David Patel is an assistant professor of government at Cornell University. He applies game theory and ethnography to Islamic institutions to study their effect on national politics and once spent eight months living with an Islamic family in Basra, Iraq. He speaks frequently about the political and religious situation in Iraq.

R. Laurence Moore is a professor emeritus of American studies in the history department at Cornell University and author of Touchdown Jesus: The Mixing of Sacred and Secular in American History.

Mohamad Bazzi is a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is working on a project about Hezbollah and the Shiite community in Lebanon. He is the former Middle East bureau head for (New York) Newsday and is based in New York City.

Gideon Rose is managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine and an expert on terrorism, among other issues, in the Middle East and South Asia. He is based in New York City.

The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University in New York City focuses on the study of the Middle East, especially on its economies, cultures and politics. Helga Tawil Souri is executive director.

James S. Liebman is Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law at Columbia Law School in New York. He specializes in criminal law, ethics and capital punishment.

Stephen P. Garvey is a professor at Cornell Law School in New York who has taught courses on capital punishment and the philosophy of criminal law. He has written numerous articles on the death penalty and represented death row inmates.

Robert Blecker is a professor at New York Law School and an expert on capital punishment.

The Rev. Bob Edgar is general secretary of the National Council of Churches which works for ecumenical cooperation among Christians in the United States. Contact through director of media relations Daniel Webster.