[Ideas] Peter Mandaville: Transatlantic Islam

While it may be tempting to think of Muslims in Europe and the United States as having much in common, the experience of the two communities has in fact been very different in many respects: different histories of immigration, different socioeconomic circumstances, different experience of integration. In more recent years, however, the upsurge in anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe and the U.S. coupled with the growing securitization of Islam has meant that Muslims on both sides of the Atlantic find themselves increasingly dealing with many of the same issues and concerns. In this talk, scholar of contemporary Islam and former U.S. Obama administration official Peter Mandaville explores whether it might be possible to speak today of an emerging “Transatlantic Islam,” a project by which Muslims in Europe and North America work collaboratively to develop a religious paradigm informed by the specific circumstances of life in the West while still remaining grounded in authentic Islamic tradition.

ABOUT

Peter Mandaville is Professor of International Affairs in the Schar School of Policy & Government at George Mason University, USA. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and an Adjunct Scholar with the RAND Corporation. He has previously served as the lead subject matter expert on Islam as Senior Advisor in the Secretary of State’s Office of Religion & Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and he has been a member of Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff at the State Department where his work focused on the U.S. response to the Arab Uprisings. He contribute to the International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, The Atlantic and Foreign Policy, and has testified multiple times before the U.S. Congress on topics including political Islam and human rights in the Middle East.

GOOD READS 

Islam & Politics (2007, 2014), Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma (2001).

KEY LINKS

Peter Mandaville, George Mason University