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Some people spend their lives accepting their lot, while others take their destiny into their own hands. This is all the more difficult for a woman living in a man’s world. And yet… some women chose to fight, succeeding in breaking the taboos of their time. Whether they wielded a brush, a pen, scientific instruments, or their voices, they made their mark on their century with a boldness that at times bordered on scandal. From Artemisia Gentileschi, defying Italian society and the courts five centuries ago, to George Sand, who traded the corset for the freedom to write; from Camille Claudel, the deeply wounded artist, to the rigor and genius of Marie Curie, and the universal voice of Oum Kalthoum… these women succeeded in overcoming social prejudice. In a series of articles, we invite you on a journey through time to meet these rebellious women. We continue our series on famous yet rebellious women with George Sand. Nineteenth-century literature was largely dominated by men. Yet one woman refused to accept this state of affairs: Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, better known as George Sand. She would shake up conventions, customs, and laws of her time. A prolific writer, a courageous mother, and a woman who loved passionately, she swept through her era like a hurricane, refusing to be confined to the gilded cages of propriety and social convention. Childhood Aurore Dupin spent her childhood in Berry, at the Nohant estate, in the care of an aristocratic and cultured grandmother who gave her the education of a proper lady of society and enabled her to acquire an exceptional level of culture for a woman of her time. Having lost her father and been abandoned by her mother as part of a sordid arrangement, Aurore nevertheless enjoyed a happy childhood surrounded by nature and her grandmother’s books. Portrait of George Sand, an oil painting by Auguste Charpentier, painted in 1838 and housed at the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris. The Battle for Her Children and Her Land “Men make the laws, women make the customs.” George Sand’s life took a dramatic turn when she decided to flee her unhappy marriage to Baron Casimir Dudevant. At the time, the Napoleonic Code was uncompromising: a married woman was legally a minor. Her property, money, and even her children legally belonged to her husband. Yet Aurore refused to submit. In 1835, she launched a high-profile lawsuit seeking separation of property and separation from her husband. At the heart of this struggle were her greatest treasures: her children, Maurice and Solange, and her beloved Nohant estate. In the 19th century, a woman seeking a divorce and claiming the family fortune caused an absolute scandal. Before the judges, Sand displayed fierce determination and remarkable legal acumen. She won her case, regaining both Nohant and custody of her children. Making a Living by the Pen: A Groundbreaking Struggle Free but financially suffocated by mounting legal expenses, she had to earn a living from her writing to support her family. In order to publish her books, move freely around Paris without an escort, attend plays, frequent newspaper offices, and so on, she decided to wear men’s clothing – her famous gray frock coat – smoke cigars, and adopt a male name. George Sand was born. She wrote at night, sometimes for as many as fourteen hours a day, churning out page after page to pay for her children’s education and maintain her estate. In her novels, the subjects she tackled, including female desire, were sometimes provocative and unprecedented for the time. She became the first woman in France to make a living from her writing, holding her own as an equal among the literary giants of her day: Balzac, Flaubert, and Victor Hugo, much to their dismay. For her, writing was not a pastime but an act of faith: “Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for truth, art for beauty, art for goodness – that is the religion I seek.” The Absolute Lover: The Idyll with Chopin “There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.” George Sand did nothing by halves, least of all when it came to love. She was a passionate lover who sought to elevate the soul through passion, even if it meant suffering and causing scandal. Following a tumultuous and destructive affair with the poet Alfred de Musset, that ended in a major scandal, and following numerous other relationships, she would experience with Chopin one of the most beautiful – and complex – love stories of the Romantic era. When they first met, Chopin was ill and tormented. Sand, by contrast, was overflowing with vitality. It was love at first sight. They then spent a winter in exile in Majorca, at the Charterhouse of Valldemossa. In that wild, rain-soaked setting, while Chopin coughed up blood and composed his finest Préludes , Sand became his lover, muse, and devoted nurse. She watched over her beloved genius, took care of their daily affairs, and wrote her novels by candlelight while he improvised at the piano. Their relationship lasted nearly nine years, alternating between artistic fusion and painful ruptures. Despite all her disappointments, love would always remain the great driving force of her life. A Legacy of Shadows and Light” “Disappointments do not kill, and hopes keep us alive.” In the twilight of her life, Sand, affectionately known as the “Good Lady of Nohant”, retired to her beloved estate, where she took her final bow. She left behind more than seventy novels, thousands of letters, and the memory of a woman who remained true to herself and knew how to transform her personal struggles into a body of work with universal resonance. She died leaving behind one enduring certainty for all the women (and men) who would follow in her footsteps: freedom cannot be negotiated; it must be conquered! Read also When An Artist from Old Florence Takes Up Her Brush (1)

