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  • Home
  • About RSIS
      • Introduction
      • Building the Foundations
      • Welcome Message
      • Board of Governors
      • Staff Profiles
        • Executive Deputy Chairman’s Office
        • Dean’s Office
        • Management
        • Distinguished Fellows
        • Faculty and Research
        • Associate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research Analysts
        • Visiting Fellows
        • Adjunct Fellows
        • Administrative Staff
      • Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
      • RSIS Endowment Fund
      • Endowed Professorships
      • Career Opportunities
      • Getting to RSIS
  • Research
      • Research Centres
        • Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
        • Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
        • Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)
        • Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
        • International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
      • Research Programmes
        • National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
        • Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
      • Future Issues and Technology Cluster
      • [email protected] Newsletter
      • Other Research
        • Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
  • Graduate Education
      • Graduate Programmes Office
      • Overview
      • MSc (Asian Studies)
      • MSc (International Political Economy)
      • MSc (International Relations)
      • MSc (Strategic Studies)
      • NTU-Warwick Double Masters Programme
      • PhD Programme
      • Exchange Partners and Programmes
      • How to Apply
      • Financial Assistance
      • Meet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other events
      • RSIS Alumni
  • Alumni & Networks
      • Alumni
      • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)
      • Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)
      • International Strategy Forum-Asia (ISF-Asia)
      • SRP Executive Programme
      • Terrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
  • Publications
      • RSIS Publications
        • Annual Reviews
        • Books
        • Bulletins and Newsletters
        • Commentaries
        • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
        • Commemorative / Event Reports
        • IDSS Paper
        • Interreligious Relations
        • Monographs
        • NTS Insight
        • Policy Reports
        • Working Papers
        • RSIS Publications for the Year
      • Glossary of Abbreviations
      • External Publications
        • Authored Books
        • Journal Articles
        • Edited Books
        • Chapters in Edited Books
        • Policy Reports
        • Working Papers
        • Op-Eds
        • External Publications for the Year
      • Policy-relevant Articles Given RSIS Award
  • Media
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      • Sustainable Security
      • Other Resource Pages
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    • RSIS
    • SRP Webinar by Prof Peter Mandaville, Senior Advisor, Religion & Inclusive Societies, United States Institute of Peace; Professor of International Affairs, Schar School of Policy and Government, and Director, AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason University and Dr Usaama al-Azami Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies, University of Oxford

    SRP Webinar by Prof Peter Mandaville, Senior Advisor, Religion & Inclusive Societies, United States Institute of Peace; Professor of International Affairs, Schar School of Policy and Government, and Director, AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason University and Dr Usaama al-Azami Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies, University of Oxford

    Soft Power, Islam, and Religiosity – Perspectives from the Middle East

    28 Feb 2023 21:00 - 22:30
    Zoom
    office attire
    Type: Lectures / Seminars
    Public
    For Enquiries: [email protected]
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    Abstract

    In Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah bin Bayah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest over the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis (2021), David Warren elucidated how the ulama in the Middle East played an important role in shaping Islam to fit the foreign policy objectives and state-branding of Arab Gulf states, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar. Aside from these countries, other Muslim-majority governments also have a powerful incentive to insert Islam into their foreign policy, use religious ideas to increase their prestige, and promote their interests abroad – to deploy, in other words, what Peter Mandaville and Shadi Hamid call “Islamic soft power”. These include traditional and nascent centres of Islamic scholarship such as Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, as well as Iran. From a broader perspective, the competing religio-political clamour for “soft power” could be seen as a global competition for a larger “mindshare” or hegemony of Muslim minds.

    About the Speakers

    Prof Peter

    Prof Peter Mandaville is currently a senior advisor for the religion and inclusive societies team at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), where he also leads an initiative focused on the security and peacebuilding implications of religion in the external relations of great powers. He brings 25 years of academic, think tank and government experience focussing on the intersection of religion, international affairs, and the Muslim-majority world. This includes his time in the US State Department (2011-2012) where he was involved in shaping US’ response to the Arab Spring, and in the Office of the Secretary of State (2015-2016), where he helped set up the new Office of Religion and Global Affairs. Previous affiliations have included the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Pew Research Center. He is the author of Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma (2003), and Islam & Politics (2014), as well as several co-edited books, numerous journal articles, book chapters, op-eds and commentary pieces in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, the International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, The Atlantic Online and Foreign Policy. He is also a professor of international affairs in the Schar School of Policy and Government and the director of the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies, both at George Mason University. In addition, he is Senior Research Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University.

    Dr Usaama al-Azami is Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. He completed his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford, and his MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He has also pursued and taught Islamic studies in seminarial settings. He research interests include, inter alia, the Arab uprisings, the ulama and contemporary politics; contemporary debates in Islamic political philosophy, law, and ethics; and post-colonial and decolonial studies. He is the author of Islam and the Arab Revolutions: The Ulama Between Democracy and Autocracy (2021), and is currently working to develop monographs on “Modern Islamic Political Thought: Islamism in the Arab World from the Late Twentieth to the Early Twenty-first Centuries” and “Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Issue of Takfir”.Dr Usaama al-Azami is Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. He completed his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford, and his MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He has also pursued and taught Islamic studies in seminarial settings. He research interests include, inter alia, the Arab uprisings, the ulama and contemporary politics; contemporary debates in Islamic political philosophy, law, and ethics; and post-colonial and decolonial studies. He is the author of Islam and the Arab Revolutions: The Ulama Between Democracy and Autocracy (2021), and is currently working to develop monographs on “Modern Islamic Political Thought: Islamism in the Arab World from the Late Twentieth to the Early Twenty-first Centuries” and “Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Issue of Takfir”.

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    SRP Webinar by Prof Peter Mandaville, Senior Advisor, Religion & Inclusive Societies, United States Institute of Peace; Professor of International Affairs, Schar School of Policy and Government, and Director, AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason University and Dr Usaama al-Azami Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies, University of Oxford