¹ Loeffler, Reinhold, Islam in Practice, Religious Beliefs in a Persian Village (Albany, 1988)Google Scholar.

² I have done fieldwork on many topics in this tribal area in southwest Iran during 13 visits between 1965 and 2002. The book is based on research I conducted mostly in 1970–71 and 1976. I thank the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Social Science Research Council, and Western Michigan University for their generous support of various stages of my fieldwork.

³ I conducted all conversations in Persian and Luri, the local language. Although I have had many conversations on various topics with women in the village, as a man in this sex-segregated society I was more at home among men, and in the book confined myself to presenting men's ideas about religion.

⁴ The published arrangement had to have interview format in order to present the various worldviews in a coherent way. Consequently, I selected statements pertaining to religious topics out of all others and collated those belonging to the same issue in paragraphs thematically linked by short questions. I also deleted repetitions and chose the most precise, elaborate, and unequivocal formulation from among parallel versions.

⁵ Loeffler, R. and Friedl, E., “Eine Ethnographische Sammlung von den Boir Ahmad,” Archiv fuer Voelkerkunde 21 (1967): 95–207Google Scholar; Loeffler, R., Friedl, E., and Janata, A., “Die Materielle Kultur von Boir Ahmad, Suediran,” Archiv fuer Voelkerkunde 28 (1974): 61–142Google Scholar.