Reza Aslan earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Santa Clara University, a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University, a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from the University of Iowa, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in History of Religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Until recently, he was both Visiting Assistant Professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at the University of Iowa and the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

He has served as a legislative assistant for the Friends’ Committee on National Legislation in Washington D.C., and was elected president of Harvard’s Chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, a United Nations Organization committed to solving religious conflicts throughout the world.

He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Slate, Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and the Nation and has appeared on Meet The Press, Hardball, The Daily Show, and Nightline.

His first book, No god but God has been translated into half a dozen languages and was short-listed for the Guardian (UK) First Book Award.

Born in Iran, he now lives in Santa Monica and New Orleans, where he is at work on a historical novel to be published in the fall of 2007.