Muslim Saints of South Asia: The eleventh to ... - blog blog blog

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all let me admit in all frankness that the idea to write The
Muslim Saints of South Asia (published in Russian in 1999) was
prompted by the works of Professor Christopher Shackle of SOAS,
University of London, on provincial Indo-Pakistani Sufism. I read
them avidly with a feeling of growing admiration that almost
imperceptibly turned into desire to explore the subject from my own
viewpoint. At all the stages of the work on this book Professor
Shackle generously shared his profound knowledge of Indo-Pakistani
Sufi literature with me. Therefore it is a double gratitude that I wish
to express to Professor Shackle for the role played by him in the
destiny of the book.
I also wish to thank my colleague Dr David Matthews of the
Language Centre, SOAS, who was such a well-disposed reader of
this book in its Russian original and whose remarks were a great help
to me while preparing the English version of the book.
My very special thanks go to Mr Muhammad Osama Faruqi of
Idara-e-Adabiyat-e-Urdu (Hyderabad), the well-known translator of
fiction, the winner of Sahitya Akademi Award who at his own risk
translated the book from Russian into English.
I am very grateful to my dear friend Professor Vladimir Braginsky
of SOAS who invariably supported all my academic pursuits and
wrote the first review of the Russian publication for the Bulletin of
SOAS.
And finally I extend my thanks to my Russian colleagues: Dr
Natalya Chalisova who helped me in reading and transliterating old
Persian texts and Ms Mira Salganik who consulted me in everything
related to the presentation of the English manuscript to the Publisher.
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