Historian of gender, empire, and South Asia based in Karachi. 🇵🇰🇵🇸🏳️🌈
Karachi
Joined September 2013
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The top 2 are injured, Zverev. You're an anomaly and you won't be there for long.
Alexander Zverev says he’s annoyed that he’s the only world No. 1 in history who has to explain why it’s ok for him to be world No. 1:
“I was a bit annoyed the last couple of days because achieving the world No. 1 status is something I think every player dreams of. But then, I feel like I’m the only world No. 1 in tennis history that has to explain why it’s ok for me to be world No. 1… which I find quite difficult. Because I deserve to be where I am. I don’t think anyone has to explain themselves as much as I had to do in the last couple of days.”
Zoya Sameen retweeted
Gimme three months and his golf buddies in Florida wouldn’t even vote for him.
I’ll smoke him by 7. Bet on it.
🚨BREAKING: Republicans' odds to flipping the Michigan US Senate seat JUMP OVERNIGHT.
Michigan - 2026 US Senate
🟥Mike Rogers 44.3% (+3.7)
🟦Abdul El-Sayed 40.6%
Polling average via Pollsmax.com.
Abdul El-Sayed has become the Democratic frontrunner, and compared to his primary opponents—Mallory McMorrow and Haley Stevens—he performs by far the worst against Mike Rogers.
If El-Sayed ends up being the nominee, Republicans will be the heavy favorites to flip Michigan's US Senate seat later this year.
Zoya Sameen retweeted
Last night saw some of the greatest progressive victories in modern American history. All across the country, in rural and urban areas, Americans said NO to oligarchy, and YES to an agenda that fights for the working class.
Congratulations to the following candidates:
U.S. SENATE
Abdul El-Sayed (MI)
Peggy Flanagan (MN)
Troy Jackson (ME)
U.S. HOUSE
Bob Brooks (PA-7)
Rebecca Cooke (WI-3)
Sam Forstag (MT-1)
Adam Hamawy (NJ-12)
Melat Kiros (CO-1)
Brad Lander (NY-10)
Will Lawrence (MI-7)
Donavan McKinney (MI-13)
Brian Poindexter (OH-7)
Analilia Mejía (NJ-11)
Claire Valdez (NY-07)
Randy Villegas (CA-22)
Aisha Wahab (CA-14)
Zoya Sameen retweeted
When you listen to James Talarico, you realize that last night's results were not just a rejection of Trump and Israel's Iran war, but also a rejection of a Democratic Party led by people like Biden, Blinken, and Sullivan:
"I've never taken money from AIPAC, and I'm not taking money from AIPAC in this campaign. Seeing what's happening in Gaza makes me sick to my stomach as a teacher, as a Christian, as a human being"
This is his message, and he won in Texas!
Zoya Sameen retweeted
It’s so brave and inspirational of these guys to literally tremble in fear as they say the word ‘genocide’ 3 years later
Zoya Sameen retweeted
Chaudhry Rehmat Ali’s “Pakistan” scheme drew a harsh and fairly predictable backlash from the Hindu right. In July 1935, the Lahore Urdu daily 'Milap' published a poem titled “Pakistan” by a poet writing as “Haq Pash” that mocked and dismissed the whole idea.
The poem plays on the name. Pakistan means “land of the pure,” but the poet calls it a “na-pak” (impure) movement. He says it defies reason and is unlike anything seen before. To him, it is an ill-omened idea that will wipe out every good thought, a disaster for the motherland and for “Sheikh and Brahmin” alike, one that will divide northern India and ruin “the garden.”
The poem ends by warning the “Pakistanis” to give up this idea, so possibly Haq Pash was the first person to use the term “Pakistanis”!
Zoya Sameen retweeted
Jason Alexander is and was featured prominently on “Friends of the IDF” marketing material pretty consistently.
This tidbit about him being protected by Palestinians from roving gangs of IDF troops terrorizing Palestinians means nothing fuck him
Jason Alexander says he feared visiting Palestine as a Jew until 10 Palestinians protected him during an Israeli army raid in Ramallah
“How much of a risk would I be taking as an American Jew walking into Palestinian cities? And Mohammed said, ‘The greatest dishonor that could happen to a religious Muslim is to allow harm to come to an invited guest’”
“And he said, ‘Jason, if they had to, they’ll take a bullet for you.’ And what was so interesting about that trip is, we were having lunch in Ramallah with a bunch of actors and artists at a sort of outdoor restaurant”
“And the Israeli army was conducting a raid on a bank that they thought had terrorist ties a couple blocks away. And they must have, to announce themselves, just shot into the air. And I remember 10 of those guys at the table surrounding me. And I went, ‘Oh my God, he wasn’t kidding. They’re not going to let me get hurt’”
Zoya Sameen retweeted
Please read and share this article from *The BMJ* on *"Sexual violence against Palestinians". It’s difficult reading, but must be shared. Five doctors and legal scholars examine the evidence and call for independent investigations and accountability.
bmj.com/content/395/bmj-2026…
Zoya Sameen retweeted
1/11 Issue three of Adaad is out. Five contributors have written for this experimental issue on politics, law and society.
