@alusuralwusta.bsky.social
Journal of Middle East Medievalists (@mideastmedieval.bsky.social), a peer-reviewed, open-access journal on the medieval Middle East. Edited by Zayde Antrim (zaydeantrim.bsky.social) & Alison Vacca (@medievalqabq.bsky.social)
as always, you don't need to be a member of Middle East Medievalists to read/submit to al-ʿUsur al-wusta. however, membership dues help keep the journal running. please consider becoming a MEMber today. while you’re at it, check out all the other stuff MEM is up to!
28.01.2026 21:43 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
28.01.2026 21:43 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Have you ever wondered what a Sasanian city sounded like? We can imagine the sounds of the past if we pay close attention to material, historical, & archaeological sources. Check out this new article on the soundscapes of Eranshahr-- & be sure to download the sound file for an immersive experience
28.01.2026 21:43 — 👍 27 🔁 15 💬 1 📌 3
as always, you don't need to be a member of @mideastmedieval.bsky.social to read/submit to al-ʿUsur al-Wusta. however, membership dues help keep the journal running. please consider becoming a MEMber today. while you’re at it, check out all the other stuff MEM is up to!
08.12.2025 17:20 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0UW is open-access: please read and share these publications (and more!) on our site. We look forward to new horizons in 2026!
08.12.2025 17:20 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The 2025 issue also includes a pedagogy file by Sylvia Wu on mosque architecture in China, aimed at helping to diversify the types of sources available in the undergraduate classroom.
08.12.2025 17:20 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
We also published an Arabic edition of Kitāb al-Safar, a book on the management of travel by a Yemeni Rasulid Sultan. Edited by Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Jāzim w/ forward by Danuel Varisco.
08.12.2025 17:20 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The 2025 issue includes UW’s second-ever roundtable! “A Sea of Sorcery” asks historians to consider what we gain by thinking of the past alongside works of fiction, focusing on Shannon Chakraborty’s Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi.
The roundtable is also on Ottoman History Podcast!
The thematic dossier on the Indian Ocean was guest edited by Jyoti Balachandaran. It includes peer-reviewed research articles on Blackness in Arabic & Chinese sources; engagements btw Mamluk Cairo & Sultanates of India; an Indian jurist in Mamluk Cairo; and the idea of an Indian Ocean “world”
08.12.2025 17:20 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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! 🧵
as always, you don't need to be a member of @mideastmedieval.bsky.social
to read/submit to al-ʿUsur al-wusta. however, membership dues help keep the journal running. please consider becoming a MEMber today. while you’re at it, check out all the other stuff MEM is up to!
Matt Melvin-Koushki's new article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
29.10.2025 19:15 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Imperial Islam is Moon-worshiping—but Sun-worshiping too, straining algorithmically for the stars. Symbolized by 'Ali and Jesus, early modern Persianate Selenocentrism and Heliocentrism are Hermetically useful global-comparative categories for decolonizing the historiography of science and empire.
29.10.2025 19:15 — 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 1
as always, you don't need to be a member of @mideastmedieval.bsky.social to read/submit to al-ʿUsur al-wusta. however, membership dues help keep the journal running. please consider becoming a MEMber today. while you’re at it, check out all the other stuff MEM is up to!
27.09.2025 13:29 — 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
27.09.2025 13:29 — 👍 12 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 1
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]
as always, you don't need to be a member of @mideastmedieval.bsky.social to read/submit to al-ʿUsur al-wusta. however, membership dues help keep the journal running. please consider becoming a MEMber today. while you’re at it, check out all the other stuff MEM is up to!
17.07.2025 15:28 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
17.07.2025 15:28 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
New article alert!
The exploits of the ʿudhrī lovers Jamīl and Buthayna are well known, full of potential for romance and scandal and violence. This article asks how such celebrated stories read differently when read with an eye to Buthayna’s experiences instead of Jamīl’s performances
as always, you don't need to be a member of @mideastmedieval.bsky.social to read/submit to al-ʿUsur al-wusta. however, membership dues help keep the journal running. please consider becoming a MEMber today. while you’re at it, check out all the other stuff MEM is up to!
10.07.2025 19:23 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
10.07.2025 19:23 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
New article alert!
How can we rethink word stress in Classical Arabic? This article looks to an unexpected source: the traditional recitation of metra in Persian metrics. This evidence clarifies controversial patterning in Classical Arabic, with implications for Proto-Arabic word stress, as well
We affirm that our use of Columbia Libraries open-access publishing is in solidarity with students, faculty, and staff protesting genocide and calling for justice in Palestine.
08.04.2025 21:46 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The Editors of @alusuralwusta.bsky.social endorse @mesa1966.bsky.social's March 13 Statement on the repression of academic freedom and March 28 Joint Statement regarding Columbia.
08.04.2025 21:46 — 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
as always, you don't need to be a member of @mideastmedieval.bsky.social to read/submit to al-ʿUsur al-wusta. however, membership dues help keep the journal running. please consider becoming a MEMber today. while you’re at it, check out all the other stuff MEM is up to!
21.01.2025 15:56 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
21.01.2025 15:56 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
New article alert!
Explore the history of 15th-century Diyarbakır with us today! This new article relies on literary & epigraphic sources to tell a story of Aqquyunlu rulers & their relationship to the famous Armenian bishop, painter, & poet Mkrtičʻ Nałaš
[shown here: remains at nearby Ergani]
as always, you don't need to be a member of @mideastmedieval.bsky.social to read/submit to al-ʿUsur al-wusta. however, membership dues help keep the journal running. please consider becoming a MEMber today. while you’re at it, check out all the other stuff MEM is up to!
15.01.2025 18:55 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
15.01.2025 18:55 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
map of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Armenia including Gołtʻn along the Araxes
New article alert!
We invite you to explore a text composed in the northern reaches of the Caliphate in 744: the Armenian martyrology of Vahan of Gołtʻn. This article includes a translation and intro that analyzes the text’s construction of the Umayyad world and Armenian experiences within it