This is a really good book BTW. I used it for a homework assignment on temperance movements in the US.

Cook still doesn’t buy what the Standard Islamic Narrative reports about the opponents of Muhammad—believing that the Quranic polemic against them isn’t towards a Greco-styled polytheism but rather Abrahamic monotheist who basically lost the plot. These views are best articulated

My study assessing the authorship of a recently published doxography (Kitāb al-Maqālāt) attributed to the Muʿtazilī theologian Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī has just been published online with the Journal of Abbasid Studies.

A new history indeed! This part had me weak 😂 “The Masculine culture of the Andalusi elite was ninth-century ‘gangsta’— a testosterone-driven, wine fueled culture revolving around bling, bros, and biyatches, of biting freestyle wordplay and conspicuous consumption.” p.94

The Ismaili Electric ⚡️ Slide 🛝

Found in a bog close to the town of Ballycotton near Cork, a major Viking center of 8th- to 9th-century Ireland, this brooch is of a type popular in northwest Europe during the Carolingian period (c. 714-911). What makes it of particular interest is the seal which is set in it,

The Muhammad of Historians edited Amir-Moezzi and Tolan. Nearly 2000 pages consisting of fifty contributions addressing the problem of sources, limits of secular historiography, and hagiographical devotions.

كان الغساسنة على وعي عميق بهويتهم العربية وعملوا على إثرائها في حدود ملكهم. وفي إطار هذا الانتماء، كانت علاقتهم الوثيقة باللغة العربية هي العامل الحاسم. في الأديرة الغسانية، كان الرهبان يستخدمون العربية في مختلف أنشطتهم الأدبية والدينية.

Fresco fragments from Jawsaq al-Khaqani, the palace of the 8th Abbasid caliph, al-Mu'tasim in Samarra

Wallahi I did it all except join military.