@zareenagrewal.bsky.social
@ZareenaGrewal
Followers
7,929
Following
993
Media
148
Statuses
19,210
Yale Professor, Historian, Anthropologist, Documentary Filmmaker & Author of ISLAM IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY Bylines: NYT WaPo Atlantic NPR #FreePalestine
in a collapsing empire
Joined February 2013
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Robert Fico
• 260560 Tweets
Newcastle
• 75519 Tweets
Assassin's Creed
• 61588 Tweets
Amad
• 59062 Tweets
Brighton
• 54978 Tweets
Antony
• 51073 Tweets
Ubisoft
• 44842 Tweets
Gordon
• 44578 Tweets
Yasuke
• 40215 Tweets
Nkunku
• 39380 Tweets
#MUNNEW
• 37897 Tweets
Cole Palmer
• 35860 Tweets
Sevilla
• 27448 Tweets
Mainoo
• 25755 Tweets
Cádiz
• 25529 Tweets
#AtalantaJuve
• 23614 Tweets
Romney
• 22305 Tweets
Nitro
• 19813 Tweets
Bruno Fernandes
• 18057 Tweets
Reece James
• 17855 Tweets
Celta
• 17006 Tweets
Hojlund
• 16423 Tweets
Amrabat
• 16071 Tweets
Rasmus
• 15593 Tweets
Mudryk
• 15333 Tweets
#CoppaItalia
• 12991 Tweets
Reims
• 10528 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
Today is my birthday-didn’t have any intention to celebrate but got a homemade cake & incredible news today: my husband’s family in Mosul will finally get restitution from the Netherlands for a drone strike in which four of our loved ones were murdered
70
38
235
So moved by
#IStandWithAhmed
cant help but remember another black boy in NASA shirt
#TrayvonMartin
#BlackLivesMatter
http://t.co/4Ws2DIMafZ
38
3K
2K
I feel like I’ve been laugh-sobbing at every headline today but this was a particularly surreal moment on FOX News—its just all a big hate smoothie
130
270
2K
Today I was 1 of 13 faculty who withdrew from
#Yale
's Ethnicity Race & Migration Program Painful but University's record of inaction & broken promises forced our hand I came to Yale thru ER&M's postdoc Wouldn't be here w/o ERM I will fight for it to exist
11
275
895
Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.
Civilians are civilians are civilians, doesn’t matter where
157
349
2K
4K
178
780
“What I like about Islam is that it is anti-religious. In the same way that Jesus was a militantly anti-religious figure, Allah is saying that people are not to worship anything but God. The worst thing that happened to God is religion.”
#SineadOConnor
3
100
630
Abortion is not considered murder in Islamic law, in any school. Islamic legal opinions (which vary widely on the issue) include concern for one’s figure as a legit reason to have an abortion. There are restrictive opinions too. Using Sharia as shorthand for oppression is racist.
3
179
522
How many times do we have to say it? 9-11 was not a historical break but an amplification of militarization of police, war-making abroad, surveillance & destruction of civil rights (dubbed liberties), anti-Muslim racism (against "Muslim looking" non-Muslims too) w/ deep histories
3
170
520
My ethnic studies colleagues and I stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
#FreePalaestine
#SaveSheikhJarrah
#NakbaDay
5
103
500
I don’t make prescriptive religious arguments out of a respect for the expertise of ulama (which I wrote a book about!) but YQ et al have zero respect for political expertise To make this argument in a moment of global rising fascism/white supremacy/ecological disaster is STUPID
Latest lecture:
The Pitfalls of Muslims Allying with the Progressive Left
68
121
644
97
64
477
Asian & Middle Eastern shop-owners who have businesses in Black neighborhoods & then choose to call the cops over petty shit (a conterfeit $20 = petty shit) DO have a degree of complicity in this murder. Any cashier knows bad money is a relatively common occurrence, why escalate?
30
135
477
Also abortion is perfectly legal in "sharia" (a word that means something different to actual Muslims than what you think it means) so your insult doesn't even make sense.
I’m furious & scared about the new anti-abortion laws too.
But those calling them “Christian Sharia law”—it’s Islamophobic & also inaccurate. Millions of American Muslims follow Sharia every day wo imposing it on non-Muslims.
