MLTs IN ABSENTIA

Omar Amanat (USA) is a U.S. businessman and entrepreneur. Named one of Wall Street's "Top Ten Most Influential Technologists" Mr Amanat was a pioneer in the electronic brokerage industry. He began his entrepeneurial career at Datek Online, one of the pioneers in online brokerage services which was sold to Ameritrade for $1.3 billion. He left Datek to co-found CyberBlock, the predecessor of CyberTrader, Inc., which was acquired by Charles Schwab in February 2000 for $488 million. Most recently he was the founder, CEO and majority shareholder of Tradescape Corporation, a next-generation brokerage and technology firm for professional investors, that processed over 10% of NASDAQ's daily trading volume and was the largest electronic brokerage firm in the United States by trading volume in 2002 when he sold to E*Trade for $280 million, becoming one of E*Trade's largest shareholders. Tradescape was named as one of the "Top 50 Private Companies" in the United States by Red Herring Magazine in 2001.

Amanat attended the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School of Business where he is part of the Wharton School's Entrepeneur in Residence (EIR) program. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Albert P. Einstein Technology award for outstanding corporate citizenship and sits on numerous boards including the Board of Trustees for the Harlem Youth Development Foundation, Trustee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org , is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations www.cfr.org and was recently the Vice Chair of the Acumen Fund www.acumenfund.org which was named one of the "5 Charities changing the face of Global Philanthropy" by Barron's. He has been profiled in various media venues including Fortune Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and is a frequent public speaker.

Qamar-ul Huda (USA) is a Senior Program Officer in the Religion and Peacemaking Program at the United States Institute of Peace. He taught Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion at Boston CollegeÕs Theology Department. His area of interest is on Islamic theology, intellectual history, ethics, mysticism and QurÕanic hermeneutics. Currently, his work examines comparative ethics, the non-violence, and conflict resolution in contemporary Islam. He is the author of Striving for Divine Union: Spiritual Exercises for Suhrawardi Sufis (RoutledegeCurzon Press, 2003) and forthcoming book on ethics. His articles on Islamic theology and mystical treatises have appeared in appeared in The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, The Muslim World, Theological Studies, The Journal of Islam and Christian-Muslim Affairs, Journal of Islamic Studies and other journals. In addition to contemporary Islamic ethics and thought, he is translating a number of texts related to Suhrawardi, Chishti, and Naqshbandi Sufism.

Ahmed Younis (USA) presently serves as MPAC's National Director. Ahmed is the author of a book entitled American Muslims: Voir Dire (Speak the Truth), a post-September 11 look into the reality of debate surrounding American Muslims and their country, a publication that has swept several cities in the Muslim world since its translation into Arabic entitled "Uqsim an Aqoul al Haqq". He has made guest appearances on numerous television and radio shows, including: BBC's "The World", CNN International, Fox News' "The OÕReilly Factor," "Your World with Neil Cavuto," "Dayside with Linda Vester," "Heartland with John Kasich," and "Fox News Live"; PBSÕs "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer," "The Fred Friendly Seminars," and MSNBC's "The Abrams Report." Ahmed is a member of the US-Muslim World Advisory Committee at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Before joining MPAC, his endeavors included interning at the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations. He was assigned to the Office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary General on Iraq. Ahmed has studied extensively in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Ahmed has a juris doctorate from Washington & Lee School of Law.

Eboo Patel (USA) the Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core helped to create the idea and organization of the Interfaith Youth Core in June 1998. He has worked as an organizer, teacher and artist on four continents. He completed his Doctorate at Oxford University in the Sociology of Religion on a Rhodes Scholarship. Eboo was named one of "thirty social visionaries under thirty changing the world" by Utne Reader in 2002, and has been profiled by Conscious Choice Magazine and The Sunday Chicago Tribune. Eboo serves on the Board of the International Interfaith Centre, the North American Interfaith Network, and the Global Youth Action Network, and is President of the Board of CrossCurrents; his essays have appeared in God Within, Global Uprising, Initiative, Interreligious Insight, and Spiritual Perspectives on America's Role as a Superpower; and he has given talks all over the world, most notably at the World Trade Center in Barcelona, the University of Cape Town, UNESCO Paris and Oxford University.

