Ulrike Freitag is a historian of the modern Middle East and director of the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin, in conjunction with a professorship of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. She has worked on modern Middle Eastern historiography, on Arab networks in the Indian Ocean realm and currently conducts research on the urban history of Jeddah.

Malte Fuhrmann is a historian at the Orient Institute Istanbul. He has published extensively on German colonialism and on Mediterranean port cities.

Nora Lafi is a historian of the Ottoman Empire at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. She is currently working on a research project on urban rules and norms in Cairo, Aleppo and Tunis.

Florian Riedler is a historian with a specialisation for the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. Among his research interests are migration and urban history.