Call it Christian theocracy, which it is.
344
6K
29K
9
88
407
There is no question who the oppressors are who the oppressed are. And somehow people are confused about this. White supremacy never stops being shocking to me.
“Pure panic everywhere you look.”
Inside the Gaza siege - a resident’s eyewitness report by Yousef Hammash.
1K
10K
16K
173
132
357
Disappointed by how many supposedly pro-Palestinian secular academics are scolding me for explaining what motivates Hamas, that the captures are neither spontaneous nor irrational.
That is my job as a scholar.
If your question is: “are Hamas’s tactics sinful?” then say that.
33
37
334
.
@GWillowWilson
My 9 year old Iraqi-Pakistani daughter (whose so scared of Trump) tell everyone she's
@MsMarvelNow
3
73
301
@AmySpiro
Actually doesn’t require expertise to know torturing and killing children and worshippers and stealing people’s homes while they were buying groceries is wrong but it does require a lot of mental gymnastics to pretend otherwise
1
29
286
Please rt and contribute if you can This lovely Turkish community center/mosque where my family has enjoyed so many festive meals in Ramadan was set on fire This is a few miles from Yale and New Haven a sanctuary city These are terrifying, violent times and we must stand together
@ZareenaGrewal
Dear
@ZareenaGrewal
pls spread this fundraising campaign to rebuilt the New Haven mosque in your networks:
0
16
16
4
233
255
Truly sick
1
36
254
How much does
@WajahatAli
hate Palestinians to take up all of this real estate in the press in which he makes HIMSELF the victim for collaborating with zionists during active genocidal state violence in Ramadan? Most shameless MLI piece yet Heartless
24
69
217
"We refuse to think in terms of borders. We believe there is no best country best gender best religion or best color..."
12
77
217
The protests were not peaceful! A Canadian Muslim CHILD was encouraged by adults to light a pride flag on fire while a queer person was holding it This person could’ve caught on fire & imagine this CHILD will have to live with a viral clip of his behavior for the rest of his life
Statement by the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) on Statements by Canadian Leaders and School Boards on Recent Protests
1K
1K
4K
10
49
215
Bait & switch: Yale offered [Hosang] a position with the ER&M program & he moved across the country to take it, he said, only to find out later that his appointment would instead be with American Studies. Over the past 8 years, at least 4 hires have undergone similar experiences
13 tenured professors withdraw from Yale's Ethnicity, Race & Migration program after years of issues with the program's sustainability.
0
14
21
2
55
216
The self-identified (!) Muslim religious leaders collective statement on LGBTQ+ is unsurprising--except for how unscholarly "Islam" is in it! Would any of them dare call Ismaili Islam "theologically indefensible" publicly? This is just punching down from the white house iftar...
32
34
203
The fact that he can say the left has no unifying politics except hatred of the right shows a lack of even a high school level of understanding of American politics in the last 50 years. Even conservatives concede that it is THEIR side that lacks ideological coherence on exon/pol
9
14
192
If American Muslims want to learn about Seera or something from Qadhi that’s one thing (my own kids listened to his lectures this Ramadan) but to follow his advice on politics will truly be a disaster; I wish these scholars had the humility to say they are out of their depth
4
10
177
Please please please don't let this headline get buried--we need to be connecting the dots between the US's militarism, empire-building, the surveillance state, and mass shootings like Pulse & Parkland--what's the profile of an INFORMANT?
8
103
142
We’re hiring in Religious Studies at Yale! Don’t need a RLST PhD to apply—I’m on the search & happy to answer questions. Please spread the word to scholars in anthro, geography, performance studies, sociology, history: Geographical area & period is open
4
103
170
@Allahliker
is a pir who forecasts dark futures about white women who need to go away That’s what I’ve learned this Ramadan
5
8
150
Really haunted by this. At the time he was brutally murdered, I was in New York after the Beyoncé concert Sunday night in the afterglow getting gas in the middle of the night, just as Sibley was still in the afterglow from the Sat show as he was getting gas and dancing …
Beyoncé has paid tribute to O'Shae Sibley, who was killed in a homophobic attack while dancing to one of her songs.
