Nafi‘

Article’s out! Memoirs and travelogues as genres should be revived, so as my own contribution, I wanted to write on my recent travels and my discovery of «home»—here’s the outcome. LMK what y’all think. traversingtradition.com/2025/10/22/str…

@Tsunalyst Share the book name

Current circumstances aside, there are stories. The Mongols would integrate Occultists into their ranks after occupying a city—shamans, astrologers, and so on. Al-Suyuti mentions another case of a Jinni who came to an older scholar and said, “We attend your prayers, your Jihad…”

Oh absolutely LOL. I do have a habit of taking a book or two with me but they’re usually lighter readings (poetry or travelogues) but I seldom get the time to read during travels unless it’s right before sleeping or if I find myself on a train. I spend more time writing about my experiences then to reminisce later.

@Tsunalyst 12 a month is impressive! Ahh i see good for you alhamdulillah. Oh thought it's a good idea to bring some books on ur travel, u don't? anyways enjoy your upcoming travel!

Haul before the other 30+ books come in.

@griefcaseee @naurtagain Well-aware Zaza. Hence the bombs.

@Tsunalyst @naurtagain yall would cry if you ever had to experience subcon marriage shenanigans.

Depends on the time really. I’ve been able to get through about 12 in this month and the last but only one in January since I was traveling. The fact that I work remotely helps Alhamdulillah and work recently hasn’t been too hectic. Planning on being out of the country again In Sha’ Allah in May so absorbing what I can before then.

@Tsunalyst Genuinely curious how fast u do finish them

@1n4pl4c3 LOL having a look bro.

@AbdelAz74986780 Wish there was a secret but you just do it. Although for the how, @mariammahmoudns has a great essay (I’ll put mine out soon In Sha’ Allah which touches on some other points). Have a read: kasurian.com/p/research-as-…

@Tsunalyst All you avid readers who remain so consistent with Reading need to spill all your secrets regarding the consistency and routine

@GravinDracula It’s high already but keeps growing so technically never-ending (as it should be).

@Tsunalyst How high is your tbr pile?

@ModernTalkings2 @MBitcoiner Not at the moment (except for Harvard that has a 25% sale for particular titles). Princeton should have it out in May.

@Tsunalyst @MBitcoiner Are there some sales going on?

@Angibntur Work’s not too busy now so trying to absorb everything I can and get some writing done before I travel out again In Sha’ Allah (if I can) in May. Also my sleep schedule has been atrocious.

@Tsunalyst How do you have the time

@pashadelics Funny how Cairo is the first city that came to mind.

The biggest mistake any developing country can make is unfettered rural to urban migration. In fact I think an absolute necessary prerequisite to development is strict, even draconian control over rural migration. The moment you’ve lost control of this, you’ve lost the cities — culturally and economically. The process must be completely controlled by the state.

@lbnBattuta It’s my favorite punctuation mark and now when I use it everyone says I generated everything with AI. Sad state of affairs.

It's a shame that sentence structures like "not x, but y" and the em dash ( — ) have been permanently ruined by AI. People always used it when expanding and explaining something. Now you can't even say it without ppl thinking ur a bot.

Unless it’s being taught to those engaging in revolutions or being imposed by those in power it remains mostly a personal endeavor (or one that remains within the blabbers of specialized circles). It must either engage with revolutionaries, those in power, or the elites via which it can trickle down into the revolutionaries. It’s how Ali Shariati became the ideologue of the Iranian revolution, and why the pedagogy is crucial for state-building (this was the primary method for Shariati as well). Without proper engagement and culture-creation it just remains abstract. This isn’t against, Taha, necessarily. I think his diagnoses of Greek thought occupying much of everything in the Islamic Sciences is accurate. But unless it’s picked up on and the Sciences are reformed, it’ll just remain an observation that Ibn Taymiyyah pointed out centuries ago, or al-Sirafi and others re: Arabic grammar.

So what, then, is philosophy for? Is it simply the exchange of carefully crafted missives within the cloisters of academia, or is it something more? I keep a set of problems pinned to my wall, questions I think philosophy, the social sciences has something meaningfully to say /1

@LoverGhaniyy This is the help you need (it’s not Platonic cleansing).

I'm starting to agree with this type of stuff. Idk what to do. Please help. I might have to do some Platonic cleansing.

@h02br Why are East London hearts always gloomy?

@Tsunalyst i felt my heart come back to life today….

Bayat’s good. I’m gonna finish his entire corpus in the coming weeks In Sha’ Allah but Revolution Without Revolutionaries is pretty nice, shedding light on mass mobilization and what it can lead to with and without a proper vision founded by elites (this comparison works best with the work on HTS and how they integrated the Syrian urban elites into their ranks, particularly the ones in education). Apart from that the section on urbanism is really good (which is why I wanna read him even further).

Also, some reads of the month.

@Yozora_Glory Loved this read.

Read this instead of listening to Kent. Credit to Nafi whose post got me on to this.