Nile Green, a professor of history at UCLA, recently published a new book "The Love of Strangers: What Six Muslim Students Learned in Jane Austen's London." The book is based on the diary of Mirza Salih, who was one of six young men who traveled from modern-day Iran (then known as Persia) to England to receive a cutting-edge education in engineering, medicine and chemistry.
Green says that finding Salih’s diary is a “testament to coexistence” and says the group’s experience was most likely the first time Middle Eastern Muslims had contact with Europe.
Green is primarily a historian of the Muslim communities of South Asia from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, and specializes in the wider “Persianate” world, including Afghanistan, Iran and the Indian Ocean region. He also serves as chair of the UCLA Central Asia Initiative and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Middle East Studies.
Listen to an interview that Green did on Public Radio International.
