Fred von der Mehden is a professor emeritus of political science at Rice University in Houston. Islam and the politics of Southeast Asia are among his fields of interest.

Clement Moore Henry is a professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is interested in comparative politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

Mansoor Moaddel is a research affiliate at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, where his focus has been on political attitudes and conflicts in the Middle East.

Anas Malik is an assistant professor of political science at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He does research on political Islam and development and participated in a panel on why Islam becomes politicized at the 2007 Clifford Symposium “Islam and Politics in a Globalizing World” at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt.

Orit Bashkin is an assistant professor of modern Middle Eastern Studies at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago. She is an expert on the political and religious history of Iraq.

Read poll data on religion and politics from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Khaled Helmy is a visiting professor in the political science department at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he teaches a course in the comparative politics of the Middle East.

PollingReport.com offers a collection of polls on Americans’ opinions on politics and religion.

Najib Ghadbian is an assistant professor of political science and Middle East studies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Ghadbian’s research interests include political currents and media in the Arab world, Islamic movements, Syrian politics, and domestic and international politics in the Arabian/Persian Gulf.