Wow, thank you for 60k! Totally weird to me to have you all following along. Twitter isn’t real life, but still thankful for all the lovely support.

If you’ve enjoyed the stuff I tweet, I highly recommend the following accounts as well:
The reigning monarchs of Islam and the occult: @MaslamaQ @mmelvink @docstobar all brilliant in their scholarship and work.

I'll be tweeting about their books next week so stay tuned.
the fantastic @ShabanaMir1 for her amazing work on Muslims in America

the wonderful @TheLadyImam for her seismic work on gender and Islam

the amazing @kecia_ali for her critical scholarship on Islamic law and gender and sexuality
the wonderful @ProfIRMF and @mpgPhD scholars of religion who also host the best religion podcast on the block @KeepingIt_101

their episodes are constant features of my syllabi
the great @cobbpasha for his stellar work on the crusades and medieval Islamic history

the brilliant @BabaKristian for his crucial work on Islam and China
the wonderful @YasmineJibril who shares regular tweets on North African history, culture, and folklore.

the amazing @SethLSanders for ancient Hebrew, language, and religion
the fantastic @bharunkucuk on history of science and Ottoman history

the brilliant @SaadiaYacoob on her important work on Islamic law and gender

the great @Lit_as_Adab for Arabic poetry and literature
the wonderful @mrustow for her amazing work on the Cairo Geniza

the peerless @krisrich for her crucial work on Romani, disability, and the medieval Islamic world

the ever great @sariyannis for the supernatural and Ottoman history
the amazing @kaohu11 for history of science and Islamic intellectual history

the fantastic @SajidaJalalzai for Islam and North America

the wonderful @tuhfatulhind for Islamic visual culture and manuscripts
the inimitable @sasanianshah for late antique global history

the ever great @ArthurAsseraf for histories of colonialism and North Africa and France

the always brilliant @RachelSchine for her work on race and literature in the premodern Middle East
If you enjoy fiction with real depth and research check out @ausmazehanat for her brilliant Khorasan Archives Series

@waraqamusa for the amazing Sufi Mysteries

And @pdjeliclark's fantastic A Master of Djinn

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More from @aaolomi

4 Aug
In Islam, humanity shares the world with the jinn, an invisible race of beings formed of smokeless fire. Some jinn are good, some are ambivalent, and some are down right devilish.

A thread-
The chieftain of the wicked jinn is Iblis, the devil.

Originally a goodly jinn who was raised on to the heavens to live alongside the angels, he was accursed and cast down for his disobedience to God and arrogance.
He refused to bow to humanity proclaiming why should a being of fire bow before a creature of clay.
Read 29 tweets
29 Jul
today Mars leaves Leo and enters Virgo

medieval astrologers of the Islamic world interpreted this as:

-fires & heat
-resource scarcities
-exposure of corruption and fraud
-disasters in nature
-disruption in harvests
-disruption of commerce
-danger is al Andalus and Levant
-Ibn Ezra includes Tunis in his list
while Abu Ma’shar includes the land of the Copts
-death among philosophers and scribes
-death among notable youth
-rebels and damage to buildings
-conflicts which injury property and earth
-earthquakes
The significations include a continuation of the theme of fire which started in Cancer and continued with Leo.

Interestingly while today some associate Aquarius with technology, medieval astrologers connected Virgo with science and technology (technical knowledge more broadly)
Read 8 tweets
28 Jul
In Islamic cosmology, God created humans from clay, jinn from smokeless-fire, & angels from light. As God’s unerring servants angels are so numerous the heavens groan under their numbers. All praise God, while some carry out Divine decrees relating to life and humans

A thread-
Jibra’il, Mik’ail, Israfi’l, and Azra'il are chief of the angels.

The first two deal most directly with humans while the latter two are responsible for their end either through the Day of Judgement, or their death.
Jibra’il is the angel of revelation who descends to earth frequently on orders from God.
Read 22 tweets
21 Jul
At the height of their power, the Abbasids fell into a civil war which lasted years.

Brother fought brother, competing astrologers read the omens of the stars, scheming viziers plotted in secret, and the course of Islamic history was changed.

A thread-
There were two major civil wars, the Anarchy of Samarra from 861-870 and the Great Civil War of 811.

Today we’ll talk about the latter.
The fifth Abbasid Caliph, Harun al Rashid, fearing chaos and violence in the process of succession devised a plan where his son al-Amin would inherit the caliphate first followed by his other son, al-Ma’mun.

But they say when humans plan, God laughs
Read 30 tweets
14 Jul
Various stories and accounts tell of the complicated relationship between jinn and humans. Love, fear, and respect all mingle as the human world and the hidden realms collide.

In one case the Sufi Shaykh Abd al Qadir Jilani has to deal with the king of the jinn

A thread-
One night a young girl in Baghdad was playing on the rooftop when a powerful jinn marid spied her.

Fancying the girl he swooped in on swift wings and kidnapped her.

Her father rushed to the roof only to see the creature abscond with her.
He was forlorn. How could he ever get his little girl back.

So he sought out the wise, Shaykh Abd al Qadir Jilani. He told the shaykh what happened begging aid.
Read 18 tweets
7 Jul
Contrary to their contemporary image, early and medieval descriptions of angels in Islam are utterly alien and fearsome. Their presence could bring comfort to the devout or strike terror in the hearts of the wicked.

A thread on the angels of hell and death in Islam-
In Islamic cosmology, angels are the perfect servants of God, unerring in carrying out their duties and implacable in their mission.

Like their ancient Biblical counterparts, they are described as otherworldly and terrifying.
Angels are depicted as maintaining the celestial and earthly order, worshipping God, and significantly, guarding Hell itself.
Read 30 tweets

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