'Abd al-Rahman al-Jawzi was the Imam of the Hanbalis and is considered one of the most prolific Islamic writers to date. Abdullah bin Hamid Ali is an Islamic chaplain at the State Correctional Institution in Chester, Pennsylvania. He lives in Philadelphia. Khalid Yahya Blankinship is an associate professor and chair of the department of religion at Temple University. He is the author of "The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads," He has also translated two volumes of "The History of al-Tabari," He lives in Philadelphia.