Stephen Frederic Dale - The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals

Marigold Acland of Cambridge University Press commissioned this book and, like dozens of other scholars, I deeply appreciate both her encouragement and her sympathetic interest in and sophisticated knowledge of Islamic studies. The book was written during a wonderful leave year funded by a research fellowship from the National Endowment of the Humanities in Washington, DC, supported by matching funds from the Ohio State University.

I have benefited from the work of so many scholars in so many disciplines that it is impossible to credit them all. My intellectual debts will be obvious from the footnotes and bibliography, but beyond those citations, I want to particularly acknowledge Cornell Fleischer, who introduced me to both Turkish and Ottoman history; my own colleagues in Ottoman studies, Carter Findley and Jane Hathaway; Glru Necipolu for her cultural studies of Ottoman architectural history; and Suraiya Faroqhi for her many works on Ottoman social history. Hamid Algar introduced me to Persian and modern Iranian history and John Masson Smith Jr. taught me the use of documents and coins for pre-modern Iranian and Middle Eastern history. In addition I am particularly indebted to Rudi Matthee for his publications on the Safavids and to Paul Losensky for his revealing studies of Persian poetry of the Safavid and Mughal eras. I first studied Indian history with Eugene F. Irschick, and began my studies of Mughal history with the work of the late John Richards. I have also benefited from the work of Muzaffar Alam and an entire galaxy of Indian historians who have produced seminal scholarship on the Mughal period, especially Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib, Athar Ali, and the scholar of Indo-Persian literature, Abdul Ghani. Amina Okadas studies of Mughal art have also shaped the way in which I look at the paintings of the imperial atelier.

Three scholars took the time to read and critique this book in manuscript form, and they will recognize that many of their valuable suggestions are integrated into the final text. They are Catharine Asher, the historian of Mughal architectural history; Gene Garthwaite, a specialist on the Bakhtiyari nomads and the history of modern Iran; and Ruby Lal, who is known for her study of women in early Mughal history. The book is substantially better for their help.

My thanks go to three institutions for permission to quote from copyright material. They are: Princeton University Press, for Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (15411600) (1986); the University of Washington Press, for a book whose rights they now own, namely Ottoman Lyric Poetry , ed. and trans. Walter G. Andrews, Najaat Black, and Mehmet Kalpakli (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997); and Mazda Press, for Paul E. Losensky, Welcoming Fighani: Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 1998).

I have dedicated this book to my late brother, Roderic M. K. Dale.