Juliane Hammer is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Kenan Rifai Scholar in Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on American Muslims, discourses on gender and sexuality, and Sufism. She is author of Palestinians Born in Exile (2005) and American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More than a Prayer (2012). Her work has appeared in The Muslim World, Hawwa, Contemporary Islam, and Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, as well as in several edited volumes. She is currently working on a research project analyzing American Muslim efforts against domestic violence.
Omid Safi is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, specializing in contemporary Islamic thought and classical Islam. He is author of Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam (2006) and Memories of Muhammad (2010). He is also editor of two volumes, Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism (2003) and Voices of Islam: Voices of Change (2006). He has a forthcoming book on the famed mystic Rumi and is currently working on a monograph discussing contemporary Islamic debates in Iran.