apologies-- it isn't *my* first article, but rather the first @alusuralwusta.bsky.social article of the year 😆

first article of 2026! and this one comes with a sound file to imagine the chatter & noises that filled the air of a Sasanian city.

🎉 publication day! 🎉

editions & translations of the correspondence btw Umar b. Abd al-Aziz and Leo the Isaurian in medieval Latin, Christian Arabic, Muslim Arabic, Aljamiado, Armenian & early modern Latin. plus the intro to explain how they're all related!

open access & available here:

Thanks to all authors, reviewers, & readers as we close out issue 33!

We published 550 pages in 2025: 7 articles; a thematic dossier w/ 4 more articles; a roundtable; an Arabic edition; a pedagogy file; 7 book reviews; & some short communications.

Here’s a thread to gather some highlights! 🧵

I’ll post with the link once it’s live. the volume will be open access, as is its companion volume on the eighth-century Armenian text that started this whole project [published in 2024, linked here]

selfie showing the six authors of the Umar-Leo book, each holding a glass of Guiness

of course, this sort of collaborative project would not be possible w/o a great interdisciplinary team. We met in Chicago & Dublin to work, so here’s the obligatory Guinness pic

screenshot of the table of contents

screenshot of the table of contents

that gives us 6 different versions of the correspondence btw ʿUmar and Leo, some penned by Christians and others by Muslims, in 4 languages. and in the introduction to this volume we show that they’re all actually related!

manuscript page from the correspondence in Latin

but the amazing Latinists on our team found FOUR additional mss of the Latin, different from Champier’s text. 3 from Spain, 1 from Carolingian France. It’s the oldest known ms translated from Arabic

the Christian Arabic does show clear relationship to the Latin printed version, which appears in the works of a 16th-cent French scholar. This is the Latin version modern scholars already know about

manuscript page from the correspondence in Arabic; this version was composed by a Christian and champions Christianity

there is another Arabic version in 10th-cent. manuscript from Sinai, but this one reports a Christian version of the correspondence and does not show direct relationship w/ the Muslim Arabic. *it* lays out an argument abt how Christianity is correct...

manuscript page from the correspondence in Arabic; this version was composed by a Muslim and champions Islam

the Aljamiado overlaps for a few paragraphs w/ the Muslim Arabic version, a 9th or 10th-cent. manuscript once in Damascus & now in Istanbul. only one spare quire remains, also presenting Islamic doctrine

manuscript page from the correspondence in Aljamiado (Romance in Arabic script)

but the same biblical quotes—in the same order—are cited in the Aljamiado, produced by a Muslim in Spain in 2 mss (one 15th cent, one 16th). The Aljamiado has an isnad back to 8th-cent Syria. *this* version explains how Islam is correct and Christianity is not

Ilkhanid-era manuscript in Armenian, with dots down the left-hand side to show that it's a direct quote (of the correspondence)

we started with the Armenian, which was translated from a lost Greek version. It’s in an 8th-cent. text, preserved in Ilkhanid-era manuscript. It champions Christianity & explains how Islam is incorrect

gold coin of the Umayyad caliph Umar b. Abd al-Aziz, with Arabic writing in field: "there is no god except God alone, who has no associate"

gold coin of Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian, showing him holding a globus cruciger with cross on crown

in this volume, we edit and translate all known versions of the correspondence btw the Umayyad caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (717-720) & the Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741).

So far, seems reasonable. but the texts jump around the Mediterranean in circuitous paths

book cover for A Connecting Polemic in the Medieval Mediterranean, from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago. The image is a 16th-cent depiction of Leo the Isaurian, superimposed over a 10th-cent Arabic manuscript

we have a cover! super excited to get close to publication on this project!

it’s actually a pretty wild ride, so here’s a brief explanation: 👇

The business meeting marks the official launch of the @alusuralwusta.bsky.social: journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/al....

A huge thanks to @zaydeantrim.bsky.social, @medievalqabq.bsky.social and the editorial board for all of their hard work in bringing this to fruition.

congratulations and well deserved!

Caucasus Heritage Watch has started crowdfunding. Anyone unfamiliar with their work should devote some time to their website.

Satellite monitoring is currently the only way to track the condition of hundreds of Armenian cultural heritage sites in Azerbaijan. Monitoring supports accountability.

New article alert!

Join us in exploring a phrase from Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī’s 13th-c. geography. He refers to the Damādim of northeast Africa as “Tatars of the Sūdān.” Hannah Barker interrogates the racializing discourses at play in such comparative claims.

[image: British Library Or 1524]

Flyer (white paper, black type) Faculty Your Students are under attack Your TAs are under attack Your job is under attack Academia is under attack .. your silence will not save you Undergrads say... Strike Now!

points are made

Cute cat in Bukhara

I desperately wanted to stuff this one in my purse, but I was told customs would stop me

Lady in black carries colorful balloons against the backdrop of a minaret with turquoise glazed bricks.

Partial minaret with bands of glazed bricks, arches off to the side, people walking down the street by night

Enjoying an evening in Khorazm

Oh, master of spices, I await your knowledge

Oh, so you are traveling the Silk Road, then??

What the Columbia Settlement Really Means

This morning, members of the Knight Institute’s leadership team published a critical analysis of Columbia University’s settlement agreement with the Trump administration. Read the full analysis here: knightcolumbia.org/blog/what-th...

