The many works on view at the Met in New York demonstrate how artistic motifs were shared and used by people of different faiths in different regions over the centuries.

“We asked religious scholars and they said that if we’re out on a mission like this, there is no problem with not fasting on the condition that when you return, you fast the days you lost, because fasting like prayer is obligatory," says Abu Rmeileh, the first Palestinian to qualify for the Olympics.

“When you are reciting the Quran you feel like you are talking to Allah,” says Quran reciter Sheikh Mohammad Alraee. During Ramadan he has been chanting the Quran from memory at the Islamic Center of Northern Virginia.

It is a painful rite of passage for girls in many African and Middle Eastern countries. But in Senegal there has been a remarkably successful campaign to change people's attitudes towards female circumcision in an effort to eliminate the practice altogether.

In this territorial dispute between India and Pakistan in what may be the world’s most militarized region, there are direct links between water availability, rising terrorism, and religious extremism among Hindus and Muslims.

“We don’t want a religious state,” says Muslim Brotherhood member of parliament Ossama Yassin. “We want a modern, civil, democratic state belonging to the people.”

Egypt’s recent parliamentary elections have raised concerns about the imposition of an Islamist agenda by Islamist groups and parties, but Middle East expert Kate Seelye says “the hope is that once in office they will move more to the center and that won’t be the case.”

“The question in the eyes of many other Muslims,” according to Georgetown University Islamic studies professor John Esposito, is “are these people really Muslims or not?”

"There are a lot of people in this country who are into dialogue, education, getting to know one another, trying to live together," says Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Jerusalem.

“When Muslims want to respectfully dispose of a text of the Qur’an that is no longer usable, we will burn it,” says Imam Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs at the Islamic Center of Southern California.