While the Jews of Spain wrote numerous religious works in Arabic, most famously perhaps Judah Halevi’s philosophical magnum opus The Kuzari, they generally wrote their studies of Jewish law in Hebrew. An exception is The Comprehensive Book (Kitāb al-Hāwī), composed by David ben Sa’adya al-Ger and possibly the oldest halakhic compendium produced in Iberia. For centuries, it was known to scholars because it was cited by other works, but no manuscript or printed edition was available. Marc Herman describes a newly published version:

Pieced together from Genizah fragments, other manuscripts, and citations in later medieval works, and comprising much of the original text, this new edition of Kitāb al-Hāwī recovers a once-prominent halakhist who fell into obscurity in the centuries after his death.

Next to nothing is known with certainty about the life of David ben Sa’adya, author of the Kitāb al-Hāwī and other halakhic works. David’s period of activity can be fixed sometime after the death of [the great Iraqi rabbi] Hayya Gaon (d. 1038), whom David cited with some frequency, and before the death of Isaac Ibn al-Bālīya (d. 1094), who mentioned David as deceased.

David ben Sa’adya composed several works. In addition to the Kitāb al-Hāwī, written in a mixture of Judeo-Arabic and Aramaic, they include Judeo-Arabic volumes on the laws of oaths and on the laws of bequests, as well as commentaries on the Talmud and, according to Rabbi Abrama Ibn Ezra, a work on Hebrew grammar. Of these additional writings, only the one on the laws of oaths survives.

Last week, Jordanian police arrested sixteen members of the country’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood for acquiring explosives, trying to manufacture drones, and planning rocket attacks. The cell was likely working in coordination with Hamas (the Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood) and Hizballah, and perhaps receiving funding from Iran. Ghaith al-Omari provides some background:

The Brotherhood has been active in Jordan since the 1940s, and its relations with the government remained largely cooperative for decades even as other political parties were banned in the 1950s. In exchange, the Brotherhood usually (but not always) supported the palace’s foreign policy and security measures, particularly against Communist and socialist parties.

Relations became more adversarial near the turn of the century after the Brotherhood vociferously opposed the 1994 peace treaty with Israel. The Arab Spring movement that emerged in 2011 saw further deterioration. Unlike other states in the region, however, Jordan did not completely crack down on the MB, instead seeking to limit its influence.

Yet the current Gaza war has seen another escalation, with the MB repeatedly accusing the government of cooperating with Israel and not doing enough to support the Palestinians.

Jordanian security circles are particularly worried about the MB’s vocal wartime identification with Hamas, an organization that was considered such a grave security threat that it was expelled from the kingdom in 1999. The sentiment among many Jordanian officials is that the previous lenient approach failed to change the MB’s behavior, emboldening the group instead.