Vincent Cornell is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1989. Throughout the next decade, he taught at a number of prominent universities before becoming a Professor of History and Director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. His pre-modern interests cover the entire spectrum of Islamic thought from Sufism to philosophy and Islamic law. Mr. Cornell is the author of the foreword to The Path of Muhammad.