This article seeks to understand how the dynamic of difference described by Antony Anghie was brought to bear on the lands of the Islamic world, during the waning years of the Qajar Empire. The methodology I propose will seek to unearth the historical experience of those subjected to imperial power, including examining the effects of the doctrines and rules of international law from their perspective. How can we understand the history of international law from the perspective of its victims? My interest lies in the expression of international law against non-European polities largely influenced by (but not reducible to) Islam, and how those societies reacted against the onslaught of European colonial ventures. More specifically, I will hypothetically propose that international law was, for the European powers, a technology of Empire reinforcing the Modern/Colonial divide, especially in the dialectic relationship of secularism and Islam, the modern and the traditional. I will study this dynamic in the context of later years of the Qajar dynasty in Persia, in its relationship with the imperial powers of Great Britain and Russia. My hypothesis will be that the underlying rationale of the encounter between the modern and its Islamic other, and thus an epistemic predisposition of international law, is that secularism is a driving force of modernity, of social progress, and that the perceived Islamicate world must be made to submit to it in order for it to be accepted as an equal sovereign. Societies that lack secularism are contrasted with its presence in the West, creating an absolute enmity, an irreconcilable ontological confrontation. This, I claim, refers to Eurocentrism’s existential/ontological fear as to radical alterity of religious normative networks in the face of modern secularism. Modernity’s abyssal thinking equates a religious nomos to the backwardness of a society, and in modern international law, the religious becomes ill-legal.

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现代与传统：伊朗卡扎尔晚期的伊斯兰教、伊斯兰教法和欧洲投降

本文旨在了解在卡扎尔帝国衰落的年代，安东尼·安吉所描述的差异动态如何影响伊斯兰世界的土地。我提出的方法将寻求发掘那些受制于皇权的人的历史经验，包括从他们的角度审视国际法学说和规则的影响。我们如何从受害者的角度理解国际法的历史？我的兴趣在于国际法对主要受（但不能归结为）伊斯兰教影响的非欧洲政体的表达，以及这些社会如何应对欧洲殖民冒险的冲击。更具体地说，我将假设性地提出，对于欧洲列强而言，国际法是 帝国的一项技术加强了现代/殖民鸿沟，尤其是在世俗主义与伊斯兰教、现代与传统的辩证关系中。我将在波斯卡扎尔王朝晚年的背景下研究这种动态，以及它与大不列颠和俄罗斯皇权的关系。我的假设是，现代与其伊斯兰他者之间相遇的基本原理，因此是国际法的认知倾向，是世俗主义是现代性和社会进步的驱动力，并且所感知的伊斯兰世界必须是被迫服从它，以便它被接受为一个平等的主权者。缺乏世俗主义的社会与其在西方的存在形成鲜明对比，形成了一种绝对的敌意，一种不可调和的本体论对抗。这，我声称，指的是欧洲中心主义对面对现代世俗主义的宗教规范网络的激进他异性的存在主义/本体论恐惧。现代性的深渊思维将宗教规则等同于社会的落后，而在现代国际法中，宗教成为非法的。