A great discussion about the Speech of the Birds (Mantiq al-Tayr) with @miladmilani. Thank you Milad! www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2gu...

Open to all... Title: The Nobility of Hussain in Islamic Ethics: An Analysis of Karbala Narratives Time: Friday, April 25, 11 AM Location: HDS Divinity Hall, Room 211. This is an in person event with a hybrid option. Registration is required: bit.ly/nobilityofhu...

Looking through our YouTube archive...have you watched Professor Carrie Vout (Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge) discuss the painted cast of the Peplos Kore in the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge? #ClassicsBluesky 🏺 www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVaL...

As a neuroscientist who studies urban stress, loud cars/motorcycles should be banned, or fined excessively until drivers reassess their need to broadcast their self esteem with unnecessary noise pollution. I don’t need to hear your car in my apartment.

I made a 10-minute, richly illustrated summary of Margaret Cavendish's Blazing-World (1666), a very early (some say earliest) Science Fiction novel. Please have a look and share if you like it! www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4zi...

I'm sharing my contribution to Fatemeh Keshavarz and Ahmet Karamustafa’s lovely new volume on "mystical landscapes" in Persian literature. My article is about the famous conclusion of ʿAttar's Mantiq al-Tayr (Speech of the Birds), with new translations: www.academia.edu/128241462/Th...

I think I finally have to start watching "Severance." Dr. Em Walsh (UCF) sheds light on how insights from the show can help us better understand trauma survivors: thememorypalacephil.substack.com/p/shes-not-d...

Next week’s #MondayMajlis registration link: eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Most people see repentance (tawba) as a sign of weakness—an admission of failure. But in Sufism, repentance isn’t just about avoiding sin. It’s about spiritual intelligence. Here’s why the wisest people repent the most. 🧵👇

Pacific Palisades about six weeks ago

Zahra Yousefi (Iranian, b. 1984). Untitled (2023, oil pastel on cardboard).

How does Persian poetry fit into "Islamic studies" today? That's just one question I discuss with Mojtaba Shahsavari (Univ. of Toronto) in what turned out to be a thought-provoking discussion: www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Sj...

The Moon and Venus last night

"Letters written with ink do not really exist qua letters. For the letters are but various forms to which meanings have been assigned through convention. What really and concretely exists is nothing but ink." —Toshiko Izutsu, paraphrasing Sayyid Haydar Amuli, commenting on the thought of Ibn 'Arabi

I called on you, no— you called me to you; so did I cry out to you, or did you cry out to me? —al-Ḥallāj