Posted on by N.A. Mansour

Blogs You Should Be Adding to Your Bookmarks

By N.A. Mansour

We recently tweeted out some of our favorite blogs to follow: we threw out a couple of names you probably know and some you might not have had the chance to follow. Then our followers (and some of the people we tagged) tweeted back at us some of their favorites (particular shout-outs to Rich Heffron, Hind Makki and M Lynx Qualey). Here it is, in list form, if you don’t follow us on Twitter. Please either comment bellow on your favorites, tweet at us, or email us at hazineblog@gmail.com and we’ll update the list as we go along!

(Updated October 2019)

  • Islamic Studies/History
    • If you like manuscripts, translations, and Iberian/North -African history: Ballandalus  features Mohamad Ballan’s musings on academic life and whatever sources he’s checking out, spanning early Islam to later Iberian and North African history.
    • If you want bite-sized bits of early Islamic and pre-Islamic history: Ian D. Morris writes up well-cited pieces on subjects across the political, cultural, and social history of Islam.
    • If you’re into water and how it connects people and ideas: Nate Mathews’s blog focuses on the histories, religions, cultures, and the exchange of ideas between Africa & the Indian Ocean world.
    • If you’re into the Quran and the material culture of books: Ahmed Shaker blogs in Arabic and English, featuring his own musings on the field of Qur’anic studies as well as interviews with other scholars.
    • If you’re an all-around Islamic studies nerd: David Vishanoff blogs on diverse issues in Islamic studies, with a healthy dose of digital humanities.
    • If you want a deep dive into Ibadi history with a dose of manuscripts to boot: Paul Love, a self-described  “historian of northern Africa with an interest in book history, manuscript studies, codicology, libraries, and intellectual networks” contributes to the burgeoning field of Ibadi Studies at the aptly titled ibadistudies.com.
    • If you want to follow a scholar on an adventure through books and their owners: Torsten Wollina does a digest of his academic work  on Muhammad Ibn Tulun, in the process offering commentary on manuscript study in Arabic-speaking contexts.
    • If you’re a foodie: Anny Gaul takes us along as she does research on Middle Eastern and North African food, using archives, cookbooks and oral history.
    • If you want to catch up on your readings in South Asian History: Lekh South Asia features reviews of all the latest publications in the field of South Asian history.
    • If you want small doses of the  urban history of Cairo: La Fabrique du Caire Moderne is a tri-lingual (Arabic, English, French) blog featuring short-pieces on the urban history of Cairo.
    • If you want geography and graphics folded into your history: Mid-Afternoon Map, spearheaded by Nicholas Danfort, features commentary of varying lengths on images of equally varying origins and topics.
    • If you want insight into the minutiae of history writing: Mafqud wa Majud looks at the details of who-what-where-how-why and how we work at getting them (with a focus on early Islamic history). 
    • If you want everything from commentary on current events to recommendations on online Arabic dictionaries: Daniel Varisco blogs at tabsir.net, with a particular eye for Yemen and Islamic thought throughout the ages.
    • If you’re into books and their history: Riedel Dagmar  provides insight into all aspects of Islamic books, be it technical or intellectual. 
    • If you want a one-stop shop for everything Turkey, Turkish history, Turkish politics, and Turkish literature: Reuben Silverman writes insightful pieces drawing on his own work as a historian.
    • If you want to zone in on the history of North African Jewish music: Gharamophone, founded by Chris Silver in 2017, is an online repository of North African Jewish music and its history; it represents years of Silver collecting these records individually and putting together the history of each one.
    • If you want to level out your knowledge of Copts and Coptic studies: The Coptic Canadian History Project (CCHP) runs a blog featuring content from academics, as well as stories from the Coptic immigrant community (Bonus: they have a rundown of archives and resources for Coptic history here).
  • Digital Humanities 
  • From Manuscripts, Archives and Libraries
    • If you want to know more about the cataloging process: The British Library  features blogposts from its vast Asian and African collections, adding commentary to the featured manuscripts and documents.
    • If you want to see a digital archive take shape before your eyes: The Qatar Digital Archive is featuring pieces on their archival material by experts as the archival material goes up onto the site, made possible through a collaboration between the Qatar National Library and the British Library. 
  • Art and Literature
    • If you want to be taken on a well-informed jaunt through the Tunisian art scene: Rania Said brings her smart, well-informed perspectives to the many facets of Tunisian visual, musical, and literary vistas at the aptly titled https://maraamadinafannblog.wordpress.com/.
