My brilliant wife has written this incisive critique of the Pope’s (mis)readings of the Hebrew Bible in his AI encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, and invites readers to reflect on the lessons we *should* draw instead: www.americamagazine.org/short-take/2...

I’ve just arrived in London and am massively jet lagged so I picked up this slim volume from my parent’s shelves as a cure for sleeplessness. Sadly for me, it’s really sharply written and quite fascinating (and hence I’m still up at 2.30).

I would love to know from friends who understand the dynamics of the South better than I do why Georgia seems to be more independent of Trumpian influence than other states. Is this impression I have correct? If so, why?

It’s been a tough quarter one way and another but received this note from a student and another just wrote to tell me he was inspired to become Islamic studies minor… these small gestures make all the difference!

"It’s one of those things that’s been going for 3,000 years, or 47 years, depending on how you count." It is striking how many of his ludicrous utterances are (more or less) grammatically correct but. upon a moment's reflection, semantically completely meaningless. A yawning chasm of idiocy.

Encountered this in my local Persian cafe… quite surprised to see such unquestioning veneration of the Trump-Bibi combine even in this evidently pro Pahlavi magazine. Also not quite sure why Churchill is working with Stalin and Xi to prop up (?) the now dead Khamanei…

Well I think I've just definitively dated the arrival of the very first enslaved people from Africa to an English colony in the Caribbean - the exact day which launched a slave plantation system that would see 3.5m people trafficked in its wake. And it seems that 400 year anniversary is upon us.

Architect Sami Angawi house in Jeddah

This is a cool read

Bizarrely an unpublished article I wrote for the now-defunct Newsweek Pakistan in 2011 has been published by The Standard (15 years later)! thestandard.com.pk/the-last-mao...

Can T-1000’s experience love? www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

As ritual studies teaches us, not all that’s “repetitive” is an evil to be eliminated. Sure some kinds of repetitiveness can be life draining. But in another way, “the repetitive” is woven into being authentically human. Rhythms of sleep and rising, learning skills or languages, mastering a craft…

Those years of graduate school training finally paying off 😅

This is an excellent, albeit brief, documentary on hereditary Muslim musicians in Pakistan who continue to sing the Sikh kirtans that their predecessors once performed in gurudwaras. www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-vu...

The six-year old is at an age where she knows that Lapin, the magical bunny who lives in the ceiling, is probably made up but the tooth fairy is definitely real.

Hamid Algar being rude about Sirhindi’s nearly unreadable prose style really made my morning.

Was told by Francis Robinson that I should think about pursuing a PhD.

One solution might be the Oxbridge model where teaching and assessment are distinct…

As I tell anyone who will listen, the incentives are completely perverse (Assuming the goal is rigorous assessment of student knowledge).

Basically, you're asking me to uphold the integrity and dignity of the school and its grading program at a personal cost to me and a potentially outsized cost to my students at the same time that the university is making clear it doesn't care that much about professors

So it all has NOTHING to do with us wanting to pat students on the back and tell them how special they are and everything to do with the fact that the costs of giving a student a C generally far outweigh any positives that come from it, nothing good happens to me or my career either.

This is so good on the NYT's "the rich don't play by the rules, why should I?" convo, and this idea of doing "so many immoral things every day", as Jia Tolentino said in that discussion, while also professing "moral injury" as you do them thepointmag.substack.com/p/shooting-a...

on the militarized space & anti-Muslim violence of San Diego & the expansive militarism of the US war machine, a "geography of war making," says Dr. Esmat Elhalaby, who has lost over 2 dozen family members in Gaza, and now more loved ones in San Diego www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/san...

It is wild to me that I am in charge of this collection: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_B... Unfortunately, because it was rolled into special collections, it lost its dedicated librarian. Now, it is only occasionally used. I feel as a queer, dyslexic, eccentric, I really should get people into it.

Big Sam till the end of the Parliament??

So much death and destruction and suffering imposed *for nothing*, for old men's dreams of glory and vain ambitions of achieving their Gender. Absolutely bottom tier stuff.

This tech is poison: it makes everyone mistrustful and pollutes our knowledge base. Here I am wasting my time telling these people how to cheat better next time and they're probably busy pumping more effluent into our collective reservoir of knowledge.

First Monday in five weeks where I haven’t been looking after one or another sick child. Maybe I’ll actually get to do some writing today… who knows?

Gave a talk on Hindutva history, Sanskrit and AI and I think the piece is cooked enough. Historians of science and technology, ideas for which journal to submit a piece on this? 🗃️

Canvas murdabad.

Kind of surprised that this hasn't been bigger news. It's finals week for a whole lot of universities, and yet, Canvas (a learning/grading platform used by ~9,000 schools globally) is currently inaccessible because of a pay-or-have-your-data-leaked hack. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

Would love to see Aston Villa win the Europa League and Bournemouth (!) make it to the Champions League.

At last! The archived British Library blogs are viewable online. Check the index of blogs at blogs-archive.bl.uk and the hundreds of posts on the Digital Scholarship blog going back to 2013 blogs-archive.bl.uk#digital-scho...

My dept (religious studies) is under review for closure though nothing has been decided yet. The value of studying religion has never been more clear & the need to do so urgent. We are grateful for the support of @aarweb.bsky.social.

What’s happening in Texas is indeed very concerning. It is tho reminiscent (and likely derived from) the organized Islamophobic activism that followed the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy in 2010 and the included proposed bills in TN that would have banned Muslim ritual practice entirely.

today I learned (via @lrb.co.uk)

For the #Mughal scholars -- New journal with call for submissions.

In my other class, I am teaching parts of @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social's excellent book on Tablighi Jamaat today. I had not realized-or had forgotten-that Muhammad Ilyas' father was from Jhinjhana. Was reminded of the day I spent there, mostly at the Mughal-era tomb of S. Abd al-Razzaq Jhinjhanvi.

Tried to teach (my limited understanding of) Ibn Arabi's metaphysical system today to the apparent bafflement of my class. Wish I had the eloquence to do him justice...

To overcome this industrial level plagiarism perhaps we need to return to an analogue world of scholarship: hard copies of articles circulated within trusted networks (maybe with an ijaza-style system for authorization)… theamericanscholar.org/who-is-blake...

My department is hiring for a fixed-term lecturer position "with expertise in scripture, Catholic feminist and liberation theologies, and/or Latine theologies." I am, of course, happy to answer questions about the department. wd1.myworkdaysite.com/en-US/recrui...

Never forget

Reading this story of the gentrification of my beloved wust al balad broke my heart. Yes, there were buildings falling apart; yes, people used old rents to turn property into storage or rent-seek and sublet for higher amounts. But the social mix was unparalleled. monocle.com/affairs/urba...

Second this. Having regular trains from here in Santa Clara to SF is an absolute lifesaver.

Guiltily raises hand… but only going because a good friend requested that I come. Am somewhat dreading it…

I don’t think I’d quite grasped the scale of damage the Iranians inflicted on US bases across the Middle East… edition.cnn.com/2026/05/01/w...

Maybe part of the explanation is because the US driving test is so ridiculously easy? It requires the prospective driver to demonstrate only the most rudimentary skills (I say this having also taken the far more demanding UK test).

My favorite version of this was when they asked my visibly-in-labor wife to fill out lengthy forms regarding her medical history that were definitely on file.

I've just been notified by the DMV that my California driver's license is to be imminently cancelled unless I am able to provide proof of residency in the US... Anyone else had this notification?!

12 hours into horrible stomach flu. Any tips on how to stay fed/hydrated when you can’t keep anything down?