Acknowledgments
The idea for the workshop out of which this volume emerged came from Léon Buskens, at the time director of the Leiden University Center for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS). Together with the editors of this volume, both of whom then worked in a research project devoted to scholarly personae, he enthusiastically set out to organize a two-day workshop at Leiden University in January 2016. Although new responsibilities as director of the Netherlands Institute Morocco (NIMAR) in Rabat prevented Professor Buskens from contributing to this edited volume, it is obvious that this publication would not have existed without him. Generous thanks are also due to LUCIS and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for providing generous funding and to George MacBeth for his careful copyediting. Finally, the editors owe a special word of thanks to Maurits van den Boogert at Brill – a publishing house to which generations of Orientalists are indebted – for his stimulus, patience, and determination to make this volume happen.