Nerina Rustomji is associate professor of history at St. John's University where she specializes in the intellectual and cultural formation of Islamic societies and the Middle East. She is the author of The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture, which narrates a history of heaven and hell in Islamic texts, material cultures, and book arts from the seventh century C.E. She is currently completing Beauty of the Houri: Heavenly Virgins, Earthly Jihad, and the Feminine Models of Islam, which narrates an intellectual history of Islamic, European, and American notions of the pure female companions of Islamic paradise.