US gov't policy on Israel/Palestine is not on the presidential ballot, has never been on it, and probably won't be on it for the foreseeable future.

Every ... single ... frame

Big Ten meeting

The recursive meme-ification (sp?) of theology... We live in an age of wonders.

Tang Dynasty《物账碑》records that a batch of Islamic glassware was used as a vessel for offering to the Buddha's real body relics by Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty (873-888).These glasswares are currently preserved in the Famen Temple Museum in Xi'an

How many generals allegedly burned their boats upon landing on soon-to-be-conquered enemy soil? Cortez, Tariq ibn Ziyad, Alexander, and who else?

الدنيا سجن المؤمن وجنة الكافر

The Lost Libraries of Tunis By L Hinrichsen The libraries of Tunis are considered lost since the sack of the city by emperor Charles V in 1535. This study reconstructs for the first time the original holdings of Tunis’ medieval libraries. [open access] degruyter.com/document/doi/1…

I'm increasingly convinced that the category *early modern* was invented by late medievalists as a way to actually get jobs in history departments.

Half of my stream support Internet Archive and oppose the current application of copyright law against them. The other half oppose OpenAI and want to see more robust copyright enforcement against them. What's the coherent policy position supposed to be here?

En-shit-ification of everything is now full swing thanks to AI. Today I noticed that Power Point is auto-generating image descriptions on my slides. The image below it described as "a map of Europe with lines". Ofc I can turn it off, but I didn't turn it on!

Join us for the launch of OCIANA 2.0! (Click the link to register to attend the Workshop virtually via Zoom) mesc.osu.edu/events/online-…

It's understandable. A lot of people fall in love with Ibn 'Asākir. (Sukaynah al-Shihābī editions are indeed top notch, if you can find them.)

One of the more star-studded manuscripts I had the pleasure of looking at today. It contains a note documenting an audition with Ibn ‘Asākir in 527, an audition note written by al-Mizzī in 671, another with Ibn Taymiyya in 684, and an undated ownership note by al-Zabīdī (d. 1205)

A friend of mine, who's a historian I greatly admire, once made the point the theology and belief are very different things. Belief is for everyone, but theology is a very difficult thing, something like most people can't do competently. Twitter convinces me he's right.

This doc called "Room 237) popped into my mind today. It's great to watch for all those clever clogs out there who believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that their pet theory about what this or that text means (and/or what its influences are) is 100% correct. youtube.com/watch?v=qmBdiG…

Loving all this content about how ChatGPT is actually Muslim. 😆

My birthplace is inspiring art. This is a good day.