Omar Imady is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews, and the managing editor of Syria Studies, the Centre’s journal. Imady, who was born in Damascus, is the author, co-author and editor of several works on Syria, including The Rise and Fall of Muslim Civil Society; The Syrian Uprising: Domestic Origins and Early Trajectory; Syria at War: Five Years On; and Syria at War: Eight Years On. Imady is also a novelist and his novels have been translated into several languages. David W. Lesch is the Ewing Halsell Distinguished Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author and/or editor of sixteen books, the most recent being Syria: A Modern History (2019); The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History (2019); and Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad (2013). David Commins is professor of History and Benjamin Rush Chair in the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He received a Fulbright-Hays doctoral dissertation research grant to study Muslim religious reformers in the late Ottoman period at Damascus University in Syria, and he has published several books on the Middle East.