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Apart from the obvious debt of gratitude to ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī for writing this book in the first place, I must record my thanks to the guardian angels who preserved the only known copy of it through centuries of sackings in Aleppo—and to those who have preserved me, while working on it, through the vicissitudes of current history in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. As you will learn from the Introduction, the manuscript seems to have spent many years under a curse—one that plagued the attempts to edit and translate it of no fewer than four of Oxford University’s Laudian Professors of Arabic. There were times when I wondered—as my house rocked to the thunder of high explosives—whether that curse had returned to haunt me, too.

In the end, though, this strange book has been a blessing, a relief from the conflict outside my window, and—though part of it describes great suffering in great detail—an unexpected consolation. So I am grateful to the editorial board of the Library of Arabic Literature for giving me the opportunity to work on it at such a time, for bearing with the restrictions that events have placed on me, and for understanding, encouraging, sympathizing with, and supporting me in every way possible. Philip Kennedy and Shawkat Toorawa, in particular, have been earthly guardians, and I cannot thank them enough.

Further thanks are due to Shawkat, for electronically furnishing me with texts and, as my Project Editor, for slimming down my overfed endnotes and putting a spring in the step of my statelier prose; to Chip Rossetti, for assiduous communications; to Wiam El-Tamami, Alia Soliman, and Stuart Brown, for their thoughtful editing of proofs; and to Lucie M. Taylor, for invaluable logistical support. I am grateful also to Alasdair Watson of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, current guardian of the manuscript, for sending such a fine digital scan of it and, eventually, introducing me to the original.

Of my predecessors, my debt to Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy will be apparent in many notes, not least those where ʿAbd al-Laṭīfʼs quotations from Greek authors are located in the original works. The good baron (as he deservedly became, at Napoleonʼs command) was a human search engine.

Of my contemporaries, I am particularly indebted to Habiba Ahmed Mohamed Al-Sayfi, born and raised in the shadow of Qāʾit Bāyʼs majestic Cairene mausoleum-mosque. She has kindly answered queries about modern manners and customs. It was also Habiba who introduced me to the real Cairo—including the pleasures of semi-rotten mullet and “old cheese”—and this volume is jointly dedicated to her in token of thanks.

And then there is my Sanʿani family: Abdulwahhab, Umm Mohammed, Ashwaq, Shaima, Mohammed, Shatha, Ruqayyah, and Ghayda. Not only have they kept their home and their hearts wide open through difficult and dangerous times; we have also wandered together through the curious and often dark byways of this book. I thank them for the light they have shed on the text, seeing it with fresh eyes, and for the light they continue to bring into my life.

Sanaa, July 2019—Kuala Lumpur, August 2020