73
3K
20K
3
26
149
Chose a boyfriend (and staying at Michigan) over Berkeley & Harvard for grad school, a decision I deliberated for the duration of a shared ice cream cone. Still with him and still make big decisions intuitively & often over ice cream
7
2
146
This is a moment when American Muslims are active in politics at every scale—local, state, national. Incredible talent and vision. Those people who have dedicated their lives to knowing political issues deserve our communities’ attention NOT politically illiterate imams
5
18
137
The last week and especially the last 24 hours have been so hard but I’m so grateful and relieved to share my sister has turned a corner. Thanks all for your prayers and good thoughts!
14
2
133
@MonicaLMarks
I haven’t seen any scholars defending this in my feed I would never defend this. Explaining the rationale of Hamas or defending the right to armed resistance of a colonized/brutalized people does not mean the colonized can do no wrong It illustrates how dangerous powerlessness is
8
10
132
Someone I care about, neither old nor young, learned that finally a new life is growing in her womb today and I wept.
Someone I care about, neither old nor young, died after a long illness today and I wept. We are from God and to God we return.
1
2
131
Like the growing multiracial coalition against LGBTQ curriculum, an alliance between a loud minority of conservative Asian Americans & whites destroyed affirmative action. So yeah nonwhite people do work in service of white supremacy when they are convinced it is “common cause”
2
28
133
The fact that their entire political vision can be boiled down to one wedge issue shows the extremely irresponsible and disastrous road they are ready to take us down. The good news is all the sociological data shows most American Muslims are young/blue, not going to go rightward
10
14
130
One thing I always forget I love about fasting til I do it again is that it strips everything away—no energy for beating yourself up about all the things you’re not doing, you just do what you gotta do, pray the effort counts in your favor & focus on getting to that sunset samosa
1
6
129
.
@basimrazzo
, my husband's cousin, survived a US strike but lost his beloved wife, daughter, brother and nephew & then had to fight the US govt to clear his name from unfounded links to ISIS & to have them admit--finally--that they blew up their homes by mistake--in his own words
Civilian survivors of coalition airstrikes may never learn why they were targeted. This is the story of one man who did: Basim Razzo.
3
32
53
4
139
110
I've seen a lot of chilling footage out of India in my feed but these kids reenacting the 1992 demolition of the Babri Mosque is so sad FYI it sparked nation-wide violent clashes between Hindus & Muslims resulting in at least 2000 (mostly Muslims) murdered
A school in Karnataka run by a RSS leader is making it's students re-enact the demolition of the Babri Masjid
This is the future of education in India when the RSS-BJP takeover of our society is complete.
And this is why it's our duty to resist.
1K
8K
10K
4
54
117
People can change and Yasir Qadhi has regretted and apologized for his earlier career of denying the Holocaust but that should tell us something about his political acumen—he has very irresponsibly spread hateful disinformation in the past, he can do it again. He is doing it now.
14
17
118
Terrifying that this can happen with so little outcry The top Reuter’s story today was about the Pope snubbing a tourist
3
65
109
Rarely tweet about my brilliant husband Hamada but he’s the senior author on a path breaking study of suicidality & Muslims in JAMA which undoes long held assumptions about religion’s “protective” role He’s been quietly devoted to research organizing & advocacy for years So proud
Suicide Attempts of Muslims Compared With Other Religious Groups in the US via
@JAMAPsych
part of
@JAMANetwork
4
8
24
2
28
116
Yes but it is not primarily Muslim or Palestinian voters who put her in office but progressive African American Detroiters--these stories of firsts are fine but the real story is about how our struggles are connected and old and we need each other
Rashida Tlaib is the first Muslim woman and first Palestinian-American woman to ever serve in Congress.
#Midterms2018
8
561
1K
0
37
113
How often do you see representations of Muslim women experiencing sheer joy in the media? So grateful to reporters such as
@HannahAllam
who has reported so sensitively on Muslims living through this election season
Dancing & singing in Minneapolis as the race is called for Ilhan Omar. It’s official: She & Rashida Tlaib are the first Muslim women in Congress. Awaiting Omar’s speech.
13
458
2K
4
37
106
If you are willing to defend Hamza Yusuf’s new low, aligning with the Trump administration as an advisor, you’re no friend of mine.
