He holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, and his doctorate is entitled ‘Crafting the Cosmopolitan Elegy in North India: Poets, Patrons and the Urdu Marsiyah, 1707–1857’. His research interests include Hindi and Urdu literature, Islam in South Asia, Hindu devotional traditions, and early-modern South Asian history, music, and religion. His current research examines the religious and socio-political history of Shīʿī devotional literature in South Asia. He is preparing a monograph on the Urdu marsīyah tradition in colonial India. He is the author of the English introduction to Jawn Martyr of Karbala Lamented (London, 2014), published by the Shīʿah Institute Press. Professor Peter Knapczyk has been a Fellow of the Shīʿah Institute since December 2014.