Amira Bennison

Amira K. Bennison is a historian of the Middle East, currently Reader in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in the University of Cambridge and fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Bennison studied history at Cambridge, graduating in 1989 before switching to Arabic. She then pursued graduate work, with an MA at Harvard in Middle Eastern Studies in 1992, and her PhD at SOAS in Moroccan History in 1996. She was a Leverhulme research fellow at the University of Manchester. She became a lecturer at Cambridge in 1997.

Bennison's book The Great Caliphs: the golden age of the ‘Abbasid empire was reviewed by Hugh N. Kennedy, who said she has "a lively and engaging style", and the book will be "the first port of call for anyone looking for an introduction to the 'golden age of Islam'."

• Amira K. Bennison. The Almoravid and Almohad Empires. Edinburgh University Press 2016. ISBN 9780748646807
• Amira K. Bennison. The Great Caliphs: the golden age of the ‘Abbasid empire. I.B.Tauris 2011. ISBN 978-1-84885-976-0
• Amira K. Bennison and Alison L. Gascoigne (editors). Cities in The pre-Modern Islamic World: the urban impact of religion, state and society. Routledge 2007. ISBN 978-0-415-55381-0
• Amira K. Bennison. Jihad and Its Interpretation in Pre-colonial Morocco: State-society Relations During the French Conquest of Algeria. Routledge 2002. ISBN 978-0-7007-1693-7