Kenan Rifai was the director for Provincial Directorates of National Education in various Ottoman cities and a high school principal. Due to the tutelage of the great sheikh Hamza Rifai, he became a teacher of Islamic mysticism and Sufism at Altay Lodge. Victoria Holbrook is a distinguished scholar specializing in Ottoman studies and the translator of East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey. She lives in Columbus, Ohio.