Acknowledgments
IN THE SUMMER OF 199 5, I was an undocumented fast food worker who
walked off the street and into the offices of Matthew S. Gordon and
Linnea S. Dietrich (1945-2014) at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio,
and asked for their help in becoming a historian. This book represents
my deep gratitude for their kindness and the intellectual care they
demonstrated for a young student. In 1998, I came to the University of
C~icago and was able to learn from the most extraordinary scholars of
the Middle East, of South Asia, and of Islam. Foremost among them
were my advisors Fred M. Donner, Ronald B. Inden, and Muzaffar
Alam, who taught and shaped me as a humanist. Their scholarship is
monumental, but just as substantive is the ethical care with whi,ch
they conduct themselves as teachers. I learned also from the brilliant
exactitude and kindness of C. M. Nairn and Wendy Doniger; the his-
torical and philological mastery of John Woods, Heshmat Moayyad, and
John Perry; and the insights of Dipesh Chakrabarty, Sheldon Pollock,
Rashid Khalidi, Arjun Appadurai, and Shahid Amin. It remains my
privilege to have them as teachers.
Two ea:riy conversations in Berlin were critical for the formation of
the scope and method of this book: I thank Farina Mir and Sa.mia,
Khatun for them. Over the years, I have conversed about this project
with Finbarr Flood, Sunil Sharma, Richard M. Eaton, the late Chris
Bayly, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Daud Ali, Yasmin Saikia, Sugata Bose,