A. RASHIED OMAR is Coordinator of the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute Research Initiative on the Resolution of Ethnic Conflict (RIREC) and the Project on Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding (PRCP). He completed a Masters degree in 1992 in comparative religion from the University of Cape Town and an M.A. in peace studies at the Kroc Institute in 2001-02. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Cape Town specializing in Religion and Violence. He has served as an Imam at a mosque in South Africa and Co-Chair of the 1999 Cape Town Parliament of the Worlds Religions.