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Acknowledgments THE IDEA of preparing a new, updated paperback edition of this book was born almost immediately after its first hardcover edition sold out in the mid-1980s. Because of my preoccupation with other projects , however, it did not become a serious proposition for another twenty years. In the fall of 2001, Professor Jere Bacharach, director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington (my alma mater), invited me to make a presentation at the Open Classroom Lecture Series there. Titling my talk "September 11: Context and Consequences," I spoke on October 18, 2001, to a receptive audience of well over a thousand. Immediately after the lecture, I was approached by Michael Duckworth, executive editor of the University of Washington Press, who asked if! would consider preparing my presentation as a preface to a new paperback edition of The Kirghiz and Wakhi ifAjghanistan. Despite my misgivings that post-September 11 commitments might not allow me to bring the project to a speedy conclusion, I accepted the proposal, with the understanding that an epilogue detailing the trials and tribulations of the Kirghiz community-and their leader, Haji Rahman QuI Khan-after the 1978 Communist coup in Afghanistan would also be included in the new edition. For their encouragement and support, I am indebted to Michael Duckworth and his colleagues at the Press, and to Mary Ribesky for her thoughtful editing of the new material. Without the continuing welcome and assistance of the Kirghiz comvn munity during their years of exile and resettlement, especially that of the late Khan, I would not have been able to complete the work. I want to express my gratitude to members of the Khan's immediate family, and remember especially Abdul Wakil, Bibi Maryam Haji, and Harun Yeja (all of whom passed away in Turkey), and thank Abdul Wahid, Abdul Malik, Muhammad Ekber, Muhammad Arif, and Menderes for their friendship and hospitality. A number of other Kirghiz elders deserve special mention as well: Mahmood Haji, Hayet Muhammad Haji, Muhammad Amin, Abdul Halim Vatan, Mawlawi Abdul Baaqi, and Juma Taj. A special thank you is due to Mr. Gultekin Sertkaya, the Ulupamir village school principal, for providing me with useful information about the school and the village, and to my good friend and colleague Professor Ibrahim Erol Kozak for his help in translating some materials from modern Turkish. I am also grateful to Melissa Drain, a graduate student at Indiana University, for help on this new edition. My debts for institutional support of my research among the Kirghiz are many and are acknowledged in the footnotes. My eldest son, Samad, who is now a college student, spent his second birthday in eastern Turkey doing fieldwork with me. Over the years, he and his mother, Mavis Anderson Shahrani, supported me and my work among the Kirghiz, and they deserve my immense gratitude . Maha Noureldin and our younger sons, Abdurahim and Noorhadi , have suffered the most from my post-September 11 absences from home because of frequent travels and responsibilities that kept me in my office often late into the night. I am deeply grateful to them for allowing me to get this work done. Shukran jazilan ya Maha! M.N.S. SEPTEMBER 2002 VlU ...

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