A fire smoldering beneath the ashes… At this stage, that appears to be the perception that the radical Iranian camp is seeking to cultivate on multiple fronts. On the military operations front, first… The Yemeni Houthi militia, one of the mullah regime's main proxies in the region, continued on Tuesday, August 11, its campaign of destabilization in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb area, launching three ballistic missiles at a Yemeni commercial vessel crossing the strait. The Houthi attack was particularly deadly, resulting in four crew members killed — three Pakistanis and one Indonesian — and four others wounded. According to Yemen's Ministry of Transport, the pro-Iranian militia also fired a fourth missile during rescue operations, 'with the aim of increasing the number of casualties,' the ministry stated, adding that Houthi attacks on commercial vessels 'threaten the food supply of millions of Yemenis.' Almost simultaneously, U.S. forces deployed in the Gulf region targeted a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz that was attempting to break the naval blockade imposed by the U.S. military on Iranian ports. Shots were fired at the Panama-flagged ship. The restructuring of Iran's military apparatus Alongside these sporadic military operations, the latest appointments within the senior command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran's armed forces stand out as a serious indicator that the fire may indeed be smoldering beneath the ashes. Analysis and commentary reported by various Iranian media outlets suggest that the six senior officers appointed on Monday to key positions within the IRGC and armed forces command represent the hardline wing of the mullah regime. The same sources, cited by the Lebanese news site al-Janoubiya (close to the Shia opposition hostile to Hezbollah), indicate that the promotions clearly reflect a hardening stance among Iranian decision-makers, who reportedly made these appointments to boost the regime's offensive and deterrent posture. Nevertheless, Pakistan's Defense Minister declared late Tuesday that the United States and the Islamic Republic are close to reaching an agreement that could bring the current conflict to an end. This statement coincides with a visit to Tehran by Pakistan's Interior Minister, also on Tuesday. This is certainly not the first time Pakistani officials have expressed optimism about an 'imminent' resolution to the regional crisis, but in recent days that optimism has been tempered somewhat by a softening in the typically forceful positions adopted by President Donald Trump. The U.S. president has in fact emphasized on several occasions in recent days that he currently favors maximum economic pressure on the regime over a resumption of large-scale military operations. That said, the American president once again leveled sharp criticism at Iran's leaders, noting that the regime's negotiators are 'particularly deceitful, in that they agree to certain measures during talks only to publicly deny them afterward in front of reporters.' On an entirely different note, Damascus's criminal court on Tuesday sentenced former Syrian president and dictator Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher, and their cousin Atef Najib to death for crimes against humanity and premeditated killings. The court also decided to pursue international proceedings against them. These convictions sparked celebrations in the Syrian capital.

In April 2026, Wissam Saadé delivered four lectures at the University of Bologna at the invitation of Professor Giovanni Giorgini. The first lecture, entitled The Prophet and the Philosopher: The Hierarchy of Knowledge between Avicenna’s Falsafa and al-Kirmānī’s Isma ʿ ili Neoplatonism , is presented here in its revised and expanded essay form, published as a ten-part series. The series explores the intellectual landscape of Islamic Neoplatonism through a comparative reading of Avicenna and al-Kirmānī. Although both thinkers share a broadly Neoplatonic horizon, shaped by an emanationist metaphysics, a hierarchy of being, and a synthesis of Aristotelian and Platonic thought, they develop distinct philosophical projects: Avicenna within the tradition of Peripatetic falsafa, and al-Kirmānī within Ismaʿili theology. Despite these different intellectual settings, their systems remain in continuous dialogue on the nature of knowledge, the relationship between reason and revelation, and the ascent of the soul. Their respective projects also embody contrasting approaches to the political, illuminating different ways of understanding the place of philosophy in relation to authority, law, and the ordering of the community. This article is the third installment of that ten-part series. III - Gnosis without Escape: The Management of the Pleroma in al-Kirmānī’s Quietude of the Intellect Between the 9th and 11th centuries, the Islamicate world witnessed the translation and transformation of Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, into Arabic. This produced falsafa , a tradition that sought to construct a rational, demonstrative account of reality ( burhān ), often integrating metaphysics, cosmology, and psychology into a unified system. At the same time, Shiʿa intellectual movements, especially Ismailism, were developing their own highly sophisticated metaphysical systems. These were not simply theological doctrines but also philosophical cosmologies, often structured around emanation, a hierarchy of intellects, and the symbolic interpretation ( ta ʾ wīl ) of revelation. Thus, Avicenna and al-Kirmānī are not working in separate worlds: they are responding to a shared intellectual environment in which philosophy, theology, and esoteric interpretation overlap. In the confrontation between these two near-contemporary authors, Avicenna and al-Kirmānī, both rely on strategies for constructing a philosophical religion. For Avicenna, this philosophical religion is his falsafa ; for al-Kirmānī, it is Ismaili Shiʿism. Avicenna lived in the Persianate world under Samanid and later Buyid influence. He was a polymath, physician, logician, and metaphysician, and produced one of the most systematic philosophical architectures in pre-modern history. His aim was to construct a complete rational science of being: a metaphysics centered on the distinction between necessary being ( wājib al-wujūd ) and contingent being; a cosmology structured through emanation from the First Principle; and a psychology in which the human intellect can ascend toward conjunction with the Active Intellect. Avicenna does not reject religion. Instead, he reinterprets it. Prophecy becomes an imaginative translation of philosophical truths. Ritual and law are directed toward the moral and cognitive perfection of society. Al-Kirmānī and the philosophical architecture of Ismailism Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (c. 996-1021) was a preeminent Ismaili thinker and missionary ( dā ʿ ī ) active during the intellectual consolidation of the Fatimid Caliphate in Cairo. His work represents a sophisticated attempt to harmonize Neoplatonic metaphysics with Ismaili