Pope Benedict XVI's first year has been quiet and at times confusing to his critics. But experts caution against reading too much of a theological shift into the pope's tranquil beginnings.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speaks on her new book The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs as part of the Council’s Religion and Foreign Policy Series.

Watch former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discuss her new book The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God & World Affairs.

Watch former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discuss her new book The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God & World Affairs.

Vali Nasr, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, discusses the role of Shiite power in the Persian Gulfregion.

Weekend marketplace bombings kill dozens in Iraq and wound hundreds more, seem to have unleashed another wave of sectarian fighting. Three years after the United States launched a war to oust Saddam Hussein, the insurgency remains unbowed, with no real political solution in sight for the country’s new government.

France faces a problem with its Muslim population, but it is not the problem it generally assumes.Paradoxically, it is the exhaustion of political Islamism, not its radicalisation, that explains much of the violence, and it is the depoliticisation of young Muslims, rather than their alleged reversion to a radical kind of communalism, that ought to be cause for worry. 

This Carnegie paper reports on meetings held in November 2005 with representatives of mainstream Islamists groups from Arab countries and the conclusions drawn about attitudes regarding democracy and human rights.

A string of attacks in Baghdad renew fears of sectarian civil war a week after the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra. The continuing violence has forced a debate in Washington over U.S. troop levels in Iraq and threatens to delay the formation of a new Iraqi national-unity government.

Hauwa Ibrahim, a human rights lawyer, discussed the constitutionality of Shariah in Nigeria and her experiences defending Nigerian women in Shariah courts in the country.

George Weigel discusses what he sees as the increasing secularization of Europe and how it affects U.S.-Europe relations and Europe’s role in the world.

A series of twelve cartoons—originally published in Denmark and reprinted across Europe—depicting the Prophet Mohammed have touched off riots across the Muslim world, some of them deadly. In addition to the broad cultural conflict, the fracas over the drawings raises questions about the freedoms and the responsibilities of the press.

It has been ten months since the death of John Paul II, and a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church is beginning to put his own stamp on the Vatican. What does it mean for U.S. foreign policy?

The United States Institute of Peace released a report on Muslim American opinion, concluding that American muslims do not see contradictions between Islam and such ideals as democracy, pluralism, or political activicsm. In recent years, several national groups have made it their primary mission to reconcile all three with Islamic values.