Pakistan’s constitution promises its citizens equal protection before the law and a say in how they are governed. This issue asks, with data, who that promise reaches.
Two questions run through it. When you are harmed, does the state protect you? And when the state acts, do you have a voice in what it does?
The answers differ by who you are: a woman, a member of a religious or ethnic minority, someone from the country’s political peripheries, a citizen who protests.
A thread through all nine pieces.
adaad.org/issues/2026-10/
Zoya Sameen retweeted
6/11 A majority language and a minority cause
with Zoya Sameen @flounderingbear
The struggle over Bengali’s recognition also concerned the terms on which minorities could help shape Pakistan.
Returning to the Constituent Assembly’s debates and recorded votes, this piece examines the minority members who resisted delaying recognition. Their positions on language often went alongside demands for broader representation and safeguards against arbitrary power.
Reading their speeches alongside their votes reveals both the arguments they made and the conditions under which they could be heard. They helped imagine Pakistan even as they were required to establish their right to shape it.
Their defeated proposals belong to our inheritance too. The country we have reflects choices made in those early years, alongside possibilities that others fought to keep open.
adaad.org/issues/2026-10/ben…
Zoya Sameen retweeted
What’s happening in India could have happened in Pakistan too, if student unions hadn’t been banned for over 40 years.
Zoya Sameen retweeted
A request on reuse, because I have now seen Data Darbar and Adaad's analysis and methods turned up elsewhere without a mention a few times.
Data Darbar and Adaad are open by design. The code is MIT, the derived data is CC BY 4.0. The purpose of the license is for people to use them, build on them, publish from them, even sell things made from them (I deliberately excluded Share-Alike from the license). The licence asks one thing only: say where it came from.
That condition is not about credit for its own sake, though that ought to be ordinary courtesy. Attribution is provenance. Every table on the site carries its source, its build notes and what changed between releases, so a reader can trace any number back to the record it came from and check it. Republish a figure without the citation and that chain breaks. Corrections stop travelling too: when I fix a table, anyone citing it can see the change, and anyone who didn't is quietly carrying the old error.
Pakistan's data problem has never been a shortage of statistics. It is that they sit in PDFs and institutional silos. An open culture around evidence only grows if the work that frees them stays visible and traceable, and that is the whole reason the licence exists.
If you use the data, a line is enough: "Source: Data Darbar (darbar.adaad.org)", with the original publisher named alongside. If you follow the analysis we've done, say "after Adaad" and link it. The catalogue gives you the citation ready to paste.
darbar.adaad.org/about.html#…
Data Darbar has a new build. The site is now three explorers, Places, Economy and State, plus a catalogue and a SQL console for anyone who wants the tables rather than the charts.
This update includes requests I received to add new data on geo-located schools and health facilities, migration and more detailed census data.
darbar.adaad.org
Zoya Sameen retweeted
Leave it to an Irish woman from the North!!
Turn it up! #Israel 🗣🗣🇵🇸
Zoya Sameen retweeted
There’s a book called Good Muslim/Bad Muslim written by a guy named Mamdani that Zohran should read.
The Talmud teaches that anyone who sustains one soul, has sustained an entire world. For generations, Jewish New Yorkers have sustained our city. Today, we are launching the first-ever municipal Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.
Together, we will ensure Jewish New Yorkers are safe and celebrated. We will invest in their protection, their history, and their future.
Our safety and our thriving are tied together.
Zoya Sameen retweeted
I'm not criticizing Zohran for doing this because I understand he has to deal with a very toxic political reality. Politics is a different game.
But to me launching a "Strategy to Combat Antisemitism" in a time of the Gaza genocide is akin to a "Strategy to Combat Anti-Whiteness" at the height of South African apartheid. That's not even a fair analogy: Israel and its apologists do infinitely more to both fabricate and encourage anti-Semitism.
The Talmud teaches that anyone who sustains one soul, has sustained an entire world. For generations, Jewish New Yorkers have sustained our city. Today, we are launching the first-ever municipal Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.
Together, we will ensure Jewish New Yorkers are safe and celebrated. We will invest in their protection, their history, and their future.
Our safety and our thriving are tied together.