cosmology. Al-Kirmānī developed a systematic metaphysics that interprets reality through a rigid hierarchy of intellects, anchoring all philosophical reasoning within the absolute authority of the Imam. A defining feature of al-Kirmānī’s thought is the belief that Scripture possesses a hidden, intellectual reality ( bāṭin ) beneath its literal form ( ẓāhir ). For al-Kirmānī, the Imam is the indispensable guide to this inner truth. Consequently, philosophy is not an independent pursuit but is subordinated to a revealed, hierarchical authority structure. While reason is considered real and necessary, it is hierarchically embedded; it cannot reach its peak without the pedagogical and spiritual guidance of the Imamate. In contrast, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) offers a model in which philosophy moves toward the autonomy of reason. Despite their divergence, both systems share a common architecture: they construct a totalizing vision of reality, spanning cosmology, psychology, and eschatology, and link the acquisition of knowledge to the transformation of the soul. Both thinkers organize the universe into hierarchical metaphysical structures, blending rational inquiry with a salvific horizon. In this sense, both projects constitute “philosophical religions,” albeit with different points of departure. Avicenna’s aim is to establish Falsafa as the philosophical religion of the Islamicate world, producing a philosophical system that behaves like a religion. Conversely, al-Kirmānī’s goal is to reshape Ismaili Shiʿism into a system centered on a philosophical religion, producing a religious system that behaves like a philosophy. Radical tawḥīd and the First Intellect Al-Kirmānī develops a radically refined doctrine of tawḥīd that pushes philosophical theology toward an extreme form of transcendental negation. In his system, divine unity is not understood in numerical terms, nor can it be predicated of God in any positive ontological sense. God is neither “one” in the numerical sense, nor “being,” nor “intellect,” nor any determinate entity. Any attempt to ascribe such predicates to the divine is already a fall into conceptual inadequacy. The most adequate form of tawḥīd , therefore, is not affirmation but radical tanzīh : the stripping away of all attributes that belong to created existence. Yet this radical negation does not lead to a void; rather, it produces a precise metaphysical reconfiguration. All the noble attributes commonly associated with God, unity, truth, knowledge, existence, are, in al-Kirmānī’s doctrine, transferred to the first created being: the First Intellect, the primordial entity brought into being by divine origination ( ibdā ʿ). The divine essence itself remains beyond predication, beyond language, and even beyond conceptual accessibility. It is, as al-Kirmānī insists, veiled by the brilliance of its own creative act. The First Intellect thus occupies a unique ontological position. It is the first existent, unpreceded by anything in the order of creation, yet it is not self-subsistent. Its existence is entirely derived, not through temporal causation but through divine origination. It is neither body nor embodied power; it is entirely outside the realm of physical extension. At the same time, it is the locus in which all divine predicates become intelligible: it is the true “one,” the true “knowing,” the true “living,” the true “powerful,” insofar as these qualities can appear within the order of creation. In this sense, tawḥīd in al-Kirmānī does not eliminate attributes but displaces them. It is not God who is described as unity, knowledge, or being, but the First Intellect, which becomes the mirror of divine creative overflow. God remains absolutely beyond both affirmation and negation in any ordinary linguistic sense. As al-Kirmānī states, no language is capable of expressing what befits the divine essence; every attempt at predication is already a descent into inadequacy. The limits of knowledge and the hierarchy of being This leads to a doctrine of radical epistemic limitation. The divine essence cannot be grasped by any intellect, nor perceived by any sense. It is, in principle, inaccessible. Even the highest rational contemplation reaches only its own limit, recognizing the impossibility of its object. True knowledge of God thus culminates not in vision but in bewilderment, a recognition of the structural impossibility of comprehension. Paradoxically, this epistemic impossibility does not abolish metaphysics but intensifies it. The First Intellect, as the primordial emanation, becomes the axis of all subsequent reality. It is through it that all other levels of being unfold, in a structured hierarchy extending from pure intellect to soul, to nature, and finally to the material world. Each level is an effect of divine origination mediated through increasingly dense ontological veils. Within this structure, al-Kirmānī also integrates a cosmology of correspondence between metaphysical and religious orders. The First Intellect corresponds symbolically to the Pen ( al-qalam ) in sacred language, while the Universal Soul corresponds to the Tablet ( al-lawḥ ). These correspondences establish a parallel between the hierarchy of being and the hierarchy of revelation, allowing cosmology to be read as a structured symbolic order. Unlike strict Neoplatonic emanationism in its purely linear form, al-Kirmānī does not adopt a simple one-to-one cascade of intellects. Rather, he proposes a more complex mechanism of reflective and composite unfolding, in which multiple intellects emerge through structured relations of derivation and resonance. This allows for a multi-layered hierarchy of Ten Intellects, culminating in the Tenth Intellect, associated with the sublunary world and the administration of form in matter. At the human level, this metaphysical structure is mirrored in the organization of knowledge and authority within the Ismaili da ʿ wa . The ranks of ḥujja , dā ʿ ī , and ma ʾ dhūn reflect graded capacities of access to truth, corresponding to degrees of proximity to the intelligible order. Knowledge is thus never purely individual; it is structurally mediated through a hierarchical pedagogy of initiation. Matter itself, in contrast, represents the lowest level of ontological determination, pure receptivity without intelligibility, set at the furthest distance from the luminous origination of the First Intellect. Between these poles, the entire cosmos unfolds as a graded descent from origination to material dispersion, and an