Acknowledgments
Many individuals have contributed to the gestation of this book. I wish to thank Sebastian Günther, Hinrich Biesterfeldt, and Wadad Kadi for including this volume in their series. I extend my appreciation to Kathy van Vliet-Leigh, Teddi Dols, and Pieter te Velde at Brill for their exemplary work in shepherding the manuscript from acquisition to production. Sections of chapter 2 were previously published in Esotérisme Shiʿite: Ses Racines et ses Prolongements at the kind invitation of its chief editor Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, and Brepols Publishers granted permission for these sections to be revised and included in this book. The copyediting and indexing labors of Valerie Joy Turner and the assistance of Wendy Heller have been exceptional. I am grateful to Burhan Zahrai for the calligraphy that appears on the cover.
The anonymous external readers chosen by the series editors provided constructive critiques and comments on the draft. Jamel Velji, Mohammed Rustom, Devin Stewart, Shahin Vafai, Moojan Momen, and Mina Yazdani patiently read early iterations of different sections and offered helpful suggestions. Meaningful conversations with teachers, colleagues, and scholars Muhammad Afnan, David Hollenberg, Meir Litvak, Issam Eido, Ed Hayes, Hassan Ansari, Mushegh Asatryan, Ahmet Karamustafa, Sajjad Rizvi, Fatemeh Keshavarz, Hussein Abdulsater, Shahzad Bashir, Babak Rahimi, Roy Mottahedeh, George Warner, Shafique Virani, Walid Saleh, Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Zackery Heern, Mahdi Tourage, Tarek Chams, Robert Gleave, Todd Smith, Elham Afnan, Sasha Dehghani, Vahid Behmardi, Steven Phelps, Siyamak Zabihi-Moghaddam, Hamid Samandari, Stephen Lambden, Sam Hindawi, Amin Egea, Armin Eschraghi, Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, Nargis Virani, Franklin Lewis, John Walbridge, Ali Khadem, Jonathan Gribetz, Edward Sevcik, Mark Hellaby, Sholeh Quinn, Farshid Kazemi, Valerie Purdue, and Vahid Rafati have stimulated my thinking and enriched my work.
The Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies (CNES) at Binghamton University, the State University of New York (SUNY), has been a supportive intellectual home since fall 2014. Special thanks are due to Andrew Scholtz, John Starks, Nancy Um, Mary Youssef, Tina Chronopoulos, Jonathan Karp, Gregory Key, Hilary Becker, Jeffrey Becker, Joshua Price, Robyn Cope, Tarek Shamma, and Ricardo Laremont. Kent Schull has exceeded all expectations that a junior faculty member could ever hope for in a mentor and a colleague. The administrative and moral support of Margaret Dwyer has been unremitting. Special thanks are also extended to the Dean of Harpur College and to Bat-Ami Bar On and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) for teaching releases that made the timely completion of the manuscript possible.
The unstinting love and generosity of my parents Behrooz and Roohangiz Ghaemmaghami, my sister Elham, and my brother-in-law Paulo, have been my saving grace. Mina Yazdani continues to be the living embodiment of courage and encouragement. I cannot imagine a truer friend, a more erudite scholar, or a more complete human being.
The highest expression of gratitude is laid at the feet of Professor Todd Lawson. This book is based on a dissertation completed under his matchless tutelage at the University of Toronto. It has benefitted in countless way from his encyclopedic knowledge and profound insights. If any value lies between its covers, then all of the credit is due to him; only the mistakes are mine.