Ishtiaq Ahmed was a professor at Stockholm University till 2007. He has been a visiting professor at various universities and is an honorary senior fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Ahmed’s research interests are diverse, including political Islam, ethnicity and nationalism, human and minority rights, and partition studies. His book, Pakistan, a Garrison State: Origins, Evolution, Consequences, pioneered a new framework to understand Pakistan. Another book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First-Person Accounts, won many awards including the best non-fiction book award in 2013 at both the Karachi and Lahore literary festivals. His latest work, Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History, won the best English non-fiction book award at the Valley of Words 2021 literary and cultural festival in India.