@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 @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 — 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
27.09.2025 13:29 — 👍 11 🔁 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 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
17.07.2025 15:28 — 👍 3 🔁 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 📌 0New 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
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!
13.01.2025 15:07 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:
13.01.2025 15:07 — 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
manuscript showing a sectional map from al-Idrisi. It is worn in the middle with some water damage near the top. The map has a gold border with notes in Arabic in red and black ink around the margins. Within the border are two bodies of water in blue with light blue waves. Rivers cross the land in lines of blue. Land is not colored except mountains, in green, burnt orange, pink, & red. Arabic text in red identifies seas and regions; cities are noted in black. The map shows the south and east of France from Toulouse (top right) to Burgundy (bottom right), separated by the Alps from northern and central Italy, located between the Mediterranean (top) and Adriatic (bottom) Seas.
New article alert!
Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddima offers the most extended reading of a series of maps known from medieval literature. In this article, Alfred Hiatt parses Ibn Khaldūn’s text alongside manuscripts of al-Idrīsī’s 12th-cent. geography, prompting questions about Ibn Khaldūn’s art of history
as always, you don't need to be a member of @mideastmedieval.bsky.social to read & submit! 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!
www.middleeastmedievalists.com
The 2024 issue includes 3 conference reports on Sasanian studies, an interdisciplinary study of Baghdad, and comparative empires. And 3 book reviews on Ibāḍi texts, a translation of Ibn al-Muʿtazz, & Berber Empires
20.12.2024 17:31 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0We published an extensive pedagogy file on medieval Georgian coinage
20.12.2024 17:31 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0UW had its first round table in 2024! It was on the Global Middle Ages with nine thought-provoking contributions
20.12.2024 17:31 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0In 2024, we published ten peer-reviewed research articles on wide-reaching topics such as the miḥna, an Ibāḍī khuṭba, Middle Armenian, divinatory lots, ḥadīth transmissions, tile revetments, poetry, & emotion. Here is the compilatory thread!
20.12.2024 17:31 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
We published the remarks of the 2023 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Middle East Medievalists (@mideastmedieval.bsky.social), acknowledging the significance of the work of Carole Hillenbrand
journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/al...
We close out the 2024 issue with a thousand and one thanks to our authors, reviewers, & readers! 618 pages of research articles, thought pieces, pedagogy file, conference reports & book reviews. here is a master thread that describes them all! 🧵⬇️
Share & follow because 2025 is going to bring more!
UW pedagogy files focus on primary sources, meant to invite instructors to diversify what we teach in the classroom.
always entirely open access, read and share here!
Included in the file are coins that help complicate stories of Empire by showing how students can think with them cross-culturally. Shown here: Queen Tʻamar’s coin (c. 1200 CE) w/ the title Queen of Queens (ملكة الملكات) in Arabic. Others show Byzantine-inspired iconography
19.12.2024 19:18 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Check out Stephen Rapp’s pedagogy file on medieval Georgian coins to use in undergraduate classes!
This example combines familiar format: “there is no god but God alone, who has no associate; Muhammad is the messenger of God” in Arabic, w/ Georgian margin “Christ, exalt Bagrat, king of the Apʻxaz”
