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Why language families matter (in an Iranian context)
X.T.M notes that many Iranian surnames cluster by religion and ethnicity, unlike Turkey’s deliberately neutral ones, and that several ‘Persian’ friends turn out to have Kurdish, Bakhtiari or other Iranian…
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Review: Empire, by Niall Ferguson
Omar Ali reviews Niall Ferguson’s Empire, calling it a decent, mostly balanced short history of the British empire worth four stars if one ignores Ferguson’s pro-imperial coda, though thin on…
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Taimur or Faiz Ali Khan
X.T.M reacts to reports about naming a Bollywood couple’s son, arguing India lets film figures off lightly, that a name should balance a child’s mixed heritage, and that unilateral transmission…
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Is there a Muslim concept of nationhood?
X.T.M asks whether there is an Islamic concept of nationhood, comparing the Two-Nation Theory to the Bahá’í priority of faith over nation, and wondering what the equivalent of the Treaty…
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Brown Pundit tour of Pakistan
X.T.M, who has visited India about ten times, urges commenters to visit Pakistan, noting a friend who disparaged the country until a trip to interior Sindh changed his mind.
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Wonderful news out of Pakistan
A link to a Dawn report that Pakistan’s Senate unanimously passed a bill letting transgender people determine their own gender identity, with X.T.M’s remark that the MQM led the initiative.
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The Rise of the RSS
X.T.M, in a provocative aside, says India needs the BJP to manage minorities, lists changes he thinks Indian Muslims should make, and wonders whether liberal democracy fails with large minority…
The Indian Subcontinent Argues with Itself
Sunday, 8 November 2026Since December 2010 · 4,170 posts · 93,920 comments