Asra Q. Nomani (USA) was born in Bombay, India into a modern but conservative Muslim family. She came to the United State at age of four and was raised in the foothills of West Virginia. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed Standing Alone in Mecca: An American WomanÕs Struggle for the Soul of Islam (HarperSanFrancisco Publishers, March 2005). A former Wall Street Journal correspondent, Nomani has also written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Time magazine on Islam. She covered the war in Afghanistan for Salon, and her work has appeared in such magazines as Cosmo, Sports Illustrated for Women, and People.

Nomani is the author of Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love (HarperSanFrancisco, June 2003) and currently lives in Morgantown, WV with her son Shibli. There, she has become a writer-activist dedicated to reclaiming womenÕs rights and principles of tolerance in the Muslim world. Nomani challenged rules at her mosque in Morgantown that required women enter through a back door and pray in a secluded balcony. She is on trial at her mosque to be banished.

Nomani is the founder and creator of the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour. On March 1, 2005, she posted on the doors of her mosque in Morgantown "99 Precepts for Opening Hearts, Minds and Doors in the Muslim World." She was the lead organizer of the woman-led Muslim prayer in New York City on March 18, 2005. She was a visiting scholar at the Center for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. She is a volunteer at the Rape and Domestic Violence Shelter in Morgantown, WV. She is committed to seeing hearts, minds and doors open in the Muslim world as part of a wider vision for world peace.

Shamil Idriss (USA) is Deputy Director of the Alliance of Civilizations, an initiative launched by the UN Secretary-General in 2005 with the co-sponsorship of the Turkish and Spanish governments. The mandate of the Alliance is to generate an action-plan with the goal of combating extremism and improving relations between Western nations and Muslim societies. The plan is to be presented to the UN Secretary-General by a High Level Group of senior leaders by the end of 2006, establishing the basis for an implementation plan to begin thereafter.

Prior to this position, Mr. Idriss served as Senior Advisor to the Council of 100 Leaders: West-Islamic World Dialogue Initiative (C-100) at the World Economic Forum and continues to serve on the Steering Committee for that initiative. The C-100 convenes political, corporate, and religious leaders from predominantly Muslim countries, the U.S., and Western Europe to foster mutual understanding and provides a platform for the support and funding of initiatives that advance this goal.

From 2000-2004, Mr. Idriss served as Chief Operating Officer of Search for Common Ground, a global leader in international conflict resolution and pioneer in the use of media for positive social change. As COO, he managed the global programming of the 15-office, 375-staff-member organization as well as its headquarters in Washington, DC.

In previous positions with SFCG he managed the first independent radio outlet in Burundi - Studio Ijambo - which was credited in independent evaluations and by international donor agencies with greatly reducing inter-ethnic violence and advancing Hutu-Tutsi reconciliation. While in Burundi he also worked with youth leaders who had formerly participated in rival militia and rebel groups to establish a nationwide network to extricate young people from armed groups and to assist young people in resisting recruitment by these groups. Prior to his work in Burundi, Mr. Idriss managed the early years of SFCGÕs US-Iran Program, an effort to improve American-Iranian cultural relations that began in 1998 with SFCGÕs organizing of the first public American delegation to visit Iran since the Iranian revolution in 1979 - the visit of the US National Wrestling Team to compete in the Takhti Cup Tournament.

Mr. Idriss serves on the Boards of several non-profit organizations and was appointed in 2005 to the Young Global Leaders Forum of the World Economic Forum. He has published articles on international conflict resolution, media and social change, and Muslim World-West relations in German, South African, Middle Eastern, and American journals and newspapers. He lives in New York with his wife Dr. Cynthia Miller Idriss.

Bibi Nafissa Abdul Satta (Portugal) is the Coordinator of the Youth Commission at CIL (Islamic Community of Lisbon). She delivered a speech in an Interfaith Meeting for World Peace in Lisbon. Born in London UK she lives in Lisbon Portugal.

Bios Not Furnished:

Timur Yuskaev (USA)

Privot Michael (Belgium)

Hind Kourouche (Australia)

Semra Celebi (Netherlands)

Khalida Sellali (France)

Fareena Alam (UK)

Dima Hamdan (UK)

Linda Weisert (France)

Katajun Amirpur (Denmark)

Hamideh Mohagheghi (Denmark)

Behrooz Karjooravary (USA)