Amira K. Bennison is Professor in the History and Culture of the Maghrib at the University of Cambridge and a Director of Studies in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies for Christ’s College and Magdalene College. She is also Director of the Centre of Islamic Studies and Chair of the Academic Publishing Committee of Cambridge University Press.
Her teaching and research interests include the medieval Islamic West (Islamic Iberia and Morocco), Maghribi modes of legitimation and cultures of power, and 18th-19th century Muslim religio-political discourse and engagement with modernity. Her publications include The Almoravid and Almohad Empires (Edinburgh, 2016), The Articulation of Power in Medieval Iberia and the Maghrib (Oxford, 2014); The Great Caliphs: the Golden Age of the ‘Abbasid Empire (London, 2009); Cities in the Premodern Islamic World: the urban impact of religion, state and society, edited with Alison L. Gascoigne, (London, 2007); Jihad and its Interpretations in Pre-Colonial Morocco (London, 2002), as well as numerous articles.
She is currently working on a monograph about legitimation in the Maghrib over the longue durée. Amira has led cultural tours to many parts of the Middle East and North Africa and she has contributed regularly to television programmes on Islamic history. She has also been a frequent guest on BBC Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’, and featured in two episodes of the BBC podcast ‘You’re Dead to Me’.