Nihad Awad is executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Reza Aslan worked as a research associate at the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy. He is the author many books, including Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization and No God But God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam. He is the founder of AslanMedia.com, an online journal for news and […]

John Esposito is founding director of Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and professor of religion and international affairs and of Islamic studies at Georgetown. He is an expert on global terrorism, Islam and democracy, and international interfaith relations. His publications include Islamaphobia: The Challenges of Pluralism in the 21st Century and Islam: The Straight Path; The Oxford Dictionary of Islam; Unholy War: […]

Brian Whitaker, former Middle East editor for the British paper The Guardian, has created the Al-Bab website to provide information on Arab nations.

Alan Godlas is an associate professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Georgia and has assembled this resource guide on the Middle East. He is also one of the country’s experts on Sufism.

Juan Cole is a history professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he teaches a course on Islam in global politics. He is the author of a book on politics and religion in Iran and another on the politics and history of Shiite Islam. He is the author of Engaging the Muslim World.

The University of Southern California’s Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement has an online resource for Jewish and Islamic religious texts.

The Sabr Foundation, a nonprofit religious educational group offers this history of Muhammad.

The Islam Project is a multimedia effort aimed at schools, communities and individuals who want a clearer understanding of Islam. The project is partially funded by the Carnegie Corporation. It offers this background on Muhammad.