Elisa Giunchi holds an MPhil degree in Islamic studies and a PhD degree in History (University of Cambridge). She is currently Professor at the University of Milan, Italy, where she teaches courses on the history of the Middle East. Her areas of expertise are the contemporary history of Pakistan and Afghanistan. She has authored several articles, book chapters and books. Her most recent monograph is Il pashtun armato: la diffusione di armi in Afghanistan e il declino dell’impero britannico (1880-1914) (Mondadori, 2021), which has won the national prize Corsena 2022 for historical monographs. 

Nicola Melis is Associate Professor at the University of Cagliari (Italy) and an expert in Near Eastern and Ottoman history. Among his publications are “Some observations on the concept of dār al-ʿahd in Ottoman context (Sixteenth-Seventeenth centuries)” in Dār al-islām / dār al-ḥarb Territories, People, Identities, Edited by G. Calasso, and G. Lancioni (Leiden: Brill, 2017); “L’Impero ottomano alla Conferenza di Berlino (1884-85): imperialismo e anti imperialismo all’epoca di Abdülhamid II”, Afriche e orienti, 31 (2), 2019: 32-50, and “The Ottoman Africa and the Ottomans in Africa”, in Eurasian Studies (Brill), 21 (2), 2023. 

Sean Oliver-Dee is a Research Fellow in religion and policymaking at the University of Oxford where he lectures and tutors in ‘Contemporary Islam’ as well as ‘Religion and the Contemporary World’. He consults with the British government, the EU and international NGOs on religion and policymaking on issues of citizenship and identity for faith communities. Apart from the chapter Sean has published in the Abolition of the Caliphate, 1924: Debates and Implications (2025) he has written four books and numerous articles. He used to be the Interreligious Advisor for the Church of England’s Diocese of Peterborough and served as the Inter-religious Affairs Researcher for the Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Representative to the EU.