14
34
97
My heart is in my throat. Prayers for Palestinians. Israeli is a murderous, genocidal settler state and Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle, solidarity
#FreePalestine
22
19
94
For the first time in my life, an administrative email moved me to literal tears. From our fearless and wise Chair of Ethnicity Race and Migration to our students--this is the most beautiful and poetic work email to ever land in my box
#mustread
3
29
100
@jaketapper
@SebGorka
Actually Allahu Akbar (literally "God is great") is a beautiful phrase & is used in many beautiful ways in the daily lives of actual Muslims
13
13
81
Mayor of New Haven slams Yale & President Salovey for not sharing dorm space for first responders, University of New Haven steps up immediately
#RespectNewHaven
1
26
97
I am grateful to have job security but some days (today) it really can be soul crushing to work at a PWI. Then I remember the bullshit is the price of admission for things like Roxane Gay letting you sit in on her masterclass (scared of evil eye tweeting about the best gift ever)
0
2
99
It's never just about one group they can't stand
2
32
89
Shame on
@CNN
for making the suggestion that Palestinians deserve equal treatment a firable offense ICYMI: Israeli academics are calling on the international community to distinguish between critiques of the Zionist regime in Israel and antisemitism.
#IstandwithMLH
#FreePalestine
I support Palestinian freedom. I support Palestinian self-determination. I am deeply critical of Israeli policy and practice.
I do not support anti-Semitism, killing Jewish people, or any of the other things attributed to my speech. I have spent my life fighting these things.
3K
12K
45K
2
52
85
Everyone’s burning out. Cancelled reading for next week though we’ll still meet to tie big picture things together. If you’re having trouble keeping up with the syllabus of stuff you’ve already mostly read (I am) imagine how your students feel...
2
8
95
Co-teaching a grad seminar at Yale & UMichigan on “Critical Muslim Studies” this semester with my smart friend & colleague
@DrSuad
We kicked things off w/
@BayoumiMoustafa
’s “Racing Religion” Vincent Lloyd’s intro to Race & Secularism in America & Talal Asads On Suicide Bombing
7
5
92
This suffering is gut wrenching and senseless and the diseases—like the war—are preventable. US policies & bombs enable the Saudi & other Gulf states to kill these children every day.
2
90
80
In time for holiday/last minute syllabus writing season, my decade round-up for
@jadaliyya
of
#mustreads
on Islam in the US Its a VERY partial list so please add more & share Shoutouts to
@losthistories
@DrSuad
@schanmalik
@kambizgb
@BayoumiMoustafa
& more
3
34
90
Last night over 1000 peaceful protestors joined
#occupybeinecke
plaza at
#yale
demanding our university disclose & divest its investments in militarism
#booksnotbombs
Today at dawn Yale admin removed over a hundred students from plaza and arrested 47 students, many tearfully. 🍉
2
32
89
And in case Muslim trolls want to weigh in, this is what she meant
اتَّخَذُوا أَحْبَارَهُمْ وَرُهْبَانَهُمْ أَرْبَابًا مِّن دُونِ اللَّهِ وَالْمَسِيحَ ابْنَ مَرْيَمَ وَمَا أُمِرُوا إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوا إِلَٰهًا وَاحِدًا ۖ لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ۚ سُبْحَانَهُ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ
1
6
86
My millennial sister has
#COVID19
She is a forensic psychiatrist who spends a lot of her time in prisons and in-patient hospital units This why prisoners and migrants must be freed—to keep people locked up in detained crowds is simply wrong
#freethemall4publichealth
#FreeThemAll
12
25
86
To be clear, I don't have a problem with Muslims articulating religious arguments about Islam and gender or that heterosexuality is the condition of an Islamic marriage. Just don't pretend these are the only possible interpretations of Islam or that they always have been.
14
12
88
So excited we are hiring in our American Studies dept: a tenure track assistant professor in what we're calling "Critical Information Studies” defined in the most capacious way possible Please apply & circulate in your nerd networks!
