Amira K. Bennison is Professor in the History and Culture of the Maghrib at the University of Cambridge and a Professorial Fellow of Magdalene College. She is also Director of the HRH Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies. Her research focuses on the medieval Islamic West (Islamic Iberia and Morocco), Maghribi modes of legitimation and cultures of power, and medieval Islamic urbanism. Her publications include The Almoravid and Almohad Empires (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and The Great Caliphs: the Golden Age of the ‘Abbasid Empire (IB Tauris, 2009); Cities in the Premodern Islamic World: the urban impact of religion, state and society, edited with Alison L. Gascoigne, (Routledge, 2007); Jihad and its Interpretations in Pre-Colonial Morocco, (RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), as well as numerous articles. Amira has led cultural tours to many parts of Spain, North Africa and the Middle East and she has contributed regularly to television programmes and BBC Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’ and the BBC podcast, ‘You’re Dead to Me’.