    • If you’re looking for commentary on the latest in Arab art: Tasnim Quttait covers film, art, music, and literature in Arabic-speaking contexts at Arab Hyphen.
    • If you’re a visual learner: Arts and Adab run by Levi Thompson, delivers up a wide assortment of images once a week, from book art to film posters. 
    • If you’re a hip-hop head: Rachel Schine, a scholar of medieval Arabic literature and race, blogs at Lyric Poetry where she comes up with creative connections across genres and languages.
    • If you run with the literary art journal crowd: Rusted Radishes features original art from emerging artists founded by the Department of English at the American University of Beirut in 2012.
    • If you want a deep dive into Algerian literature: Nadia Ghana blogs  us through her love of Algerian literature, including reliable translations.
    • If you want to hit up the latest in Arabic-language literature (or check out practically anything from the last decade): ArabLit, run by M. Lynx Qualey is a longstanding favorite and it just launched a quarterly journal.
    • If you can’t get enough of Antara Ibn Shaddad: The Library of Arabic Literature is a series of edited and translated editions of classic Arabic books from NYU Press and their blog features their editors, translators, and anyone else they find interesting on the subject of Arabic literature.
    • If you’re craving good writing on contemporary Arabic music: Ma3azef consistently serves up excellent writing  on Arabic music, be it notes on the latest Mashrou Leila release or reflections on the meaning of tarab.
    • If you want  to keep up with Arabic literature in translation from the view of a leading publisher: the relatively young Hoopoe, an imprint of AUC press, runs regular features on its authors and other news in Arabic literature (mostly in translation). 
  • Contemporary
    • If you want architecture combined with social commentary: Hind Makki‘s sideentrance.tumblr.com features mosque entrances in an attempt to highlight gender inequality in Muslim spaces.
    • If you’re looking for your new favorite Muslim media outlet: Amaliah is produced by Muslim women for Muslim women. No matter where you identify on the Muslim spectrum (or if you don’t), you’ll find something to read here, ranging from religion to fashion.
    • If you have a particular love of Jordan: 7iber is an independent news outlet featuring news from the Hashemite Kingdom in both Arabic and English. Their investigative reporting is thorough and covers such a breath of topics they’ve banned several times in Jordan itself.
    • If you want to read good writing on the latest academic research and stay up to date on academic news: the Maydan is a multifaceted blog project by the Ali Vurak Center at George Mason University featuring write-ups of academic research, long-form essays, and book reviews.
    • If you want a deep-dive into the Persianate: originally founded by PhD students, Ajam Media Collective features cultural content, news, academic studies, and photo-essays. It originally focused on the Persianate world,but is growing outwards.
    • If you want news with a good dose of the academic: Jadaliyya produces original content, news rundowns, academic digests, and more at break-neck speed.
    • If you want one destination for news and current affairs in the Middle East and North Africa:  the Arabist has been a long standby, running news rundowns and original analysis.
    • If you want an uncritical, courageous eye on Egyptian current events (in both Arabic and English): MadaMasr features content on all aspects of Egyptian contemporary affairs and is critical enough that the site is blocked in Egypt. Content is in both Arabic and English.
    • If you want to catch up on Yemen’s history: the American Institute of Yemeni Studies runs a regularly updated blog where they feature mostly historical pieces on Yemen, as well as snatches of academic news on the field of Yemeni studies.
  • Academic, but not specifically Middle East, North Africa, or Islamic-studies-related
    • If you wanted to expand your knowledge on the history of medicine and gender: Nursing Clio is an open access, peer-reviewed, collaborative blog project  that features long and short-form content written by a diverse group of academics. 
    • If you want to think about worlds of ideas for a while: the Journal of the History of Ideas Blog features short articles, essays, and interviews on intellectual history in a broad range of geographic locales. 
    • If you want to challenge your notions of  religion and religious studies: The Immanent Frame is a long-running SSRC-sponsored blog that regularly features content on religion, secularism, and the public sphere.
    • If you want good content from a field on the cutting edge of critical theory: the African American Intellectual History Society blog, Black Perspectives, is a great way to keep up to date with trends in African American studies, useful not only to round out your knowledge of African American Islam, but as an inspiration for your own work, no matter your field.

We also have a list of people on twitter we enjoy in manuscripts and Islamic studies. We formatted this into a list you could subscribe to. DM us if you want us to add anyone!

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