AMIRA K. BENNISON

Employment

2012- Reader in the History and Culture of the Maghrib, University of Cambridge.

2004-2012 Senior lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge.

1997-2004 Lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge.

1996-1997 Special Leverhulme Research Fellow, University of Manchester

Other Positions and Affiliations

2009 Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge

2009- Chair of the Degree Committee, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

2005-2007 Deputy-Chair and Chair, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

2001-2007 Director, Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge.

Education

1992-1996 PhD, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

1990-1992 AM in Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.

1985-1989 BA Honours In History and Arabic, University of Cambridge (First Class)

Research Interests

The medieval Islamic West with a focus on al-Andalus and Morocco; Maghribi modes of

legitimation and cultures of power; 18th-19th century Muslim religio-political discourse and

engagement with modernity.

Selected Recent Publications

‘Tribal identities and the formation of the Almohad élite: The salutory tale of Ibn ‘Aṭiyya’, in

Mohamed Meouak (ed.), Biografías magrebíes. Identidades y grupos religiosos, sociales y

políticos en el Magreb medieval, Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas,

2012, pp. 245-72.

‘The necklace of al-Shifa’: ‘Abbasid borrowings in the Islamic West’, Oriens 38 (2010) 251-276.

‘Almohad tawḥīd and its implications for religious difference’, In A. K. Bennison and M. A.

Gallego (eds), Religious Minorities under the Almohads, Journal of Medieval Iberian

Studies, 2: 2 (2010) pp. 195-216.

The Great Caliphs: the golden age of the ‘Abbasid empire, London: I. B. Tauris and New Haven:

Yale University Press (2009).

‘The Almohads and the Qur’an of ‘Uthman: The legacy of the Umayyads of Cordoba in the

twelfth century Maghrib’, al-Masaq 19: 2 (2007) pp.131-54.

‘The peoples of the north in the eyes of the Muslims of Umayyad al-Andalus (711-1031)’,

Journal of Global History 2: 2 (2007) pp. 157-74.

‘Power and the City in the Islamic West from the Umayyads to the Almohads’, in Bennison A. K.

and Gascoigne, A. L. (eds), Cities in the Premodern Islamic World: the Urban Impact of

Religion, State and Society, London: RoutledgeCurzon (2007) pp. 65-95.