iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Another week, another set of proofs! Whoever did the typesetting was really enjoying themselves…

Proofs for book chapter on naqshbandi political letters

Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I always love headlines like this. Best player in the ’world’ (in a sport played at an elite level in precisely 1 country).

NY times headline declaring some football player to be the best in the world

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The typography of Pakistan’s Urdu daily newspapers is a thing to behold. This headline from Jang is about US-Iran negotiations.

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Always love getting proofs. This is my annotated translation of a short treatise on the psychology of dreaming by the famous Shah Abd Al-Aziz Dihlawi.

Proofs for a chapter in an edited volume that discusses dreams and dreaming in relation to shah abd al Aziz Dihlawī.

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“There is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.“ These immortal lines have never rung truer…

Mr cod fish and chip shop in Lahore airport

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The auto rickshaws of Lahore are a constant source of inspiration… 🥲

Auto rickshaw with the phrase “love is not fake, lover is fake” on the back

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Communing with the Emperor Jahangir in Lahore.

Tomb of Mughal emperor Jahangir in Lahore.

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

The book isn’t yet available in the US it seems, but my in-laws have already bought a copy in India. 😁😁 www.cambridge.org/core/books/i...

Front cover of Islamic Intellectual History in the Mughal Era

Picture of first page of Chapter 6 of Islamic intellectual history in the Mughal era

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Really enjoying the polyvalence of the word “accident” here…. Possibilities abound.

Sign on a door of a cafe: “Due to an accident… all dogs must be kept on leads.”

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

It’s been a tough quarter one way and another but received this note from a student and another just wrote to tell me he was inspired to become Islamic studies minor… these small gestures make all the difference!

Lovely note from a student after taking a class

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Encountered this in my local Persian cafe… quite surprised to see such unquestioning veneration of the Trump-Bibi combine even in this evidently pro Pahlavi magazine. Also not quite sure why Churchill is working with Stalin and Xi to prop up (?) the now dead Khamanei…

Magazine cover for June issue of payam i javan. It thanks Trump and Netanyahu for attacking Islamic republic of Iran

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Those years of graduate school training finally paying off 😅

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Hamid Algar being rude about Sirhindi’s nearly unreadable prose style really made my morning.

Scholar Hamid Algar being rude about prose of 16th century naqshbandi Ahmad sirhindi calling it “ungainly and artless”

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

In my other class, I am teaching parts of @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social's excellent book on Tablighi Jamaat today. I had not realized-or had forgotten-that Muhammad Ilyas' father was from Jhinjhana. Was reminded of the day I spent there, mostly at the Mughal-era tomb of S. Abd al-Razzaq Jhinjhanvi.

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Love the epigraph choice for this review on Byzantine epitomes… 🤣🤣

Screenshot of the Opening to a review in Plekos on Byzantine epitomes that highlights the limitations of AI summaries

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

Finally got proofs for this… my first publication on the science of angelic invocation as found in the writings of the famous Shah Waliullah of Dihlawi known for his expertise in hadith sciences and almost not at all for his occultism!!

Proofs for a forthcoming chapter on angelic invocation

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Tenure application guidelines: your scholarship should constitute a coherent body of work. My scholarship:

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Enjoyed the first episode of Night Manager but it blows my mind that these kinds of error still slip through the cracks… #arabicfail

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Lovely anecdote from Vikram Seth’s Two Lives where he discusses his German Jewish aunt crying after being served Marmite at the home of the famous Islamic studies scholar AJ Arberry where she worked after fleeing Berlin in 1939. #Marmite #Britishdelicacies

Photo of paragraph from Vikram Seth’s Two Lives

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

I made mini Bakewell tarts with the five year old this evening. Much harder to do the pastry than if anticipated but they are absolutely delicious.

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Reading a fascinating Urdu text describing a trip to Palestine in the 1920s. According to the Indian Muslim author, he had a conversation with a Jewish man urging Jewish-Muslim unity to break the Christian colonial "flood". Can any historians of mandate Palestine tell me how common these ideas were?

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

These are the apartments coming up next to our campus. Definitely a very normal housing market here in Silicon Valley 🙄

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Wanted to refresh my Gurmukhi reading skills and somehow ended up with this rather graphic book….

Graphic cartoon image of man being tortured with some kind of clamping device.

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Excited to have voted for the first time as an American citizen. If only the circumstances were less dire. #prop50

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Our department has a cabinet of recent publications and - for the first time time - I have three things in there! Feeling quite pleased with myself. 😅

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Feeling quite chuffed that my vichysoisse won a friends’ soup making contest this evening! Even better than my five-year old helped peel the potatoes, wash the leeks and pour the cream. She even ate some..!

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

A recent article reviewer, in what was quite frankly a hack job of a review, snottily accused me of getting Maḥmūd al-Ḥasan Deobandī's name wrong, insisting that it was properly Maḥmūd Ḥasan. Today, I stumbled upon a reference by his own student Manāẓir Aḥsan Gīlānī. Presented here w/out comment.

The name of Maḥmūd al-Ḥasan Deobandī in a text written by Manāẓir Aḥsan Gīlānī

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Who says being a religious studies professor doesn’t have its perks? Today I have been given a beautiful Shalvar kameez by one person and a hand-painted Diwali diya by another.

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Very excited to see this piece back from the publisher’s proof reader. My first foray into Islamic astrological magic…with detailed instructions on how to use Saturn’s powers to mess with your enemies!

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

The joys of Interlibrary Loan… bringing the Regenstein to California. وکم من فراق کان قرباًحقیقة وکم من فراق کان للوصل جالباً

A book with a stamp from University of Chicago Libraries

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

The Religious Studies Dept at Santa Clara had the great pleasure of hosting Sahibzada Asim Maharvi on our campus this week to discuss Sufism and religious pluralism. He is within a lineage that can be traced back to Nur Muhammad Maharvi and Kalim Allah Jahanabadi.

Asim Maharvi speaking at Santa Clara university

Asim Maharvi with others on Santa Clara campus

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Glad we have this kind of searingly insightful analysis from the good old NYT…

NYT headline stating the fucking obvious

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Why are serious ‘news’ outlets publishing this stuff. Hard to imagine an equivalent headline for any other industry. ‘McDonalds CFO says people must eat more Big Macs or starve to death.‘

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Indiscriminate is surely the wrong word…in fact such a headline completely inverts the thrust of the court’s ruling which overtly allows for specific kinds of discrimination (ie perceived race) @nytimes.com

Misleading nyt headline saying court ruling allows for indiscriminate stops

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Brilliant - and sadly necessary - defense of the value of area studies from @amandazillo.bsky.social www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Always exciting to get proofs in the inbox… 😅

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Not surprised to see Santa Clara on the list of most expensive counties nationally for childcare (not coincidentally, it is also among the most expensive for housing) 😢😢😢

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Younger daughter discovering that she has hands and that she can do things with them.

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Arrighi’s diagnosis (from 1994) helps clarify the multiple interconnected global crises unfolding today. What new hegemony will emerge in the wake of our crumbling order?

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

The joys of paleography...spent days looking at this 18th century Indian place name before I worked out what it was meant to be. Any guesses? :D

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

The median panel at the Madison South Asia conference

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

With my daughter picking up fallen petals on Santa Clara’s beautiful campus this evening. 🫶🫶🌷🌷

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Urdu-danan: I'm struggling to read this word....been staring at it for ages. What is it??

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Daniel Jacobius Morgan @jacobius.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

South Asian Persian-language chronicles seem to have reputation for being florid and overwritten but some writers were masters of earthy concision: "He abused them so much that they shit their pants."

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