1
50
88
The drone data memes are going in the book I’m writing so keep ‘em coming brothers & sisters 😂
2
24
87
Sad to hear about Usama Canon’s passing, Allah yarhamhu He was a friend who both inspired & disappointed me but I stand by what I said in this interview about his good qualities & I am praying for him & all those who miss him today especially his family
4
14
85
I’d love to give a khutba on the hadith about how the desperation of poverty approaches/resembles kufr, very timely--if what is happening at Target looks like “looting” to you but not what the billionaires are doing (profiting during a pandemic) you’ve missed the Prophet’s point
3
12
83
Actually
@WajahatAli
the boycott I support is the one the Palestinian people have called for and that you actively undermine and oppose
#BDS
It’s not just a matter of a difference of opinion and our differences are not minor
#FreePalestine
👇 One of the most vocal supporters of the boycott of me and
@rabiasquared
. Zareena is entitled to her opinions. Unlike her, I don't try to silence anyone who simply might disagree on certain things but mostly agree on the rest.
#RamadanMubarak
9
4
31
6
12
80
My
#TheVowHBO
takeaways: (1) a mediocre white mansplainer w/ a pyramid scheme & a corporate-speak prosperity gospel & below average volley ball skills became weirdly powerful/rich cause he met enough insecure rich white women (2) the Dalai Lama’s handlers are not very discerning!
3
12
78
Yup talked about this when I was on ESPN in 2016 in relation to Kaepernick & Mahmoud Abdul Rauf and will talk about these activist-athletes tomorrow in my wonderful colleague Daniel Hosang’s class
2
7
79
Applies to my queer and trans students too & also students with a different (or absence) of religious id/practice than their family members which may come up in religious studies class discussions
One reason I'm so anti-Zoom is that I teach classes in queer and trans studies, where part of the point is to handle ideas that the family home renders unthinkable. My undergrad students say things that, were they to say them in their parents' houses, might expose them to harm.
188
6K
64K
1
15
78
as
@rafaelshimunov
puts it "our love and solidarity are infinite" This is the best use of twitter, shining light on what they don't want us to see. Watch this video that Ellen & team are trying to suppress
5
26
70
Muslims "anxious about [assimilation] are white-knuckling it, holding onto tradition,” said Zareena Grewal "They’re like, ‘Oh, the rabbis are panicking, so we should also be panicking' [but] relative to other Millennials, Muslims are way more religious”
4
27
76
This was a hard won victory and should’ve happened years ago but I hope in these days of acute settler colonial violence (and American whitewashing) it means something to Palestinians that most anthropologists in the AAA are in solidarity
#FreePalestine
#IsraeliApartheid
The AAA membership has voted to endorse a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
Read more:
256
370
1K
3
10
76
I have been working on a Quran book project over several years. People are confused when I explain the book is not about tafsir or competing Muslim interpretations of verses but about the Quran as a racialized text-object, or in this case, a digital weapon
3
9
73
Muslim Zionist who is a pariah in his own local Muslim communities in NC promoted to work with local communities that cannot stand him. He's still working for Shalom Hartman and still defending Israel! No single person has done more to split local mosque communities than this man
6
6
73
I'd like to see mosques lead efforts to have shop-owners make community contracts (expanding
@MuslimARC
antiracist contracts or what IMAN does) to NOT escalate & call the cops over petty shit. Penalize businesses that call the cops over petty shit even if (hopefully!) no one dies
2
21
73
All you need is a library card to prove the fallacy--pick up ANY Islamic legal manual and page through the rules of prayer--where do those who are neither male nor female line up for prayer during salat? Usually, fuqaha recommended in the middle lines between men and women. . .
15
13
73
If you don’t think mail-in votes should be counted before Tuesday and should not be counted after Tuesday maybe you could just say you don’t believe in elections and democracy?
This was the GOP plan in WI/MI/PA all along: Prevent mail-in ballots from being counted early, have Trump baselessly declare "victory" when the e-day results skewed toward him, then insist that counting every vote is wrong.
The plan won't work but it shows how low they will go.
