How Did Islam Cope with the Challenges of International Laws of War and Peace during the 19th and 20th Centuries?

Abstract

The article examines the process of change that Islamic political and legal thought
have gone through in response to the relationship of Muslim countries to nonMuslim nations in modern times. It discusses the tools and arguments used by
Muslim scholars to adapt Islam to the international law and to the new form of
international relations in the field of War and Peace - an area known in Islamic law
as the field of siyar and in modern times as siyasa shar`iyya. I am focusing in this
paper on the Islamic scholars and sages of three generations from the late 19th
century and on, who sought to bridge the Sharia and modern reality embodied by
Muslim countries who joined the UN Charter and committed themselves to resolve
territorial conflicts in peaceful means.