inverse ascent of reintegration through knowledge. What emerges from this system is a highly structured metaphysical vision in which divine transcendence is absolute, but its creative unfolding is fully rationalized. The divine is inaccessible, yet its effects are entirely intelligible through a carefully articulated hierarchy of intellects, souls, and cosmic correspondences. In this sense, al-Kirmānī constructs not merely a theology, but a complete philosophical cosmology in which metaphysics, epistemology, and religious hierarchy are inseparably intertwined. Origination beyond emanation and creation Al-Kirmānī exempts himself from providing proof for the existence of God, because this “Unseen of Unseens” can be described neither as existent nor as non-existent; rather, attributes and names belong only to the First Primary Intellect, the first created being. The Ismaili philosopher, however, rendered the relationship between the Originator (God) and the First Originated Being ( al-Mubda ʿ al-Awwal ) as a relationship that is neither emanationist nor creative in the conventional sense. Rather, it is a relationship of Origination ( ibdā ʿ), the secret of which remains inscrutable to all, including the First Intellect itself. In this context, al-Kirmānī does not differ from his predecessor in the pioneering of Ismaili-linked philosophy, Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (d. post-971 AD), except that al-Sijistānī’s double negation remained within the application of the Neoplatonic emanationist scenario. Al-Sijistānī and the vertical duality of Intellect and Soul Al-Sijistānī represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of Ismaili thought, a period in which philosophical Gnosticism became inextricably fused with the tenets of Neoplatonism and Neopythagoreanism. Operating as a prominent dā ʿ ī in the regions of Khorasan and Sistan, al-Sijistānī posited a radical theology of transcendence, identifying God as the “Originator of originators” ( Mubdi ʿ al-mubdi ʿ āt ), a primordial principle existing beyond all ontological dualities. Paradoxically, beneath this absolute transcendence, al-Sijistānī’s emanationist hierarchy relied on a fundamental “vertical duality.” In his system, the Universal Intellect, the first originated being or Logos, gives rise to the Universal Soul (Sophia), from which the forces governing the material world subsequently flow. This dualistic framework, however, faced a rigorous systematic critique by Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī. For al-Kirmānī, the notion that a perfect, first-originated Intellect could produce a “lesser” entity like the Soul through a process of yearning or deficiency was philosophically untenable. He sought to distance Ismaili metaphysics from any suggestion of “process” or “striving” that might inadvertently compromise the absolute nature of the Creator. Consequently, al-Kirmānī replaced the Intellect-Soul duality with a sophisticated system of Ten Separate Intellects. Al-Sijistānī followed Neoplatonism in its entirety: the Veiled God, then the Intellect, then the Soul; for him, the Soul is in constant motion and longs for the perfection represented by God. Al-Kirmānī deviated from this triad by adopting the Farabian system of the Ten Intellects. Consequently, the celestial world was no longer centered around the duality of Intellect and Soul (Logos and Sophia). While al-Sijistānī considered the Soul a distinct substance from the Intellect, one in a state of deficiency seeking to complete itself through the emanation coming from God, al-Kirmānī distributed perfection throughout all the ranks of the Ten Intellects. From the Universal Soul to the Ten Intellects In this revised cosmology, the “Universal Soul” is stripped of its status as a distinct, second cosmic rank. Instead, its position is occupied by a “Second Intellect” which, unlike the striving Soul of al-Sijistānī’s model, is an entity of static perfection and full actualization. By transforming the Soul into an Intellect, al-Kirmānī established a more stable celestial hierarchy, free from the inherent “incompleteness” of the Neoplatonic Soul. This shift was not merely a metaphysical refinement but also a structural necessity for al-Kirmānī’s broader project: the doctrine of correspondence ( taṭbīq ). By expanding the celestial realm to a decadic structure, he was able to demonstrate a rigorous mapping between the Cosmic World (the Ten Intellects), the Human World (the ten levels of the religious hierarchy), and the Biological World (the ten internal and external senses). For al-Kirmānī, this ten-fold intellectual hierarchy provided the necessary complexity to explain the intersection of cosmic order, the physical universe, and the terrestrial mission of the da ʿ wa . A Peripatetic reinjection into Neoplatonism Thus, to a certain extent, it can be said that al-Kirmānī reinjected his Neoplatonism with a Peripatetic dose. He achieved this by utilizing al-Fārābī’s schema of the Ten Intellects, which for al-Fārābī consisted of the First Intellect (God) and the nine spheres. For al-Kirmānī, however, the First Intellect became the “Originated from God” and never God Himself. It is this First Intellect that is worthy of the attributes and names of Majesty and Splendor; indeed, in al-Kirmānī’s logic, there is no fear of shirk [associationism] here. Rather, shirk only occurs by deviating from this distinction. From the axiality of the Soul to the axiality of the Intellect The shift from the God–Intellect–Soul triad to the Farabian Decad marks a fundamental transition from the “axiality of the Soul” to the “axiality of the Intellect.” Originally, al-Fārābī designed this Decad to harmonize Aristotelian physics (the celestial spheres) with metaphysics. Al-Kirmānī recognized the need for this Peripatetic consistency, specifically by establishing Intellection (ʿ Aql ) as the highest form of existence and moving away from a pleroma split between the duality of Logos and Sophia. However, al-Kirmānī maintained a critical theological boundary: he limited the prerogatives of this Intellection. The First Intellect cannot “intellect” or encompass the Originator ( al-Mubdi ʿ), who remains an absolute mystery. Furthermore, he bridged this philosophical structure with Ismaili doctrine by asserting that humans cannot rely solely on their own intellection; they remain dependent on the Ta ʿ līm (authoritative teaching) of the Imam to navigate these truths. The Aristotelian framework provides the logic, but the Imam provides the access.

