Matthew Gordon is Professor of History at the University of Miami. He is the author of The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of the Turkish Military of Samarra (2000) and The Rise of Islam (2005); co-editor of Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History (with Kathryn A. Hain, 2017) and co-editor and translator of The Works of Ibn Wadih al-Ya'qubi: An English Translation (with Chase F. Robinson, Everett K. Rowson and Michael Fishbein, 2017).