Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet: Scholars

John Voll

John O. Voll is Professor of History at Georgetown University and Associate Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Among his many publications are Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World, Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam(with N. Levitzion), and Islam and Democracy with John L. Esposito. He holds a PhD from Harvard University.

Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong, one of the world's foremost English speaking commentators on religious affairs, spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun, taking vows in 1965. In 1967, the order sent her to Oxford University with a view to her teaching in one of their schools. In 1989, however, she decided to leave religious life. Since then, she has written a thesis and gained a B. Lit (Oxon), taught Modern Literature at London University, been head of the English Department in a girls' secondary school, and now teaches part-time at a college for the training of rabbis.

Her many books include Through the Narrow Gate, an account of her life in the convent, in Britain and the U.S.A., Muhammad: A Western Attempt to Understand Islam, published in Britain in 1991 and in the USA as Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, and A History of God: A 4000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity & Islam, an international bestseller published in sixteen languages.

M. Cherif Bassiouni

Dr. Bassiouni has been Professor of Law at DePaul University since 1964. He is one of the world's leading authorities on international criminal law and human rights. Educated in France, Switzerland, and Egypt he is an expert in civil, common, and Islamic law. He holds honorary degrees awarded by the University of Torino (Italy) and University of Pau (France). He has authored and edited over 60 books on U.S. Criminal Law and International and comparative Criminal Law and written 200 articles published in law journals in the U.S. and other countries.

In 1999, as president of the Association Internationale de Droit Pénal, a worldwide scholarly international criminal justice organization with more than 3,000 members in 99 countries, Bassiouni and the Association were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the Untied Nations (ISPAC). The Council called Bassiouni the "single most driving force behind the global decision to establish the International Criminal Court."

Seyyid Hossein Nasr

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, born in Iran and immersed from childhood in classical Persian poetry, was educated in science, philosophy and Islamic studies in America and taught for two decades at Teheran University. Founder and first president of the Iranian Academy of Philosophy, he is now university professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University. He is the author of more than thirty works, primarily in English and Persian. His works include Knowledge and the Sacred, Islamic Art and Spiritual, Religion and the Order of Nature, the Gifford Lectures, and Poems of the Way.

Reuven Firestone

Reuven Firestone was educated at Antioch College, the Hebrew University, Hebrew Union College, where he received his M.A. in Hebrew literature in 1980 and Rabbinic Ordination in 1982, and New York University where he received his Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic studies in 1988.

From 1987 to 1992, he taught Hebrew literature and directed the Hebrew and Arabic language programs at Boston University. In 1992 he was awarded the Yad Hanadiv Research Fellowship at the Hebrew University, where he spent the year conducting research on holy war in the Islamic tradition. In 2000, Professor Firestone was awarded a fellowship for independent research from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his research on holy war in Judaism, and was chosen to be a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies and the University of Pennsylvania in 2002.

Since 1993 he has served as associate and then full professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, where he directs the Edgar J. Magnin School for Graduate Studies.

Professor Firestone's published books include Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis (SUNY Press), Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam (Oxford University Press), Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims (Ktav), and dozens of articles on Judaism, Islam, and comparative studies between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Hamza Yusuf Hanson

Hamza Yusuf is one of America's most influential Islamic scholars. Born in California, son of two U.S. academics, he started life as Mark Hanson. At 17, he seemed destined for the Greek Orthodox priesthood. Then, a near-death experience in a car accident and reading the Qur'an turned him in the direction of Islam. Trained for more than a decade by Islamic scholars in the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, Yusuf's learning commands considerable respect both in traditional Muslim countries and in the West. In the days following September 11, he was called to the White House as an advisor. He remains independent of politics, however, serving as a full-time educator and Director of the Zaytuna Institute, in California. He is a gifted translator of Arabic poetry and prose.