Stéphane Pradines is an archaeologist and Professor of Islamic Art, Architecture and Archaeology and the founder and Head of the Indian Ocean programme at the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) in London. Pradines is also a UNESCO, WMF and Google Arts expert for the Indian Ocean region. He is associate researcher to the CNRS Lab in Paris: UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée, Atlas of Medieval ports programme. He was the director of the excavations of the walls of Cairo (Egypt) and at excavations in the Indian Ocean (Maldives) and East Africa (Gedi in Kenya, Kilwa and Mafia in Tanzania, Mayotte in Comoros). He is now in charge of the excavations on the fort of Lahore, Pakistan (AKTC-SP). He is the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World, and he is also the editor of Earthen Architecture in Muslim Cultures (2017) and Ports and Forts of the Muslims. Coastal Military Architecture, from the Arab Conquest to the Ottoman Period (2020). His latest book is Historic Mosques in sub-Saharan Africa, from Timbuktu to Zanzibar (2022).

Farouk Topan is Professor Emeritus at the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London. He has taught at the universities of Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Riyad and the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London. He is also a writer of Swahili fiction and has published several short stories and two of his plays have been part of the school curriculum in Tanzania.