5
51
159
0
13
71
Vaccine Mubarak! My partner is a neurologist/psychiatrist & public health expert & today he got vaccinated—So grateful & relieved! We have to fight for EVERYONE to have access to it, hoarding vaccines is evil and also pointless
#vaccineawareness
#COVID19
3
2
71
@neilhimself
on
#Syrianrefugees
: "None of them expected to be running for their lives, leaving everything they had"
0
61
68
I'm so excited to get back in the classroom when I see the awesome books I'm teaching by Talal Asad, Paul Amar, Lila Abu Lughod, Zahra Ayubi, Shahab Ahmed, Inderpal Grewal, Darryl Li, Melani McAlister, Sherman Jackson, Amira Mittermaier, Maha Nasser, Naomi Paik, Ather Zia & more
2
1
69
Most people using small counterfeit bills aren’t doing it on purpose & are genuinely surprised as anyone w/cashier experience knows. Just put it to the side in the drawer, to call the cops is to knowingly put lives of your customers at unnecessary risk. Is your “protocol” deadly?
2
9
69
I’ve been working on a book about the Quran in the American imagination for several years now, and if I keep adding stuff I’ll never finish but this shit has got to go in...
4
7
70
Most sickening episode of
#TheVow
yet … truly devastating and mind boggling how someone with no real charisma or intelligence or sex appeal wielded this kind of power over ANYONE Cannot get past the idea of The Room
3
7
68
Got to talk to
@NBCNews
about how much Ms Marvel means to me & my kids (including my sons which they left out) So much respect & gratitude to all of the creatives involved including of course
@GWillowWilson
"Ms. Marvel" marks a milestone for the Muslim community as seeing themselves in pop culture "feels like a watershed moment for Muslim representation."
15
30
93
3
13
68
Rarely read an academic book cover to cover in one sitting but Ula Yvette Taylor’s The Promise of Patriarchy: Women & the Nation of Islam is so rich & beautifully written Looking fwd to teaching it.
6
3
65
I'm working w/ an excellent team of scholars & artists on an innovative story-telling platform sharing digital shorts & a feature length doc about the histories of Muslims in the US
Check out the trailer & follow
@ammuslimstories
Really excited about this!
7
17
68
This murderous settler colonial regime pairs images of Gaza w/ a chapter from the Quran “The Elephant” about a miraculous battle. This is a sociopathic taunt and a desperate insistence on a religious/civilizational framing as Palestinians of all faiths/backgrounds go on strike.
6
29
63
Between Krugman & NPR’s “Blindspot: Road to 9/11” I have a lot to say about how “liberal” media presents nationalist copaganda as a sympathetic perspective on the tragedy. In the past I might’ve pitched a counter oped but today I’m giving the juma khutba to Yale’s MSA (my first)
5
10
67
The local Turkish community/mosque which has hosted my family many times in Ramadan was set on fire. Enraged.
5
42
58
Muhammad Ali is the face of my "Islam in the American Imagination" syllabus, need a little swag & inspiration for another semester of thinking about (working against) the Muslim ban & all the craziness around us with yet another great group of students (day 1 & love them already)
Muhammad Ali was born January 17, 1942 in Louisville, KY.
5
306
624
0
17
63
The FB live video of the Swedish girl who tried to prevent an Afghani man from getting deported on a plane went viral and while her courage is to be applauded the more important story should be the Afghani refugee WHO WAS STILL DEPORTED
1
35
65
I will never forget this
“Let them pray!”
This choked me up. Students of different faiths and backgrounds at Ohio State University form a human chain to protect Muslims who are praying while riot police prep to crack skulls for absolutely no reason.
829
18K
52K
2
25
66
A victory for ERM is a victory for Yale. We held the admin to their promises. A
#MayDay
I won't forget! So grateful to my colleagues (at Yale and beyond) and our incredible students and our allies within the administration who made this possible!
1/2
Today, the Yale administration conceded. The thirteen faculty members are returning to a program that has the institutional status and permanence that they deserve. ER&M now has the power to make solo hires, and professors no longer have to perform double-duty.
#YaleERM
2
271
968
3
11
66
Chappelle on his conversion and the Islamic myth of the well of zamzam in Mecca (ran into him on plane back to NY from Riyadh in 2005 after we had both made umrah and, yes, came back with little bottles of Zamzam water) :) no selfie, you’ll just have to believe me
2
11
62
Very, very sad. Talal Asad, one of my most beloved teachers, was supposed to visit my grad seminar earlier this semester when his wife Tanya fractured her hip and had to be hospitalized. She passed away a few weeks later. إنا لله و إنا إليه راجعون
3
2
61