Saad Lakhani

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at @UnionCollege

[Saad Lakhani @lakhsaad]

Please share your interest in our proposed panel, “Marginalization and Recognition in South Asia,” for the Annual Conference on South Asia (Madison, WI, October) via this form:

https://t.co/Xa7MAHnGKy

[Saad Lakhani @lakhsaad]

@SierraThomander Amazing!! Congratulations 🎉

[Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation @HFGuggenheim]

HFG welcomes 2025 Emerging Scholar @lakhsaad of @Stanford University. Lakhani’s dissertation analyzes the authoritarian and violent impulses within the mass anti-blasphemy movement in Pakistan.

Learn more here: https://t.co/60Shwp5AZq

#HFGEmergingScholar #Pakistan

[Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation @HFGuggenheim]

Today we are pleased to announce the selection of the 2025 HFG Emerging Scholars. The twelve doctoral candidates are researching a range of important topics, including online #radicalization, #criminalgroups, and fatal police encounters in the #UnitedStates.

Learn more about the scholars and their research:

https://t.co/yGysOjzgJF

[Alpa Shah @alpashah001]

David Graeber, a companion in life. Between the tears of losing you, I share a few words about you on this strange outer-space 'twitter' that in fact you introduced me to. I hope they may help all those who are feeling your loss too.

David Graeber: Releasing the genius in us...

[Saad Lakhani @lakhsaad]

@ArafatMazhar Sure but these specific laws are not premised on abstract equality are they? I understand your point about the modern state enforcing dominant norms in the language of neutrality etc. Unlike the colonial era laws, there is no pretense of neutrality with these laws.

[Saad Lakhani @lakhsaad]

@ArafatMazhar True for the colonial laws but don’t you think it’s a stretch to see Zia’s codes like 295c and others as enshrining abstract undiffferentiated equality? They are very specifically about Islamic symbols and Muslim feelings. 298C targets a specific group for offending another.

[Mona Farooq Ahmad @MonaChaudhryy]

The persecution of Ahmadis continues.

Ameer Hassan, 40, was shot dead in Mirpurkhas Sindh today while returning from Fajr prayer. His 12 yr old son witnessed the horror. He leaves behind a widow & 5 minor children & a community under constant threat.

@CMShehbaz
@BBhuttoZardari

[Nida Kirmani @NidaKirmani]

Even some of the best scholars refer to social phenomena as being 'gendered' only when women are involved. I find this very irritating. All things are gendered, even if no women are involved. I'll say it again: 'gender' ≠ 'women'. Gender = everyone!

[Arsalan Khan @akkhan81]

Too much anthropology still fits in the mold of trying to explain why some group or practice or phenomenon is different from the modular, Western or liberal subject rather than why that matters in explaining an actual problem in the world.

[Saad Lakhani @lakhsaad]

If you’re at @ACSAMadison, please come to our panel on the politics of joking and offence in South Asia. I’ll be discussing TLP’s blasphemy politics via engaging classical anthropological concepts of joking and avoidance. Also exciting papers by @alishaecherian, @_safiamahmood.

[Arshad Yousafzai @Arshadyousafzay]

In Larkana, a mob caught an Ahmadi, beat him, and dragged him to the police station, accusing him of giving the Azan. Instead of arresting the mob for violence, they filed a blasphemy case against the victim. This is the justice, and this is the law. Stop spreading this extremism

[ArafatMazhar 🤖 @ArafatMazhar]

Mufti Masood by now would have surrendered himself to the authorities to be adjudicated by Gods divine law 295C if he sincerely believed it to be Gods law.. In fact no one from Deoband is saying “let the law take its course”. Because they know that 295C knows only one course - “guilty”. once he’s in the session court, he's guilty. The law is designed to punish, not deliver justice.

[Husnain Bin Sajjad @husnayn_]

One of the most popular traditional muslim scholar of Pakistan has to upload 4 apology videos in a span of 48 hours, one after another, in order to defend himself against blasphemy allegations.

If this doesn't show you the state we are in, i am not sure what else will.

[Arshad Yousafzai @Arshadyousafzay]

‼️ alert 🚨
Mob lynching in progress. Even after the passage of several hours, police are yet to intervene. A mob is gathered outside the Ahmadi Masjid in Islamiya Park, Lahore.

[ArafatMazhar 🤖 @ArafatMazhar]

it is crucial to spread this. Not to rub it in. But to articulate it as manufactured fiqh, a lie that traditional scholars kept repeating with “zimmadari”. These guys wont solve this. We will have to solve this FOR them and save their lives

[Nida Kirmani @NidaKirmani]

It's in the interest of the Pakistani state to allow the blasphemy frenzy to keep growing. This is why its own agents are murdering the accused & being openly celebrated. The state loves playing with fire; they don't realise that the flames could eventually consume them as well.

[Nida Kirmani @NidaKirmani]

In Umerkot! This tells you how far the rot has spread.

[Dr. Taimur Rahman @Taimur_Laal]

Colleges have become unsafe for Ahmedi professors. These are the kinds of things that happened in Nazi Germany before the holocaust. We are heading in the same direction for minorities in Pakistan.

[Dr. Taimur Rahman @Taimur_Laal]

The people have been so befuddled by mullahs that they are rewarding extra judicial killing of alleged blasphemers.

No trial, no right to defence, no proof, no due process. Just kill anyone accused.

This is mob rule.