Muslim Martial Arts: From Cultural to Strategic Cooperation Between Iran and East Asian Countries

The history of East and Southeast Asia, as like Southwest Asia from a long time ago until the present time is fraught with asymmetric conflicts or in other word the crisis of relations between great powers and weaker governments. Iran and the countries of East and Southeast Asia share historical experience in this regard, and they have always faced with the limitations and challenges of the coercive strategies of the great powers that includes a combination of threats and persuasions such as ceasing or demoting cultural cooperation along economic cooperation. As regards the presence of a significant muslim population in this region, the second region has ranked after Southwest Asia and North Africa, it provides a background for amplification of public diplomacy based on dialogues and exchanging in order to common traditions. In the long term, this policy will provide the potential and strategic cooperation between the nations. One of the fields of cultural cooperation between Iran and the countries of East and Southeast Asia is martial arts. The existence of common concepts and values among muslims and the role of muslims in inventing and developing martial arts based on Quranic concepts and Hadith, have provided a great opportunity for deeper interactions between these nations. According to the common interests in Islamic values and martial arts, in particular between Iran and the countries of East and Southeast Asia, thus, the main aim of this paper is assessing the potential capacity of historical and cultural ties with the focus on Islamic martial arts to examine the opportunities of cultural cooperation, promotion of cognitive societies, and at its highest level to reach the strategies.