Source: The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19541-2004Jul27.html
On August 1, 2004 The Washington Post reported, "At some other point in history, [Akbar] Ahmed and [Judea] Pearl probably never would have crossed paths. Despite some similarities -- both are immigrant academics in their sixties who as children witnessed the costs of religious and ethnic strife -- Pearl was usually cloistered in a California lab while Ahmed was making himself a fixture at lecterns in London and Washington. Yet they've become partners and, gradually, friends. Every few weeks they travel to another city for an event with a title like 'Towards Interfaith Understanding: A Journey Through Dialogue.' It's a low-tech communications medium: two chairs on a stage, two mikes, two men talking about their religions and the misunderstandings and tensions between them, while several hundred people listen... It was supposed to be a one-time event in Pittsburgh last year, until the participants grasped that a lot of people wanted to hear what Daniel Pearl's father had to say to a Muslim intellectual who grew up in the city where his son died -- and vice versa. So, although they've also learned that merely sharing a stage is a controversial act in some quarters, their public conversation continues."