'The Polished Mirror is the perfect title for Zargar's erudite and eloquent book, for it reflects with superb analytical clarity the views of a wide range of thinkers on the subject of ethics. Justifiably going beyond writings that explicitly deal with the topic, he draws together various strands of Islamic tradition, clarifying both the links and similarities that join them and the distinctions that separate them. A major contribution to Islamic studies, from which both established scholars and those new to the field stand to gain significantly.'–Hamid Algar, Professor Emeritus of Persian and Islamic Studies, University of California, Berkeley