Student-initiated petition to save the BA in Theology and Religion at the University of Nottingham. Please do sign. www.change.org/p/stop-the-r...

Delighted that our Theology & Religion courses are ranked in the top ten of @thetimes.com UK University Rankings 2026 League Table! More: tinyurl.com/55ddyx84. #colleagues #happy #success #trs #theology #religion

I am delighted to announce that my co-authored article on Mamluk maqamas on #BlackDeath has just been published in a lovely special issue of JAIS. journals.uio.no/JAIS/article... #plague #MedievalSky #GlobalMiddleAges #EnvironmentalHistory #histmed 1/2

Look what's finally out in the world!

This is much more comprehensive than my own list, and reassuringly familiar from my experience of marking. I’ll be sharing the list with my students, both to think about writing for different audiences (encyclopaedia articles) and being aware of the weakness of LLM generated text.

I collected some materials on critical AI from my perspective; hope it's useful: olivia.science/ai "CAIL is as an umbrella for all the prerequisite knowledge required to have an expert-level critical perspective, such as to tell apart nonsense hype from true theoretical computer scientific claims"

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Starting a new thread to collect critical perspectives on AI, as they are articulated dozens of times every day and appear repeatedly on my timeline. I can't read everything right away, but if, like me, you want to stay up to date, then this might help a bit:

Catarina Belo and I published an obituary for Yayha Michot in the 'Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association'. Pdf download link in the first comment. doi.org/10.1515/jiqs...

Just received proofs of my forthcoming entry on T.W. Arnold. Yay! It includes a review of Arnold's life, works, and legacy followed by a substantive review of his best known work, The Preaching of Islam, and its legacy.

My new book chapter open access: 'God as an Empirical Entity: The Expanded Scope of Sense Perception in Sunnī Traditionalist Spatialism'. www.jstor.org/stable/10.33... In a great volume edited by @ramonharvey.bsky.social and Safaruk Chowdhury.

"Consider the implications if ChatGPT started saying “I don’t know” to even 30% of queries ... Users accustomed to receiving confident answers to virtually any question would likely abandon such systems rapidly."

This is a desperately ignorant position from UUK that endangers research that benefits grassroots communities and ignores the fact that much knowledge-building is incremental and begins with small investigations that provide proofs of concept and space to develop ideas:

The idea that the only worthwhile research is large-scale and externally funded risks generating volumes of shallow, soundbite, fashion-led content with inadequate empirical underpinning and limited audiences outside of policy echo chambers.

An issue of the Monist has just appeared devoted to Ibn Sīnā/Avicenna! A great lineup of authors, and I'm honored to be part of it, having written a paper with Michael Noble about the reception of the idea of the Active Intellect. academic.oup.com/monist/issue... #philsky #avicenna #ibnsina

PUBLIC! New episode 1135, with Dr. Ian James Kidd. We talk about philosophical misanthropy. #Philosophy YouTube: youtu.be/qMjDupmcxEM Podcast: bit.ly/3HpAfIe #philosophy #misanthropy #humanity #ethics #pessimism

👀 www.bloomsbury.com/us/cotexts-a...

I’m thrilled to share my first-ever academic publication, in volume 10 of Philological Encounters, entitled “The Philological Philanthropy of Muḥammad Naṣīf (1885–1971): Arabic Editions, Salafi Islam, and State-making in the Hijaz.” doi.org/10.1163/2451...

Just saw that this was posted by one of my favorite Islamic Studies/History podcasts. This is a clip, focused on the contemporary scene, of a longer conversation in which Islamic da’wa (preaching/proselytization) is defined and examined from the Qur’an to the present. 🗃️

PUBLIC! Prof Jon Hoover's new video series, 'Exploring the Qu'ran' - 👉text and transmission 👉interpretation 👉themes 👉the daily life of Muslims 👉interfaith relations Video 1: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHl4... #islam #theology #quran #religion

My review of Adrien Candiard's book on Ibn Taymiyya has been published. www.academia.edu/130334749/Re...

New Blog Post: "Did Muhammad Exist? An Academic Response to a Popular Question" islamicorigins.com/did-muhammad...

What kind of history of #philosophy do we need for the 21st century? #Otd in 2024, as the first woman ever to be appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, Sabrina Ebbersmayer replied to this in her inaugural lecture, published #openaccess in SATS: doi.org/10.1515/sats...

Much of what we know about everyday reading practices in #Arabic writing cultures comes from audition certificates. We make these valuable #manuscripts accessible to research on an online platform. A new version now offers #OpenAccess to over 5000 sources: uhh.de/csmc-acp

Starting next Thursday! "Medieval Warfare in the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia" In co-operation with @medievalists.bsky.social I will be running this five session online course. For more information and to get involved see👇 medievalstudies.thinkific.com/courses/warf...

