Acknowledgements
Books are paradoxically both a singular and a collective product. Our different communities facilitate the maturation of an initial idea into a finished manuscript. As must be the case for many authors, these communities include overlapping academic, friendship, and family circles. This book was made possible by the support of my academic home in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, as well as by the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS), at which I spent several summers as a senior fellow with the Freiburg Research Collaboration Programme (FRESCO). My deepest appreciation goes to those two academic communities for providing intellectual stimulation over the years. At Freiburg, I thank in particular Nadja Germann and Johanna Pink for their intellectual nourishment and camaraderie, often over coffee and ice cream; and to Roland Muntschick (FRIAS) for diligently proofreading my manuscript and supplying library books. I wish to extend my sincere appreciation to Abdurraouf Oueslati at Brill and to the anonymous reviewers of my work for their invaluable feedback. This book has benefitted much from the many scholars and friends whose conversations, questions, and comments were indispensable to my thinking on the subject matter, with particular mention of Feriel Bouhafa, an important interlocutor in the production of the manuscript. To my friends and family in the US and Germany goes my gratefulness for always offering open doors, ears, and companionship. My husband Joseph and adult offspring, Axel and Isabella, deserve medals for their unwavering, loving support and their patience during the many times I have told them âI am almost done.â I dedicate this book to them.