study on the contrasts between the notions of ma’rifah and‘ilm, see Shah-
Kazemi (2002) and Fudge (2011).
11.
Claiming the superiority of the conceptual category of “time” in comparison to “space” (as
space was seen as an accident of the body and time as proceeding from the soul), Böwering
(1992) narrates that the world of time in Sufism led from Bayazid’s “ecstasy,” Tustari’s
recollection of “primordial time,” Shibli’s “paradox of the eternal moment,” Kharraz’s
“annihilation of temporality and subsistence in eternity through theoretical notions of waqt
and wajd,” and such select mediaeval expressions of time as Ayn al-Qudat’s “black light,”
Daylami’s “past and future compressed into the presence,” and Baha-i Walad’s “co-being of
the Eternal,” to time expressed in the images of poetry, miracle stories, and social institutions.
12.
However, the understanding of reality as intersubjectivity in reflectivist/post-positivist
theories (e.g. the works of Habermas, Foucault, etc.) unavoidably bears a “perspectival”
character (Jackson, 2008). As such, the intersubjectivity in reflectivist/post-positivist theories
is symptomatic of the perspectives of different subjects on a remotely situated discursive
object; thus, the dualist separation between the subject and object of a knowledge-situation
stays intact in both the rationalist and reflectivist theories.
13.
For an extensive analysis of the problems of methodology in approaching Sufism, see
Brewster (1976).
14.
A commendable initiative in this direction has been made by Ali Balci (2015), who
diagnoses the interrelationship between the Sufi methods of repetition (dhikr), lack of
repetition (takrar), and interpretation (tawil) to provide an alternative universalist explanation
of knowledge–power interplay in IR.

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