Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, global media commentator and author of the book Islamic Pacifism: Global Muslims in the Post-Osama Era. As founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and global managing editor for The Crescent Post, Arsalan has been a regular weekly commentator for National Public Radio (NPR) and he is also a regular contributing writer for Esquire Magazine (Middle East edition) and CNN.com on domestic and international issues affecting our world today.

His interviews, commentaries and analyses have regularly appeared in virtually every major media outlet around the world including: CNN, BBC World News, The TODAY Show, National Public Radio (NPR), FOX News Channel, MSNBC, Associated Press, C-SPAN, Voice of America (VOA), Agence France-Presse (AFP), USA TODAY, NBC Nightly News, The Washington Post, ABC World News Tonight, Los Angeles Times, CBS News Up to the Minute, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, TIME, The Economist and Newsweek magazines (among dozens others worldwide).

In May 2011, Arsalan was named one of the top 12 Muslim Twitter accounts by The Huffington Post and his published columns and written articles have appeared in major publications around the world including: CNN.com, USA TODAY, Esquire Magazine (Middle East edition), Houston Chronicle, Detroit Free Press, The Providence Journal, San Diego Union-Tribune, Charlotte Observer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Miami Herald, The Jakarta Post and many more publications around the world.

In March 2008, Arsalan was one of four international debaters selected to participate in The Doha Debates on BBC World News Television. Every month, The Doha Debates are broadcast to over 300 million people worldwide on BBC World News Television and its stage has been shared with the likes of Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former United States President Bill Clinton. Furthermore, as a September 2008 Christian Science Monitor 9/11 anniversary profile of Arsalan would report about the final voting outcome of the March 2008 Doha Debates on BBC World News Television: “[Arsalan] and his partner won the debate” with a final television audience vote of 70.4% to 29.6%.

In addition to The Doha Debates, some of Arsalan’s other international speaking venues have included: Harvard University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, University of Michigan School of Law, The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, Cornell University, Washington University School of Law, The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), The Newseum, The Rockefeller Foundation, and The British Museum in London.

Additionally, Arsalan was cast as a Hollywood movie 'featured extra' in the Warner Brothers spy movie thriller Body of Lies (October 2008) starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. He was also a contributing author to Keeping Out the Other (Columbia University Press) and Taking Back Islam (Rodale Press); winner of the 2003 Wilbur Communications Award for Religion Book of the Year. In August 2011, he was also invited to join The British Council’s ‘Our Shared Future’ Opinion Leaders Network – a transatlantic network of opinion leaders and scholars whose work and ideas contribute constructively to the public conversation on relations between Muslims and non-Muslims around the world. In 2006, the French Ambassador to the United States personally named Arsalan to the Personnalites d’Avenir (Personalities of the Future) World Leader Program in Paris sponsored by the French Foreign Ministry.

Arsalan graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999 and received his law doctorate from Washington University School of Law in 2003. A native of Chicago, he specializes in international human rights law and is licensed to practice law in Washington DC.

Arsalan was born on September 1, 1977. He has far too many gray hairs for his 34 years of age, the very useful ability to ask for the bathroom in five different languages (and counting) and is headquartered in the metropolitan Washington DC area.