Reza Aslan |
Dr. Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, is a contributing editor at the Daily Beast (thedailybeast.com). Reza Aslan has degrees in Religions from Santa Clara University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa, where he was named the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues; Abraham's Vision, an educational, conflict transformation organization; PEN USA, which champions the rights of writers under siege around the world; and he serves on the national advisory board of the Levantine Cultural Center, building bridges between Americans and the Arab/Muslim world. Aslan's first book is the International Bestseller, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which has been translated into thirteen languages, and named one of the 100 most important books of the last decade. He is also the author of How to Win a Cosmic War (published in paperback as Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age), and editor of an upcoming anthology from Norton titled Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East.
Aslan is President and CEO of Aslan Media Inc, whose holdings include BoomGen Studios, a mini-motion picture and media company focused entirely on entertainment about the Greater Middle East and its Diaspora communities. Born in Iran, he now lives in Los Angeles where he is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. |
Asma Barlas |
 Asma Barlas is currently a professor of Politics as well as the director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity at Ithaca College (New York, USA). In Spring 2008, she also held the Spinoza Chair in Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She has Ph.D. in International Studies (University of Denver), an M.A. in Journalism (University of the Punjab, Pakistan) and a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy (Kinnaird College for Women, Pakistan). Dr. Barlas' research interests have tended to vary quite a bit over time but, in one way or another, they all engage with the epistemologies and practices of violence. In her dissertation, she traced the genealogy of militarism in Pakistan to British colonial rule and this was later published as Democracy, Nationalism and Communalism: The Colonial Legacy in South Asia (Boulder, Westview,1995). After graduation, she became interested in the relationship between sexual/ textual/ religious violence, and in particular, in the violence against Muslim women that results from patriarchal readings of Islam's scripture, the Qur'an. This was the subject of "Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2002). More recently, she has been examining Western polemical and epistemic violence against Islam and Muslims and has written about it in her book, Islam, Muslims and the U.S. (India, Global Media Publications, 2004), as well as in one of her Spinoza Lectures, Reunderstanding Islam (Van Gorcum Press, the Netherlands, 2008). Dr. Barlas is currently exploring issues of religious embodiment and violence.
Dr. Barlas' work on Qur'anic hermeneutics has been translated into Bengali, Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Urdu, and she has also been invited to speak about it in several venues in the U.S. and abroad (Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Germany, Finland, Iceland, Italy, U.K, and the Netherlands). |
David Baak |
 Rev. David P. Baak is currently the Interim Minister of the United Church of Wayland (MI). He has also served in Interim roles in Ionia and at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Grand Rapids. He served as a member of the Leadership Team of the Grand Rapids Area Center for Ecumenism (GRACE) through 2007 and as its executive director from 1983-2002. He is convener of the Congregations Council of the "Year of Interfaith Understanding -- 2012" in Grand Rapids; is a member of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute Advisory Committee (at GVSU); and has served on various denominational ecumenical and interfaith committees as well as national committees through the National Council of Churches and the National Association of Ecumenical and Interreligious Staff. He was a member of the founding board of the Interfaith Dialogue Association of West Michigan. Rev. Baak is ordained in the Reformed Church in America and lives in Grand Rapids, MI. |
Michael Bonner |
 Michael Bonner is Chair and Professor of Medieval Islamic History in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan. He served as Acting Chair in 2007-08, and was Director of the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies in 1997-2000 and 2001-03.
Bonner received his PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton in 1987, and taught at Cornell before going to Michigan. He has been Stern Fellow at the Michigan Institute for the Humanities, and has twice been Professeur Invité at the Institut d’Etudes de l’Islam et des Sociétés du Monde Musulman, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He has also been Visiting Chair at the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris.