Some seem to (really) not like Lapidus’s History of Islamic Societies. Well, I disagree. There’s a lot that’s valuable in this monumental work now in 3rd ed. In particular, it’s loaded w/ analytical categories & distinctions which are “good to think with” & great for undergrad teaching. 1/

Ibn Taymiyya as described by his contemporary Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi:

I'm proud to be the first follower of the Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies (NISIS), which has just joined BlueSky. Please follow them at @nisis-school.bsky.social.

My tribute to Prof Yahya Michot, RIP, posted earlier today on Facebook "I have learned with sadness that Prof Yahya Michot passed away yesterday after a long illness. May he rest in peace. It was my great privilege to meet him on several occasions and

Prof Yahya Michot passed away yesterday, 1 April. He was a renowned scholar of Ibn Sina and Ibn Taymiyya. RIP www.hartfordinternational.edu/news-events/...

"Salafi Muslims are going into politics instead of trying to change the world through religious education or jihadi violence", by Guy Eyre: theconversation.com/salafi-musli...

One phrase we hear a lot in the current Humanities crisis (and in some other disciplines) is 'academic sustainability'. It sets my teeth on edge. /1

REF2029: concerns about the implications of decoupling | The English Association : Please read this important joint letter we have written (on behalf of us, our chair @jennyrichards.bsky.social ) along with @ies-sas.bsky.social & @univeng.bsky.social englishassociation.ac.uk/ref2029-conc...

A volume to look forward to in 2025! Everything by Stéphane Lacroix that I have read is simply outstanding. "Twilight of the Saints. The History and Politics of Salafism in Contemporary Egypt". Columbia University Press, July 2025. cup.columbia.edu/book/twiligh... #Egypt #Salafism

"In other words, to use the short-cut effectively rather than mindlessly, you need to know how to do it without the short-cut. Universities — and students — take note." www.ft.com/content/82d5...

A generous gift from @nicmorton.bsky.social: "The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources" ed. Elizabeth Lapina & Nicholas Morton. An incredibly rich collection of studies and a salutary reminder that scriptures have long been used for the most nefarious of purposes.

SCHOOLS! We do philosophy in schools, offer workshops, and work with schools in the Nottinghamshire region. Read more: www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/d... www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/d... #philosophy #theology #religion #schools #teaching #nottingham #nottinghamshire

Thrilled to receive a copy of: "Ibn Taymiyya" (Makers of the Muslim World series) from Jon Hoover @jhoover04.bsky.social @oneworldbooks.bsky.social I'm really excited to find out more about this fascinating scholar living at such an important juncture in Middle Eastern history!

The new, open access volume of the "Heirs of Avicenna" sourcebook series is out! About 600 pages of translated material on later Islamic logic and epistemology! brill.com/display/titl... You can see all the original texts for this and the first volume here: www.heirsofavicenna.net #philsky

Better title: 20 things the British government is doing to improve the country.

Marks deanonymised. It’s nice to see a really strong correlation between attendance and achievement, perhaps unsurprisingly. Come to lectures and seminars! I will literally tell you how to do well.

Our 22nd volume is now available in print, hardback, and withing the online database: brill.com/display/titl...

Paperback! Hadith Commentary: Continuity and Change, is now available to pre-order in paperback! edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-hadith-... 30% off when ordering direct from EUP — code is PAPER30.

My current project is collecting a database of vocalised Quranic manuscripts, to study which reading traditions they reflect. A large number (likely the majority) do not represent any known reading traditions from the literary tradition. A thread on one such a reading type. 🧵

My interview with Hadi al-Lawati. Interview in English with Arabic subtitles. Mostly on Ibn Taymiyya's theology but a bit about Ayatollah Mutahhari on the problem of evil and a few other things. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nMx...

Here's an interview in which I discuss the beginnings of philosophy in the Islamic world, with Turkish subtitles! www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UMX...

24 Persian miniatures of the Mongols for Advent

Testing BlueSky’s capacity for historical threads! A thread about my recent paper on Ibn Fadlan, (not) the Vikings, & 10th c. Eurasian trade & diplomacy. Read if you like medieval history, Middle Eastern history, Iranian history, numismatics, economic history, & investigative historiography! 1/?

Alright, I wrote a rant about my feelings about the Global Middle Ages as institutional, historiographical, and moral paradigm. You can read it here. journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/al...

The final two videos are now out. See my replies for the links.