This book grows out of intellectual exchanges that began in October 2007 at “Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend,” the inaugural conference of the Islamic Studies Initiative (ISI) at the University of Michigan. I would like to thank Mark Tessler, director of the International Institute at the University of Michigan, for the generous support he has given this project from start to finish. Alexander Knysh, director of the ISI, helped conceptualize the original conference; Bryce Adams handled logistics; and Juan Cole and Sherman Jackson provided early inspiration. Some of the conference participants could not contribute essays to this volume, but I would like to thank Engseng Ho, Marcia Hermansen, and Mayanthi Fernando for helping us map out topics and approaches that would ultimately be explored by others. Paul Silverstein, Sally Howell, Mucahit Bilici, and Naamah Paley came to the project late, while other duties weighed heavily on them. I thank them for their keen interest and ability to adapt ongoing work to the needs of this volume, which has been greatly improved by their efforts. To the other contributors, Tomaž Mastnak, Moustafa Bayoumi, Lara Deeb, Muhammad Qasim Zaman, and Esra Özyürek, I owe special gratitude for their persistence, good ideas, and gracious dealings with their editor. Finally, I would like to thank Rebecca Tolen, for shepherding the volume through to print, and the anonymous reviewer at Indiana University Press, who encouraged us to add additional layers of critical nuance to our essays.