Bonner’s research has focused on jihad, especially in the premodern era; the early medieval Arab-Byzantine frontier, and Islamic frontiers in comparative perspective; poverty in Islam; and markets and trade in pre-Islamic Arabia and the Caliphate. His recent publications include Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts (co-edited, SUNY Press, 2003); Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practices (Princeton University Press, 2006, 2008), also published in French and Italian; a forthcoming series of articles on pre-Islamic Arabian markets; and a book in preparation on frontier societies in early Islam. |
Soraya Deen and Nadyne Paar |
 Soraya Deen MA, is a Lawyer, professional speaker, author and founder of Peaceworks, a center for conflict resolution, and peacemaking. She serves on the Board of several top organizations and is the current recipient of the Samuel Alster Interfaith Award.
Soraya is the author of several books. Her most recent being a children’s book titled “Papa Teach me Peace”, and "SERVE – A Call to Muslims". She works with corporations, individuals and interfaith communities to build strong relationships and promote dialogue through communication.
Nadyne combines her experience as a public school teacher and a film and television actor with her role as wife and mother to bring to audiences an honest wit and straight talk style that will challenge and inspire listeners to reach beyond their understanding of people and cultures to new ideas in relating and connecting across religious and cultural boundaries. Her engaging speaking style and high energy personality invite you to think new thoughts about the world and what’s possible, with all the people in it. |
Nahed Eltantawy |
 Nahed Eltantawy graduated from Georgia State University with a PhD in Public Communication in December 2007. She currently works as an Assistant Professor in Journalism at High Point University, North Carolina where she teaches a variety of courses in convergent journalism and gender and media. Eltantawy grew up in Cairo, Egypt, where she earned undergraduate and masters degrees from the American University in Cairo and worked as a Reuters correspondent before moving to the US. Her research focuses on media representation of women, gender issues, globalization, Middle East media and critical and cultural studies. She has presented her work at the National Communication Association conventions as well as conventions in the Middle East. Her work has been published in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, and the International Journal of Communication (in press). Eltantawy was recently awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach in the United Arab Emirates in spring 2012. |
Muaz Redzic |
 Since 2009, Muaz Redzic has been serving as Imam at the Bosnian Cultural Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended Islamic high school in Sarajevo, then earned a B.A. in Islamic Studies at Kuwait University, an M.A. in Religion at Vanderbilt University, and the Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the Graduate Theological Foundation, South Bend, Indiana. At the Bosnian Cultural Center, Imam Redzic sustains religious activities and prayers, and also supports the Bosnian cultural identity of many of the Center's members. Prayers are offered and sacred texts are read in Arabic and then translated into Bosnian for his congregation, many of whom came to the area during the war in their homeland in the 1990's. Imam Redzic also aspires to host open houses and educational classes for non-Muslims. "People tend to fear the unknown. Islam is still very much unknown ground for many Americans," Redzic said. "We are more than happy to introduce ourselves." Redzic has expressed concern that Islam is often portrayed negatively in the media: "The filter through which the media talks about Islam is the violence. I'm not saying all Muslims are angels. I'm talking about what Islam teaches. Islam is submitting to God's will and finding peace in that." |
Lema Sbenaty |
 Lema Sbenaty is an activist and student who was featured in CNN’s “Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door” special in March of 2011. The daughter of Syrian immigrants, she was born and raised in Tennessee. She graduated from Siegel High School as the valedictorian of her class in 2009. She was also vice president of her student body as well as president of her school’s Model United Nations and Key Clubs, leading her school in many volunteer projects and community activities. She was awarded the Most Likely to Succeed Award by her peers. In 2009, she was awarded the Buchanan Fellowship from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she is currently a junior honors student. She is majoring in Biochemistry with a pre-med concentration as well as International Relations. She is also the current President of the Muslim Students Association of MTSU. Furthermore, she is the Secretary of her university’s Model United Nations team, winning the Best Delegate award at the University of California at Los Angeles in 2011. She is also in the Student National Medical Association and Health Occupation Students of America. She presently volunteers at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Murfreesboro, researching sleep apnea and patient compliancy. She is also an active member and leader at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. In 2010, she taught at the Summer Peace Academy, and she has been a Certified Pharmacy Technician at Walgreens Pharmacy since 2009.
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