During the month-long Muslim holiday of Ramadan, these two teenage boys led prayers and recited the entire Qur'an from memory.

A group of women in Cambridge, Massachusetts founded a book club to learn from each other's Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions.

The conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. It goes back nearly 1,400 years. Today it is tearing Iraq apart. But the two branches of Islam have not always been openly hostile, and in many parts of the world they live together peacefully. Lucky Severson talked with a prominent Middle East scholar about the rivalry's history, and why it has exploded recently, and what the prospects are for the future.

Read correspondent Lucky Severson's August 7, 2006 interview in Washington, D.C. with Vali Nasr, a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. "Fasting, for me, is a constant prayer that you're engaged in throughout the day. For 12 hours or more, you're praying," says Zuleqa Husain, a young American Muslim.

Read extended interviews with WASHINGTON POST correspondent Anthony Shadid about the upcoming Iraqi elections and the role of religion in Iraqi society.

As Iraqis get ready to elect a new parliament and write a new constitution, we discuss the role of religion in Iraq with Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international affairs and Middle Eastern studies at Sarah Lawrence College in New York.

Like other European nations', Holland's reputation for tolerance is being tested as the country grapples with how to welcome and integrate its growing immigrant Muslim population — a community of 900,000 people who are increasingly vocal in demanding equality in Dutch society.

As war against Iraq looms, we ask Seyyed Hossein Nasr, University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, what the reaction to war might be among the rest of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.

Read more of Bob Abernethy's interview with Seyyed Hossein Nasr, University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University and the author most recently of THE HEART OF ISLAM: ENDURING VALUES FOR HUMANITY and ISLAM: RELIGION, HISTORY, AND CIVILIZATION.