Most likely born in Baghdad, the Jewish philosopher Sa’d ibn Mansur Ibn Kammuna died in 1284; his writings, all of which were in Arabic, influenced both Jewish and Muslim thinkers of the era. His thought draws upon Sufism, the Islamic philosophers Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali, and the great Sephardi philosophers Judah Halevi and Moses Maimonides, among many other sources. Describing one of Ibn Kammuna’s books, recently translated into English by Tzvi Langermann, Alan Brill writes:

Ibn Kammuna’s Subtle Insights Concerning Knowledge and Practice is a goldmine of ethics, ritual, piety, and religious thought, [filled with] valuable [information] about the medieval Jewish experience and its culture.

Written for the newly appointed Muslim governor of Isfahan, [a city now in Iran and then ruled by an offshoot of the Mongol empire], this compact treatise and philosophical guidebook includes a wide‑ranging and accessible set of essays on ethics, psychology, political philosophy, and the unity of God.

To Kammuna, [society is composed of] two elements: the common people who follow religion based on the authority of prophecy and the philosopher- intellectuals who have a philosophic religion. This book presents what Langermann calls “Abrahamic philosophic piety,” [based on the twin] principles of God and prophecy. Allah, Theos, and the God of the Hebrew Bible are automatically assumed to be the same universal Deity.

Yet, adds Langermann, in conversation with Brill, the abstract universalism Ibn Khammuna embraces in this book is not, at least on its own, representative of his thought as a whole:

[Ibn Khammuna’s book comparing the three monotheistic religions], Examination of the Three Faiths, has a distinctly pro-Jewish bias, which was not lost on Christian and Muslim readers. It is not overtly polemical; he does not attack any other religion. . . . However, Judaism does come out looking the best of the three in that book. Similarly, his relatively unknown treatise comparing Rabbinic Judaism with Karaism, [a sect that rejected the Talmud and the rabbinic tradition], clearly favors the Rabbinites.

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune moment for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.