Malika Dekkiche is historian of premodern Islamicate world. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Liège (Belgium) in 2011 and is now associate professor at the University of Antwerp (Department of History). Her research has been focusing on intra-Muslim diplomatic contacts in the late middle period, especially between the Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo and post-Mongol dynasties. Beyond the study of the stakes and outcomes, she has focused her research on the semiotics involved in those contacts, and on the role of diplomacy for political state formation and recognition. Her side projects also include broader issues related to chancery practices, religious patronage, and diplomatic space. She has now broadened the scope of her study to Mediterranean history. She is currently (co-)supervising the EOS funded project DiplomatiCon, A Connected History of Mediterranean Diplomacy (14th-15th centuries).

She is the co-editor of the volume Mamluk Cairo. A Crossroad for Embassies (Brill, 2019) and she currently finishing her book Keeping the Peace in Premodern Islam (to be published by EUP) and preparing a volume A World of Realms: A Long view of Diplomacy and Spatiality in the Premodern Islamicate World.