Dr. Thackston is Professor Emeritus in the Near Eastern Studies Department at Harvard University and distinguished editor and translator of numerous Chaghatai, Arabic and Persian literary and historical sources. His best known works are Persian and Classical and Koranic Arabic grammars, as well as his translations of the "Baburnama", the memoirs of the Mughal prince and emperor Babur, and the memoirs of Emperor Jehangir, or the "Jehangirnama". He has also produced important manuals or editions of texts in Lebanese Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Syriac, Uzbek, Luri, and Kurdish.