Fahad Ahmad Bishara
Rouhollah Ramazani Associate Professor of Arabian Peninsula and Gulf Studies, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia
Fahad Ahmad Bishara teaches Global Legal History at the Law School. He specializes in the economic and legal history of the Indian Ocean and Islamic world. His book, A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2017) is a legal history of economic life in the Western Indian Ocean, told through the story of the Arab and Indian settlement and commercialization of East Africa during the 19th century. It was the recipient of the J. Willard Hurst Prize (awarded by the Law and Society Association), the Jerry Bentley prize (awarded by the World History Association) and the Peter Gonville Stein book award (given by the American Society for Legal History). He is currently writing an Indian Ocean history told from the deck of a 20th-century dhow, drawing on the archives of a number of merchant and dhow captain families from Kuwait.