Israel’s victory in the June War and its renewed occupation of the Gaza Strip lifted the nightmare of the Egyptian regime from the Muslim Brotherhood, following a confrontation triggered by the attempted assassination of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in Manshiyya, Alexandria, in 1954. At the time, the Egyptian authorities accused the “Brotherhood” of plotting the attack and launched a sweeping campaign of arrests targeting its leading figures, including Sayyid Qutb, the foremost theorist of political Islam’s approach to power. A decade later, after Abdul Salam Arif became president of Iraq, his mediation secured Sayyid Qutb’s release. The episode did not, however, lead to reconciliation. Qutb was arrested again, accused of establishing a clandestine organization aimed at overthrowing the Egyptian regime by force, and sentenced to death. He refused to appeal for clemency in exchange for a commutation of his sentence and was hanged on August 29, 1966. A few months later, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip for the second time. The defeat of the Egyptian regime marked the beginning of a resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestinian cities, particularly in the newly occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. There, the “Brotherhood” operated as a religious outreach movement seeking to reform the individual and society. It built a network of mosques, schools, and charitable associations, without offering the population any real political program beyond a call for reform and a return to religion according to its own understanding and interpretation. At the same time, the Palestinian national movement embraced armed struggle as the path toward the liberation of Palestine, both from within the Palestinian territories and across the borders of the Arab confrontation states: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Although the Palestinian national movement, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization, dominated the political landscape and enjoyed broad popular support throughout the Middle East, the Islamist movement patiently pursued its long-term work. It benefited from Israel’s policy of turning a blind eye to its activities, to the point that some of its institutions obtained permits from the occupation army to operate. In its religious outreach activities, the “Brotherhood” gave priority to shaping the individual and society according to its particular conception of Islam. Its approach to dealing with the occupation army did not entail the kind of confrontation advocated by the secular, leftist, and nationalist forces of the Palestinian national movement. It thus created a social environment of its own, relatively isolated from the majority of Palestinian society, while also becoming a safe haven for those unwilling to bear the consequences of the armed and violent confrontation pursued by the factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Consequently, neither its public discourse nor the conduct of its leaders and members placed it in a position of confrontation with the occupation. In this manner, it accumulated influence slowly and gradually. Twenty years passed during which the Brotherhood quietly and steadily developed its internal mechanisms. It accumulated considerable experience in sustained, organized work among its cadres, with significant support from the Muslim Brotherhood’s international networks. It also allowed a degree of individual participation by members who wished to fight in the major battles waged by the Palestine Liberation Organization, but always through military structures with no organizational ties to the Brotherhood, such as the Palestine Liberation Army, the al-Assifa Forces, or under other names that did not make the Muslim Brotherhood directly responsible for the participation of individual members in any battle, large or small. This situation continued until the outbreak of the “Stone Intifada” in 1987, when the Brotherhood began participating directly and openly in the uprising, while remaining outside the Unified National Leadership of the Intifada. It was during this major event that the Muslim Brotherhood launched its new organization under the name “Islamic Resistance Movement,” or Hamas. It subsequently established its armed wing, known as the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. This marked the first transformation of a religious outreach and social movement into an independent political movement, charting a distinct path of its own, separate from the secular national movement. A new fundamental dilemma thus emerged for the Palestinians with the rise of a pole whose conception of the Palestinian national interest differed radically from the one that had prevailed until then and stood in complete opposition to the mainstream orientation embodied by the Palestine Liberation Organization over four decades. The disagreements were not confined to a handful of specific issues. They extended to virtually every question, major and minor. A profound rupture thus began to emerge over the very definition of the policies meant to express the Palestinian national interest, deeper than any division the Palestinian national movement had previously experienced. The division cut vertically through Palestinian society itself and rapidly spread to its trade unions, federations, and grassroots organizations wherever they operated. Even at universities, student organizations proved unable to devise a common framework for student union activity. This was not due to an inherent inability to reach agreement, but rather to the absence of a political framework that would allow agreement even on a basic union program. Dozens of attempts at dialogue were undertaken in an effort to establish common ground, but their results quickly evaporated whenever the fundamental disagreement resurfaced: which authority was entitled to define the Palestinian national interest? The Decisive Turning Point During the years separating the establishment of Hamas from the announcement of the “Oslo Accord,” the new movement adopted slogans that, in some respects, echoed principles espoused by Fatah in its early days. Then came an event that struck the Palestinian political landscape like an unprecedented earthquake, reverberating among the public and the factions, as well as within the political and intellectual elites. The official Palestinian leadership proved unable to provide a convincing political analysis explaining the reasons behind the conclusion of the agreement, either at the international or regional level. Nor did it succeed in explaining the role the “Oslo Accord” could