Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Fahad Ahmad Bishara specialises in the economic and legal history of the Gulf, the Indian Ocean and the Islamic world. He is the author of A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780–1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History (Cambridge University Press, 2025), as well as numerous articles on the Gulf, Indian Ocean and Islamic world. Bishara’s work approaches history through archival sources from within the region, foregrounding local perspectives on law, commerce and mobility.