Deirdre McQuade is assistant director for policy and communications for the Pro-Life Secretariat of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Joel S. Fetzer is a professor of political science at Seaver College at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. He co-wrote Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Zayn Kassam is professor of religious studies at Pomona College in California. She is an expert on Islamic society.

James E. Lindsay is an associate professor in the department of history at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. His area of expertise is Medieval Islamic history.

Mark R. Woodward is an associate professor of religious studies at Arizona State University in Tempe. One of his areas of research interest is Islam.

Daniel C. Peterson is a professor of Arabic and currently serves as editor-in-chief and director of the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative at the College of Humanities at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Alam Payind is director of the Middle East Studies Center at Ohio State University in Columbus.

Fred M. Donner is a professor of near Eastern history at the University of Chicago. He wrote Seeing the Origins of Islam in Historical Perspective.

Nelly van Doorn-Harder is a professor of Islamic studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.