play in addressing the Palestinians’ most pressing needs and priorities, both in the homeland and in the diaspora. Palestinian public opinion consequently split between supporters and opponents of the agreement. It can be argued that a significant part of the support it enjoyed within Fatah rested more on the considerable trust placed in President Yasser Arafat than on any clear explanation of the nature and significance of this turning point, or of the role it was supposed to play in correcting the course of the national struggle. As presented by the Palestinian leadership, the essence of this turning point was a return to the geography of the homeland and the establishment of an internationally recognized Palestinian entity as a step toward independence. This was supposed to entail the national movement’s transition from the stage of an armed liberation movement to that of a movement struggling for independence, relying primarily on political and peaceful struggle and abandoning armed violence as a means of national action. This was what President Arafat declared and formally committed himself to in the documents associated with the agreement. It was therefore hardly surprising that the nationalist and leftist opposition forces within the Palestine Liberation Organization regarded the Oslo Accord as a departure from the principles of the revolution and a retreat from its objectives. In this climate, Hamas found the political opening it had been seeking. It went even further in its characterization of the agreement, describing it as both a national and religious betrayal, based on the Muslim Brotherhood’s conception of Palestine as an Islamic waqf , no part of which anyone had the right to relinquish. Overturning the Oslo Accord thus became a central pillar of Hamas’s political program, with everything else seemingly relegated to secondary importance. Yet from an early stage, the movement’s political practice revealed two parallel tracks. The first consisted of making the fullest possible use of the realities created on the ground by the agreement. Foremost among these were the return of thousands of Palestinians to the homeland, the emergence of a relatively broad sphere of political freedom and open political activity, and the possibility of building party and organizational institutions beyond the direct authority of the occupation. This was in addition to benefiting from the services provided by the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority in healthcare, education, and through its various public institutions and bodies. The movement treated these gains as acquired Palestinian rights rather than as direct outcomes of the Oslo Accord. In the same context, Hamas gradually shifted from a religious position that prohibited participation in municipal, legislative, and presidential elections to one that permitted such participation once its political and organizational outcomes began to serve the movement’s interests and provide it with a broader institutional and popular presence. The second track consisted of continuing to accuse the political leadership that had brought about the Oslo Accord of betrayal, while keeping channels of dialogue with it open whenever necessary in order to secure further political and organizational gains. In doing so, Hamas benefited from the policy pursued by the late President Yasser Arafat, which sought to contain the movement by integrating it into the political process and kept the doors of the Palestinian Authority open to Hamas participation without imposing particularly stringent political conditions. At various stages, the Palestinian Authority refrained from categorically requiring an end to violence, even though the commitment to renounce violence was one of the fundamental commitments undertaken by the Palestinian side on which the process of international recognition of the Palestinian National Authority rested. Meanwhile, armed operations continued, particularly suicide bombings, at moments of acute political sensitivity. At times, they occurred on the eve of Israeli elections or coincided with visits by international envoys, making them a factor capable of influencing Israeli politics and contributing to the rise of its more hard-line forces. It was in this context that an idea began to emerge in Israeli political and media discourse: that operations carried out by Hamas offered hard-line Israeli leaders such as Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu new political opportunities and helped reorder Israeli society’s priorities around security and violence rather than a political settlement. Palestinian religious radicalism thus began, indirectly, to fuel Israeli radicalism, and vice versa. Through Hamas, religious fundamentalism ceased to be merely a religious outreach and ideological discourse and became embodied in a political and military organization capable of directly influencing the course of the conflict and pushing the Palestinian situation back into the cycle of armed violence. The effects of this development were not confined to the Islamist movement. The climate of escalating violence also helped revive armed tendencies among some nationalist and leftist currents. Its influence extended to certain Fatah leadership cadres as well as broad segments of the movement’s supporters and organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The political and social environment that preceded the Second Intifada thus gradually took shape. The uprising quickly abandoned the model of the First Intifada, which had been based on popular disobedience and civil resistance, and shifted toward an open armed confrontation involving multiple Palestinian forces. The Second Intifada was therefore no mere continuation of the first. It gradually evolved into a different model, both in its methods and its consequences. Palestinian armed violence became intertwined with Israeli military and settler violence, drawing both sides into a cycle of mutual escalation in which the Palestinian people were the greatest losers. The Palestinians paid an enormous price in lives and property. At the same time, prospects for a political settlement receded, while forces on the Israeli side that regarded military power and settlement expansion as alternatives to a negotiated settlement grew stronger. Herein lies the great paradox: the Oslo period began as an attempt to move from the logic of revolution to the logic of statehood. Yet within only a few years, it resulted in the reproduction of the logic of armed conflict, albeit in new forms and with new instruments. The way was thus opened to an even harsher phase in Israeli-Palestinian history.

