Abbas Barzegar is a scholar at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. He is also an Assistant Professor of Islam at Georgia State University. His scholarly research concerns the history of the Sunni-Shi’a conflict. With Richard Martin he is co-editor of the volume Islamism: Contested Perspective of Political Islam (Stanford University Press, 2009). His views have been distributed through Common Ground News and The Guardian’s Comment is Free. He received his PhD in religious studies from Emory University.