Dr Muhammad Isa Waley is an editor, researcher, and translator. He worked for 45 years as curator of Persian and Turkish manuscripts and books, first at the British Museum and then at the British Library. His main fields of research are the verse and prose literature of Muslim spirituality, and Islamic manuscripts. The subject of his Ph.D. thesis was the D¿v¿n or lyric poems of Jal¿l al-D¿n R¿m¿. His other published translations include Al-Arba'¿n (Forty Hadiths) of J¿m¿; Mawlid al-Barzanj¿, a paean on the Blessed Prophet's Birth; and The Book of Contemplation (Kitäb al-Tafakkur), Book 39 of Imam al-Ghaz¿l¿'s I¿y¿' 'ul¿m al-d¿n.