Professor Maurits S. Berger is professor of Islam and the West at Leiden University. He is also senior research associate with the Clingendael Institute for International Relations in The Hague, and member of the Advisory Council for International Affairs at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Professor Berger holds degrees in Law and Arabic Studies and received his PhD on Public Policy and Sharia from the University of Amsterdam (2005). He has worked as a lawyer in Amsterdam, and for seven years he worked as a researcher and journalist in Cairo and Damascus. He is engaged in European public debates and policies regarding the Muslim world and Muslims in the West. He is currently in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs education program "Islam in the Modern World".
His English language publications include: A Brief History of Islam in Europe: Thirteen Centuries of Creed, Conflict and Coexistence (Leiden University Press, 2014); Applying Shari'a in the West (Leiden University Press, 2013); Islam and Islamic Law in Contemporary International Relations (Islam and International Law: Engaging Self-Centrism from a Plurality of Perspectives, Brill Publishers, 2013); and The Third Wave: Islamisation of Europe, or Europanization of Islam? (Journal of Muslims in Europe Vol.2, 2013).