The region appears to have entered a prolonged “pause,” a lull that could last until the two elections scheduled for the fall, first in Israel and then in the United States. Mobile pockets of tension persist, however, but remain under control. The week now getting underway is following much the same course as the previous one, both politically and militarily. There have been no sharp shifts in position, either on the American or Israeli side, even as U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks on Iran on Sunday continue to fuel speculation about a possible shift in Washington’s strategy. Only Tehran, engaged in a process of internal restructuring, has broken the lull by responding directly to the occupant of the White House. In an interview with the U.S. news site Axios on Sunday, Donald Trump compared the standoff with the Islamic Republic to “a game of chess,” after ruling out the use of force to compel it to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump Takes a Harder Line For the first time in about 10 days, President Trump on Monday resumed his media attacks on Iran’s leadership, saying he intends to demand that the mullahs’ regime compensate “the families of protesters killed over the past 50 years.” The White House chief went further, saying that “Iran must bear responsibility for the damage and loss of life suffered by the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Gaza.” The president’s position on the matter is clearly a response to the stance taken by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which have set six conditions for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, including a demand that Washington pay Iran compensation for the damage caused by US bombing. Tehran responded with irony through the voice of its Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, who said that Iranians were “professional chess players.” The remark was a way of saying that the Islamic Republic would have the final say in the ongoing conflict, as speculation ran high on Monday about the implications of the shift in U.S. strategy, with Washington for the time being abandoning the military option against Iran in favor of increased economic pressure. By stepping up economic pressure, are the United States betting on the Islamic Republic collapsing from within? Are they trying to ease tensions to prevent internal upheaval ahead of the November midterm elections? Or are they seeking to buy time while replenishing their stocks of weapons and ammunition? These are among the questions that fueled political and media analysis on Monday. What is certain, however, is that indirect talks between Tehran and Washington have been suspended, and that an Iranian-Omani agreement on the management of the Strait of Hormuz, which both sides said on Thursday was imminent, has yet to materialize. During a phone call on Monday, the Iranian and Pakistani foreign ministers discussed everything except the indirect U.S.-Iranian talks that had been taking place through Islamabad. The only development confirmed so far is the resumption of the conflict in Yemen, with the Iran-backed Houthi militia once again fully engaged in fighting Yemeni government forces and Saudi Arabia. The war should be seen as part of the broader power struggle in which Iran is engaged with countries in the region that host U.S. military bases, as Tehran seeks to establish itself as an indispensable regional power. Six Key Appointments in Tehran Although the guns have largely fallen silent, Tehran is using the region’s state of neither war nor peace to rebuild its leadership, particularly its military command. According to various Iranian and pan-Arab media outlets, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has appointed Ahmad Vahidi as commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the Pasdaran). Five others have also been appointed to key military positions: Ali Abdollahi as chief of staff of the armed forces; Kiyomars Heidari as deputy chief of staff of the armed forces; Mostafa Izadi as deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Ali Azmaei as commander of the IRGC’s naval forces; and Hossein Taeb as commander of the Basij paramilitary militia. Tehran had already appointed Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, replacing Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr. The key question is whether this restructuring is also accompanied by a rebuilding of Iran’s military infrastructure, at a time when Israel is threatening to strike the Islamic Republic if it rebuilds its nuclear and ballistic arsenal. Tehran Counts on a U.S. Pullback For now, Tehran appears to be counting on the U.S. strategic pullback, as well as the disagreements that continue to surface between Washington and Tel Aviv, in an effort to get back on its feet. According to various Israeli media outlets, relations between Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are not at their best. Washington is said to favor political solutions and wants Israel to withdraw from Gaza and Lebanon. It also wants Tel Aviv to rein in its threats against Iran, according to reports that say a message to that effect was conveyed to Israeli authorities by Centcom commander Adm. Brad Cooper. But Tel Aviv is said to have rejected all three demands. Israel disputes, in particular, the U.S. plan for Gaza. The same applies to Lebanon, where the Israeli military continues its operations in the part of southern Lebanon it controls, while uncertainty surrounds the eighth round of direct talks, scheduled to take place in Rome in early September. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun discussed the matter Monday with the head of the Lebanese delegation, Simon Karam. According to various reports, the issue of the map posted on X on Sunday – and later taken down – by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, depicting part of southern Lebanon as annexed to Israeli territory, is expected to be raised at the next Lebanese-Israeli meeting, particularly as Beirut insists on a full, gradual Israeli withdrawal from the southern part of the country.

