Berkley Center

The Berkley Forum sat down with Senior Research Fellow Peter Mandaville, director of the Berkley Center’s Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power Project, to discuss tensions between Iran and the United States in the broader context of religion and politics in the Middle East.

Egdūnas Račius explains how Turkish involvement in and influence on Islamic life in Lithuania led to a split in the Lithuanian Muslim community following the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. He concludes that Turkey is unlikely to influence Muslim communities in Lithuania in the near future.

Annelle R. Sheline examines a string of declarations issued by Muslim religious scholars (ulama) to denounce various acts of violence carried out by Muslim individuals and concludes that the long-term effects of “declaration proliferation” may be more counterproductive than they initially seem.