Mubashir AK
Mubashir AK
@muba-shir.bsky.social
Islamic law & legal theory, Muslim world.
Reposted by Mubashir AK
“For Mughal emperors like Akbar and Jahangir, a tiger slain in the forest showed their dominance over nature and, more broadly, their imperial authority.” 
How the Tiger Became an Indian National Symbol
The big cat represented courage for Rajput rulers, while the Mughal emperors saw hunting it as mastering nature and the British used it to assert imperial control
newlinesmag.com
January 16, 2026 at 7:06 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
My latest book, on open access!

Ottomans and the Supernatural: Nature and the Limits of Knowledge in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire url: academic.oup.com/book/61617
Ottomans and the Supernatural: Nature and the Limits of Knowledge in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
Abstract. Man is part of nature, we say, and perhaps for most of us nature includes all that exists (at least in a tangible way—i.e. if we want to exclude
academic.oup.com
November 6, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Max Weiss on Translating the Gaza Doctor’s Words for the Times, and the Paper’s Failure to Cover His Abduction and Torture

lithub.com/how-the-new-...
How the New York Times Failed Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya
On October 29, 2023, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician and neonatologist based at Kamal Adwan hospital in the northern Gaza Strip city of Beit Lahiya, published an op-ed in the New York Times. …
lithub.com
January 15, 2026 at 8:12 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Absolutely cannot wait to see this come out next month. The editors - Asad Ahmed and his students at Berkeley - are doing groundbreaking work on the intellectual history of the Timurid/Mughal period...

resolve.cambridge.org/core/books/i...
Islamic Intellectual History in the Mughal World
Cambridge Core - South Asian History - Islamic Intellectual History in the Mughal World
resolve.cambridge.org
January 12, 2026 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
“A Blind Understanding:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:33
“A Blind Understanding:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:33
No one has peeked behind the veil of fate. / No one’s discovered destiny’s secret
dlvr.it
January 5, 2026 at 5:45 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
my book, _Islamic Ethics and Spiritual Sovereignty: Genres of Tradition in Muslim South Asia_, will be published by @undpress.bsky.social in June 2026

i'm going through the proofs, and don't see any typos in the epilogue, so sharing this 3-page essay here

undpress.nd.edu/978026821090...
January 2, 2026 at 1:46 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
🗓️ "The Library of a Cairene Scholar at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century" ▶️ Dr Feras Krimsti and Professor Konrad Hirschler welcome Professor Adam Sabra (University of California, Santa Barbara) to the #GothaManuscriptTalks this time. www.uni-erfurt.de/en/universit...
Books Left Behind: The Library of a Cairene Scholar at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century (Gotha Manuscript Talks)
Dr Feras Krimsti (Gotha Research Library) and Professor Konrad Hirschler (University of Hamburg) welcome Professor Adam Sabra (University of California, Santa Barbara) to the Gotha Manuscript Talks th...
www.uni-erfurt.de
April 24, 2024 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
The capture or rather kidnapping of Maduro is a blatant violation of the Constitution, international law and simple decency. The crudest imperialism: for no aim but the assertion of Presidential power.
January 3, 2026 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Our editors reflect on 2025 as a “year of amnesia,” curating @newlinesmag.bsky.social
stories that revisit the wars, political shocks and humanitarian crises the world quickly moved past — and insisting they be remembered rather than buried by the next headline.

mailchi.mp/newlinesmag/...
January 2, 2026 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
DISSEMINATING AL-ANDALUS

Check out "Al-Andalus y la Historia", an online free journal with the voices of experts such as J. Albarrán, B. Catlos, A. García-Sanjuán, E. Cardoso, S. Kimmel, J. Bellver, G. Wiegers and much more

New English section thanks to Ann Christys.

www.alandalusylahistoria.com
Al-Andalus y la Historia – Revista de divulgación histórica
www.alandalusylahistoria.com
November 18, 2024 at 7:01 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Jotwell Legal History latest:
Samy Ayoub, The Indispensable Nature of Islamic Legal Theory (reviewing Omar Farahat, Generality and Exception in Islamic Legal Theory: Intent, Language, and the Jurist’s Role, 20 Am. J. Compar. L. 1 (2024)), legalhist.jotwell.com/the-indispen....
January 21, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Pious Labor (@ucpress.bsky.social ) reviewed in the AHR by @farinamir.bsky.social . I've been fortunate that the book has been read by several thoughtful and generous reviewers, and I'm especially thrilled to see this one.

academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...
🗃️
September 14, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
I am especially proud of the Dec 2025 issue of *CSSAAME* @dukepress.bsky.social with the special issue "Technologies of War* (edited by Madiha Tahir and Adrien Zakar) and the Kitabkhana on Hafsa Kanjwal's *Colonizing Kashmiri* (2024) <--free to read!
Volume 45 Issue 3 | Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
December 22, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Lovely anecdote from Vikram Seth’s Two Lives where he discusses his German Jewish aunt crying after being served Marmite at the home of the famous Islamic studies scholar AJ Arberry where she worked after fleeing Berlin in 1939. #Marmite #Britishdelicacies
December 28, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
NEW: Across the Middle East, graffiti artists are claiming space and painting themselves back into the landscape, writes Ibrahim Absar for @newlinesmag.bsky.social
newlinesmag.com/essays/the-c...
‘The Course of Empire’ Reimagined in Middle Eastern Graffiti
Across the region, street artists are claiming space and painting themselves back into the landscape
newlinesmag.com
December 26, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
“You will not Kill our Imagination:” Palestinian Memoirist Saeed Teebi
“You will not Kill our Imagination:” Palestinian Memoirist Saeed Teebi
Teebi’s efforts to come to terms with the failures and powers of language to narrate a Palestinian story that can stand for itself
dlvr.it
December 23, 2025 at 5:28 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Grateful for these kind and thoughtful recent reviews of my book from Finbarr Barry Flood and Usman Hamid in the Journal of Islamic Studies and in Medieval Encounters.

doi.org/10.1093/jis/...

brill.com/view/journal...
Traces of the Prophets: Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam, By Adam Bursi
The past two decades have seen an extraordinary efflorescence of scholarship on the history of relics in Islam and the practices associated with them. Rele
doi.org
December 22, 2025 at 4:33 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
“Another Cup to Drown the Memory:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:30
“Another Cup to Drown the Memory:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:30
Since my advent here on that first day wasn't up to me, but my unwilling departure has been firmly decreed...
dlvr.it
December 22, 2025 at 7:25 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Just finished reading this article! It offers a highly illuminating historical analysis of the polarization between Islamists and leftists in Egypt. A must-read for those working on polarization in Egypt!
July 19, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
Western elites fear a 'globalised intifada' because they are its targets, not Jews
open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...
Western elites fear a 'globalised intifada' because they are its targets, not Jews
While western publics are being demonised as racists, the technology and strategies used today against Palestinians will become the walls of tomorrow’s prisons for us all
open.substack.com
December 21, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
One of my favorite books/stories in MENA studies is about the encounter of Americans with large numbers of Eastern Christians for the first time, and their amazement that the latter had lots of interest in Western culture, philosophy, etc. but close to zero interest in conversion
December 7, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Reposted by Mubashir AK
“The situation today remains volatile, with no guarantees that Syria will survive.”

Yassin al-Haj Saleh looks back at the 20th century and the unruly history weighing on the “new” Syria, for @newlinesmag.bsky.social
The Unruly History That Weighs on the New Syria
To understand the challenges the country faces today, it's helpful to look back at three previous ‘beginnings’ in the 20th century
newlinesmag.com
December 5, 2025 at 6:00 PM