Gazafication and Genocide by Attrition in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh and the Occupied Palestinian Territories Published in Journal of Genocide Research (Ahead of Print, 2024)

“Who Remembers the Armenians?”
I remember them
and I ride the nightmare bus with them
each night
and my coffee, this morning I’m drinking it with them
You, murderer
Who remembers you?

— Najwan Darwish, Nothing More to Lose (2014)

Stop the War Now! Statement from the Faculty of the Department of Middle East Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev We, the faculty of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, issue this statement to unequivocally call for an immediate end to Israel's war crimes in Gaza. We say this as researchers of Middle East studies, whose work, among other topics, includes Palestinian studies, Israeli-Arab relations, the region's social and political conditions, its history and religious movements, but above all, as Israeli citizens living in this country. Israel's policies in Gaza and the nature of the warfare there have exceeded all human and legal standards. Israeli policy has rendered Gaza uninhabitable, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, starvation of the civilian population, destruction of civic infrastructure, health, welfare, schools, universities, and residential buildings, attacks on medical and rescue teams, and the prevention of entry by the foreign press. According to human rights organizations, the mortality rate in the Gaza Strip has created the largest orphan crisis in modern history. This mortality is partly a direct result of the policy of starvation and attacks on those seeking to obtain food for their families at aid distribution sites. This destruction is accompanied by the articulation of plans to conquer the Strip and establish a military regime there, while expelling the Palestinian population. This policy is entirely contrary to basic morality, as well as the laws of war. A consensus is emerging in the international research community that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

إيقاف الحرب الآن / بيان رأي صادرعن قسم دراسات الشرق الأوسط ق جامعة بن غوريون ق النقب نحن، أعضاء فسحم دراسات الشرق الأوسط في جامعة بن غوربون في النقب، نصدر هذا البيان مناشدين بأوضح ما يمكن: يجب أن تتوقف جرانم الحرمب الي ترذكبها إسرانيل في غزة. نقول ذلك بصغتنا باحثات وباحثين في مجال دراسات الشرق الأوسط، وأيضا بصغتنا باحثات وباحثس في الدراسات الفلسطينية، العلاقات الإسرائيلية العربية، في الوضع الاجتماي والسياسي في المنطقة، تاريخها وتاريخ ح^تها الدينية، وبالأساس كمواطنات ومواطنش نعيش في هذه البلاد. تتجاوز سياسة إسرافيل في غزة ونوع الحرب هناك كل معيار إنساني، قانوني وأخلافي. السياسة الأسراشيلية تحؤل غزة إلى مكان غير صالح للحياة، فقد أنت إلى مقتل عثرات الآلاف من الأبرياء، تجوبع السع ن المدنيش، تدمير البئ التحتية؛ مؤتسات الصحة، الرفا٥، الرمية والتعليم، التدمير المنهبي للمباني السكنية، الاعتداء عإى طوافم الأنقاذ والطواقم الطبية، وكذلك منع دخول الصحافة الأجنبية إلى غزة. حب منظمات حقوق الأنسان، فإن الوفيات في قطاع غؤة خلغت أزمة الأيتام الكبرى في التاريخ الحديث. هذ٥ الوفيات هبى نتيجة مباشرة لسياسة التجوبع والاعتداء عإى من يحاولون تاءمش الغذاء لعانعدتهم في مواقع توزيع المساعدات. كل ذلك يرافق هع خطط لاحتلال فطاع غزة ولإقامة نظام عسكري فيه يشمل تهجير السع ن الفلسطينيش منه. هذ٥ السياسة تناقض ٠كليا الأخلاق الأساسية وكذلك قوانين الحرب. في أوساط المجتمع البحي الدوني يتبلورإجماع عإى أن إسراثيل مسؤولة عن ارتع ب إبادة جماعية.

The Ben Gurion University Middle Eastern Studies department statement - now in English and in Arabic.

Israel's policies in Gaza and the nature of the warfare there have exceeded all human and legal standards.

تتجاوز سياسة إسرائيل في غزة ونوع الحرب هناك كل معيار إنساني، قانوني وأخلافي

60,000 Gazans have been killed. 18,500 were children. These are their names. Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one per hour since the war began.

This is the Washington Post (yes, that one): names in Arabic and English, and ages, of all 18,500 children killed in Gaza, plus portraits and stories where available: www.washingtonpost.com/world/intera...

Image of the cover of Kindred Voices by Michael Pifer, showing Rumi Seljuk tiles

Kindred Voices by Michael Pifer (2021)

Poem translated from Middle Armenian with two lines left in Turkish: Someone rode a gray stallion, She came and passed by, daring as a Mongol, She has eyes that would conquer Tabriz, Her eyebrows bore away my mind. She dropped an apple. I paid no heed. She dropped another. I stooped and picked it up. (In Turkish:) You are a Muslim, daughter of a mulla. I am Hovhannes, son of a priest. (In Armenian:) What does your apple have to do with me?

The girl's response, with the Armeno-Turkish written out in modern Turkish script. (In Turkish:) Come along, come along, infidel's son. Drop the absurd talk with us! You are Hovhannes, son of a priest, I am Muslim, daughter of a mulla. (In Armenian:) Let us love one another, it will be sweet.

I interrupt your daily existential panic to suggest reading this book on a literary history of Anatolia, blending Armenian, Persian, Turkish, Greek.

This poem switches btw Turkish & Armenian. The girl's last line is in Armenian: "Let us love one another, it will be sweet"