Amira K. Bennison

Professor Amira K. Bennison is a leading scholar in the history and culture of the Maghrib (Northwest Africa) from the Islamic conquest to 1900. She holds the academic rank of Professor in the History and Culture of the Maghrib at the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES), while serving as Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies and Chair of the Academic Publishing Committee at Cambridge University Press.

• PhD in Moroccan History (SOAS, 1996)
• MA in Middle Eastern History (Harvard, 1992)
• BA Hons in History and Arabic (Cambridge, 1989)

Her research spans multiple dimensions of Islamic history, including political legitimacy in the medieval Maghrib, Islamic urbanism, Berber cultural identity, and cross-strait interactions between Islamic Spain (al-Andalus) and Morocco. She has explored how regimes like the Almoravids and Almohads used jihād, ceremonial, and material culture to establish authority, while also analyzing the legacy of Greco-Roman urbanism in both European and Islamic contexts.

Key publications include monographs on the Almoravid and Almohad empires, collaborative works on religious minorities under the Almohads, and interdisciplinary analyses of Islamic urban planning. Her research has been supported by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.

• Runner-up, Longman–History Today Book of the Year Award (2009)
• Honourable Mention, British Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize (2010)

Professor Bennison actively engages with public scholarship through appearances on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time and television documentaries like Europe’s Lost Civilisation and The Ottomans, making medieval Islamic history accessible to wide audiences.