I'll be teaching Chaghatay literature at this upcoming summer school, designed to offer an opportunity for students of Persian, Turkic, and Urdu literatures to be acquainted with the shared Persianate literary tradition interlingually and intertextually. ferdowsi.org/ferdowsi-summer…

On some Persian sources of Himalayan histories, and brief thoughts on why the the Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura problem is particularly difficult. Link in comment.

If you have at least lower intermediate level Persian, come to Yerevan this summer and I will teach you how to understand Bāburnāma and other texts in the original Chaghatay already at our second session. Sign up here ferdowsi.org/ferdowsi-summer…

Imagine a 14th-century "universal" prayer The 1348 Stele of Sulaiman from #Dunhuang features the Buddhist mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum" in 6 scripts: Sanskrit, Tibetan, Old Uyghur, 'Phags-pa, Tangut, & Chinese A stunning relic of Yuan Dynasty multiculturalism!

📢 Deadline Extension Good news for prospective students! The deadline for the Shapoorji Pallonji Scholarships at SOAS has been extended ⏳—giving you more time to apply for this exciting opportunity. 💡 Explore eligibility and apply here: 👉 soas.ac.uk/study/student-lif…

Lettre envoyé en 1393 par le souverain mongol musulman Toqtamish Khan rappelant au souverain de Lituanie-Pologne d’honorer les obligations fiscales à la Horde et de laisser les marchands circuler librement dans son territoire La lettre est écrite en turc avec l’alphabet ouighour

I am pleased to share that the Editorial for the special issue ‘A Sociolinguistics of Islam: Exploring Multilingualism & Meaning in Faith’ is now online:

Still time to sign up! If you have lower intermediate Persian, we will teach you how to read and understand Urdu and Chaghatay within a week. For my Chaghatay part, I will also initiate you to modern Uyghur and Uzbek at the end of the course.

Great work, but I wait for the day when scholars of Islam stop seeing the Hui through the Orientalistic lens of 'Islam mixed with Confucianism/Taoism'. Liu Zhi is great, but enough of Liu Zhi. Do something beyond the 'Hui Confucianism' cliché. It's interesting how the Hui are never seen as Muslims proper by these scholars. Instead, we're treated as a perennial anomaly that needs its local influences highlighted in every single abstract. The research community never seem quite as eager to perform this clinical dissection on other communities - can you imagine a mainstream discourse on South Asian Islam, for example, that constantly reminds us how it's hybridised with Hinduism? It seems that only the Hui are constantly reminded of a 'composite identity' by Western/Westernised academia which seeks to justify with such a reminder an endless cycle of Orientalist fascination.

The best video anyone has made about the Sinophone Muslims (Hui/Dungans). It's short, but richer in information than the mainstream Western academic output on Islam in China. youtube.com/watch?v=cHEvX7TM…

New open-access book: The Zoroastrian World. Download the PDF direct from the publisher: taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-e…

RT @khalidsyossef: New Approaches to Ilkhanid History ed. Timothy May et al. BRill 2020 archive.org/details/nati_202… PDF 🎯 t.co/bu9WjNo…

If you’re in London next Monday (13 April), you’re welcome to join us at this event and hear how photographer Peter Sanders travelled across Islamic China to take the exquisite pictures in his book.

Please spread the word! The Manchu Studies Group is pleased to once again offer online Manchu courses at the beginning and intermediate levels in summer 2026. Application deadline is MAY 11th for both courses. manchustudiesgroup.org/2026/…

A reminder that this unique opportunity to explore Persian, Chaghatay, and Urdu literatures together this summer (6-31 Jul) in Yerevan is still open for applications. If you have lower intermediate Persian and want to transfer your skills to reading Chaghatay and Urdu, this course is for you. As for my part, I'll guide you through ʿAlī Šēr Navāʾī's prose and poetry and Baburnāma, amongst others, and initiate you to modern Uzbek and Uyghur.

A priceless source for the study of Islam in SE China.

One day left till this Spring School!

The name of Yerevan, ryβʾn (poss. vocalisation Rēwān), in the Sogdian narrative on Manichaean missionary history.

After 7 years, The Oxford Handbook of Kurdish Linguistics, finally in print ( link below)! Destepirtûka Oxfordê ya Zimannasiya Kurdî niha hatiye çapkirin! دەستەکتێبی ئۆکسفۆڕد بۆ زمانەوانیی کوردی لە ژێر چاپە! #Kurdish #Kurdishlanguage #Kurdishliterature #Kurdî #کوردستان #کوردی

Exciting new publication! ‘Since the initial encounter between China and the Islamic world in the seventh century, Muslims arriving from the west and south have served as a vital catalyst for the advancement of successive Chinese dynasties, while embedding a rich and diverse cultural heritage across the region. This book explores how these individuals and their descendants navigated their relationship with Chinese civilization and to what extent they reshaped the fabric of Chinese society.’ harvard-yenching.org/researc…