Can a game called Europa Universalis V be anything but Eurocentric? Does it really matter if such a game is Eurocentric? One could argue perhaps not… following Dabashi (2015: 33) we could say “of course Europeans are Eurocentric”. However, it is worth investigating Europa Universalis V and the wider Europa Universalis game series for the simple reason that it shows how we are still haunted by the Eurocentric, even after the decolonial has emerged and become established as a field of thought (though now undergoing a concerted attack in Western plutocracies).

University campuses have formed an epicenter of Palestine solidarity resistance since the onset of Israel’s genocide. In equal measure they have become sites of institutional repression where waves of encampments and protest have led to punitive disciplinary measures, even inspiring university policy research as a guide on how to best manage them. Such highly public interventions, aired by student activists themselves, have however, been accompanied by what can be seen as softer modes of quelling solidarity resistance; ‘Muslim-Jewish’ platforms, ‘interfaith’ and tackling anti-Islamophobia/antisemitism in university settings.

Far from being outdated modes of self/group identifications, both caste and religion continue to hold significant sway in the sociopolitical life of modern South Asia. This piece looks at how ‘Dalit Muslims’ or the ex-untouchable converts to Islam problematize dominant narratives of caste and religion in India.

Faisal Devji’s essay in the Open Magazine (August 2025) entitled ‘The End of Islam’ and subtitled ‘Is the religion’s journey as an agent of history over?’, introduces readers to his recently published volume, Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam. In his opening reflections, Devji explains his choice of title as an index of the book’s import. He states that the current title replaces the ‘provocative’ original, The End of Islam, which well-wishers feared could expose him to attacks from ‘irate Muslims’. Devji assents, but less from fear of reprisals than from concern that the original caption could ‘inadvertently win [him] readers among anti-Islam activists rather than those interested in the role of ideas in history’.

Hasbun-Allahu-wa-Ni’mal-Wakil..

That repeating cry keeps on striking us.

Mothers losing their children, boys-girls losing their parents and families losing their homes. The whole city losing its life of past and present; hope for the future seems perishing under the genocidal bombardment. What is left to emerge is the repeating crying call: Sufficient is Allah, the best provider of all affairs.

A fateful decade has passed since ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies was founded. Created to engage with the humanities and social sciences in a genealogical critique of orientalism, ReOrient’s imperative has been to decolonise the annals of Eurocentrism that were spawned after Europe’s capture and realignment of the world. What started off as the intellectual project of purging the entrenched trajectories of orientalist epistemologies is now amplified by the onslaught of the multilateral forces menacing thought, knowledge, and speech. Coming straight for us is the accelerating tandem of power-knowledge that has been reignited in this latest cataclysm wrought upon the world.