Christoph Herzog is Professor of Turcology at the University of Bamberg, Germany. He studied Middle Eastern and modern European history at Freiburg, Germany and in Istanbul. His research interests focus on late Ottoman history, especially on the history of the Arab provinces, intellectual history and biographical studies.Richard Wittmann is the Associate Director of the German Orient-Institut Istanbul. He studied law, Islamic Studies and Turcology in Munich, Berlin, and Cambridge, Mass., where he earned his PhD in Middle Eastern Studies and History from Harvard University. He specializes in the Islamic legal and social history of the Ottoman Empire, as well as narrative sources for the study of the Middle East.