Language, as a vehicle of national culture, can become an instrument of liberation, as it did for Johann Fichte and Karol Wojtyla, and even a fundamental reason for being, as Charles Malek argued. It shapes national consciousness, fosters cohesion in the face of military or cultural hegemony, and makes it possible to build the future while remaining rooted in the heritage of the past. While Johann Gottfried von Herder highlighted the role of language in shaping cultural identity, Johann Gottlieb Fichte took this idea further by directly linking language to the concept of the nation. What he called Volkstum (national culture) (1) emerged as an instrument of resistance to French supremacy. It was on this same principle that Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, promoted the use of the Polish language in the theater as a means of preserving the soul of his people under Soviet rule. Levantine Christian intellectuals took a different path. They chose to participate in the Arab renaissance, the Nahda , gradually setting aside their own language and, with it, their historical memory. The remarkable contributions they made to the Nahda were described by Bat Ye’or as the “last swan song” (2) , because this engagement came at the expense of renewing their own heritage. The Orthodox Christian philosopher Charles Malek goes even further. He places the Syriac language at the very heart of the Maronites’ raison d’être. For him, language is “the most significant phenomenon of civilizations,” because it determines belonging, gives shape to identity, and forms the foundation of the nation (3) . He points out that the Syriac heritage is recognized, sought out, respected, studied, and taught at universities in Russia, Europe, and America, where numerous dissertations have been focused on it. Yet of all the Syriac communities of the East, only the Maronites possess cultural and academic institutions capable of teaching this prestigious heritage on its own native soil. The Raison d’Être of Such a Heritage Charles Malek thus issues a clear warning to the Maronites. This heritage, he argues, should not be studied as it is in the West, from a purely historical and theoretical perspective, with the kind of intellectual curiosity generally reserved for the intellectual elite. This language is not meant to be embalmed in museums as a relic. It must remain alive in school classrooms and on church pews, and continue to inspire literary and theatrical works. Its purpose is “to connect them in a living way, culturally and spiritually,” both to the civilizations of the ancient East and to their vibrant communities in the diaspora (4) . “Who is more worthy than the Maronites of embracing this language, respecting it, honoring it, appreciating it, studying it, and breathing new life into it? It has been entrusted to them. It lives in their very essence. They bear the primary responsibility for it,” he asserted (5) . The survival of the Syriac language, unlike that of most languages of the ancient East, thus raises an existential question about the raison d’être of such a heritage. Beyond its ability to connect them to their Eastern roots and to their living diaspora, Charles Malek argues, their Syriac language has the further distinction of making the Maronites the people closest to Arabs and Jews. They translated and composed works in the language of the Arabs. As for their Syriac tongue, it belongs, like Hebrew, to the Northern Semitic family; they are thus sister languages with deep affinities. The Maronites’ Syriac liturgy, as well as their theology, also remains deeply faithful to Old Testament texts and values, and thus to the Jewish heritage. “Language,” Charles Malek explains, “is the most important cultural phenomenon because, in its deepest sense, it is life. It identifies roots, origins, and heritage.” (6) A Structural Imbalance What has enabled the Maronites’ language to survive all these centuries and reach us, against all odds? Was it chance or destiny, or perhaps the protective isolation of their mountain homeland? Charles Malek, the Christian philosopher, rejects such purely circumstantial explanations. The believer, he argued, sees through faith “Providence behind everything, above everything, and before everything” (7) . Providence acts even when its will remains mysterious. The Christian believes in it and remains confident, awaiting its revelation. The philosopher then asks why the Maronites have remained attached, over so many centuries, to their Syriac heritage. Rejecting the notion of coincidence on principle, he seeks to understand the meaning of this persistence and what divine Providence truly has in store. “If God exists,” he asked, “and if His Providence exists, is it not legitimate to ask what the survival of the Maronites and their ancient Syriac heritage might mean, and what its purpose might be in these particular times and in this particular region?” (8) For Charles Malek, this land of the Levant suffers from a structural imbalance. He likens the region to a tripod resting on only two supports: the Arabs and the Hebrews. To restore the balance, a third component is needed. The Maronites must exist not simply as a community integrated into one of these two entities, but as a distinct component, with an identity and a historical, cultural, spiritual, and linguistic heritage of its own (9) . The Maronite tradition asserted itself at Chalcedon in order to preserve its Syriac language as it opened itself to the wider world. For Charles Malek, the great Greek Orthodox philosopher, it must now preserve this linguistic identity in order to help bring peoples closer together and contribute to the building of peace. (1) – Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation (1808), Kissinger Publishing, 2017. (2) – Bat Ye’or, Les Chrétientés d’Orient entre jihad et dhimmitude (VII°-XX°) , Paris, Cerf, 2007, and The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam , Cerf, 1996. (3) – Charles Malik, Two Letters to the Maronites , Kaslik, USEK, 2010. (4) – Ibid. (5) – Ibid. (6) – Ibid. (7) – Ibid. (8) – Ibid. (9) – Ibid. Read also on the same topic The Centrality of Syriac in the Maronite Tradition: The Role of the Patriarchs (2/7) The centrality of the Syriac language in the Maronite tradition (1/7)