Dr. Ghasem Kakaie

English-born Dr. Hamid Algar received his Ph.D. in oriental studies from Cambridge. Since 1965, he has served on the faculty of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches Persian and Islamic history and philosophy. Dr. Algar has written extensively on the subject of Iran and Islam, including the books Religion and State in Iran, 1785-1906 and Mirza Malkum Khan: A Biographical Study in Iranian Modernism. He has been following the Islamic movement in Iran with interest for many years.

Dr. Hatem Abu Shahba was born in 1950, he is a M.D. and a retired Nuclear Medicine specialist who practiced at Sr. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital in upper west side Manhattan. After retiring, he dedicated himself to serving Allah (SWT) and Ahlul Bayt(AS) and the community. He is currently the Director of Al-Ghadeer Islamic Education Center located in North Bergen, NJ and the Imam of Jum'ah prayers at Zainabia in Irvington, NJ.

Ian Keith Anderson Howard, 1939-2013. I. K. A. Howard, who died in March 2013, was a distinguished scholar of Islamic studies, and one of the few Western scholars to devote themselves the study of Shi’ah Islam. He translated a number of important Shi’ah texts and wrote a series of articles on Shi’ah Islam at a time when there was little other work being undertaken on this important subject in Western universities, as such he can be seen as a pioneer in the field. For many years he held a senior lectureship at the University of Edinburgh where he taught Arabic and Islamic studies.

Dr. Jalal al-Haqq