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There is a heavy legacy between Lebanon and Syria, but there are also many opportunities. The past between the two countries weighs enormously. From independence under the Mandate in 1920 to actual independence in 1943, and through the most recent phases, issues have piled up to the point where fraught relations between the two countries have become an almost permanent state of affairs. But the time has come for this to end and for a new chapter to be opened, one whose fundamental principle is mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs. The bitter experience of Syrian tutelage, which the Lebanese endured from Syria’s entry into Lebanon in 1976 until the military withdrawal of April 26, 2005, remains deeply etched in their memory. That withdrawal came amid the international reactions that followed the assassination of President Rafic Hariri on February 14 of the same year. While analyzing the reasons behind Syria’s entry into Lebanon would require articles of its own, the period that marked the height of the tutelage began after Syria’s participation in the operation to liberate Kuwait in 1990, when its control over Lebanon was effectively granted as a kind of “reward.” The Lebanese naturally remember how Syria’s administration of Lebanon evolved into a form of direct rule, exercised through the Syrian intelligence headquarters in Anjar, the Beau Rivage and other sites, where figures from the former regime deliberately humiliated Lebanese officials and issued orders to them with great condescension and little regard for even the most basic requirements of national dignity. It also goes without saying that the Lebanese have not forgotten the political assassinations carried out in Lebanon against opinion leaders, intellectuals and politicians, from Kamal Jumblatt to Rafic Hariri, nor the intimidation, arrests and suppression of freedom of expression and other liberties. The tutelage nearly turned Lebanon into a regime modeled on the Syrian system, with sham elections of no real consequence, whose sole purpose was to complete the political façade. The important thing is that this chapter has now been closed. More important still, however, is to think seriously about how to build strong future relations based on trust, respect and shared interests, and how to prevent either country from once again being drawn into harming the other or seeking to take control of it, as happened in the previous period. Some Lebanese official and non-official circles must also move beyond hesitation or indifference toward developing these relations in the right direction, in a way that serves the interests of both countries. The abolition of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council was a step in the right direction toward restoring relations to their natural framework: relations between two fully independent states linked by many shared interests, to be managed through normal diplomatic channels, namely through their embassies. These relations can also be elevated to the level of joint or ministerial committees dealing with specific sectoral issues. Yet, despite all that has been said above about the need to restore “normality” to Lebanese-Syrian relations, it is essential to overcome some of the obstacles that impede progress in many areas, without this implying a return to the old formulas, particularly in foreign policy. While a return to the formula of the “unity of tracks and destinies,” which dominated Lebanese foreign policy in the 1990s and in practice deprived Lebanon of the ability to formulate an independent policy outside the Syrian orbit, is entirely unacceptable, this does not mean that coordination should cease, especially on regional issues and in the context of the conflict with Israel. Lebanon and Syria are both suffering from Israeli military expansion. The former has endured its share of destruction and occupation over the course of two successive wars, while the latter has also seen new portions of its territory occupied. Both countries face daily violations of their national sovereignty. And while the idea of a direct military confrontation with Israel is on the table neither in Lebanon nor in Syria, coordination of political and diplomatic positions is highly beneficial to both countries. In the security sphere, coordination is more than necessary in order to dismantle what remains of drug-trafficking networks, Captagon trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling. This must be pursued firmly by both sides, as such activities cause serious harm to both countries. As for the possibilities of economic, electricity and trade cooperation, they are many, indeed very many, and require particular attention from the official authorities in both countries. Turning the page on the past is therefore not enough. What is needed is serious thought about the future, especially as the region is undergoing unprecedented changes on multiple levels and Israeli threats have also reached an advanced stage. This makes even a minimum degree of Lebanese-Syrian “harmony” an urgent necessity.

After being endorsed in Washington, General Joseph Aoun was then officially welcomed in Ankara at the end of July — a capital that received him with all the honors befitting his rank. The red carpet, the presidential guard presenting arms with fixed bayonets, süngü tak , and cannon salutes were no small thing in the eyes of the career military man that the Lebanese president is. Obviously, he would not be the one to pick a fight with a Turkish trade delegation, as President Elias Hraoui had done at the very start of his term. A complete map of the sanjaks of the vilayets of Beirut and Syria in 1909. The vilayet of Beirut encompassed the sanjaks of Nablus, Acre, "Bilad al Bechara" (present-day South Lebanon or Jabal Amil), the city of Beirut, and the sanjaks of Tarablus ash-Sham and Latakia. The term Tarablus ash-Sham was used to avoid confusion with another Ottoman city: Tarablus el-Gharb, the city of Tripoli in Libya, which retained its name. (Wikimedia Commons) Who still remembers the quarrel between Hraoui and our Turkish guests, who — delighted to develop cultural and economic ties with Tripoli — had made the mistake of invoking the historical links between Turkey and Lebanon's northern capital? No one knows what got into " Abou Elias" at the time, but he retorted stubbornly that Lebanon was a sovereign state — imagine that! — and would not tolerate a resurgence of Ottoman influence in its territory, let alone a privileged relationship between Ankara and a Lebanese region at the expense of the central government. Some circles had a field day with this episode, mocking the head of state's incongruous reaction, when all the chambers of commerce of two Mediterranean countries were trying to do was revive ties of trade and prosperity. Tarablus as-Sham and Greater Lebanon That incident had long been forgotten when certain questions resurfaced in our minds during the visit of Chaibani, Syria's foreign minister, to Tripoli on July 2nd. Given the enthusiasm of the reception, hints were dropped that the city might be yearning for a destiny other than a Lebanese one! Let us recall that it had always borne the name Tarablus as-Sham , and that it had long resisted the French Mandate, never truly accepting its incorporation into Greater Lebanon. But let us not jump to conclusions too quickly. Crowds are known for their knee-jerk reactions, and Tripoli had suffered too much under the Baathist occupation not to openly vent its frustration and relief at the first opportunity. In the wake of the triumphant welcome given to Chaibani, a native Tripolitan went even further, saying: "If Turkish troops were to march through our streets today, they would be greeted with widespread jubilation." If this seasoned observer was to be believed, buildings would have been draped in red flags bearing the crescent and star — the very same banners of the janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. A 1913 map showing the vilayets of Syria and Beirut. In the center, in green, the Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon. (Wikimedia Commons) There was some truth in that exclamation, even if it was purely a matter of emotion and exasperation. For, once again, the proud city had endured, under both Assad father and son, the brutal subjugation of its population and Alawite control over its vital economic centers. Does this mean, however, that Turkey is about to become deeply involved in Lebanon in the name of a supposed neo-Ottomanism, a hidden osmanli sultan, or Muslim Brotherhood solidarity? Neo-Ottoman imperialism or mere economic expansion? Whatever Ankara's ambitions may be, they will only materialize through a broad regional policy encompassing the Syrian-Lebanese-Jordanian sphere as a whole. This is bound to stir fears and apprehensions here as elsewhere. Nevertheless, it is worth bearing in mind that when the AKP, President Erdoğan's party, invokes the glorious Ottoman legacy, it does so for electoral and domestic purposes. The idea of restoring a three-continent empire would never cross the minds of Turkey's elites, especially since Putin's adventurism in Ukraine has delivered a sobering lesson to warmongers. Or so we believe! Besides, isn't it said that Turkish interference operates mainly in the realm of soft power , with Turkey's economic "success story" serving as a model for Middle Eastern entrepreneurs? That is certainly plausible, now that the xenophobia championed by Arab nationalism has lost much of its appeal and mobilizing power, and now that Turks are no longer held responsible for four centuries of Arab underdevelopment. But Turkey cannot be satisfied with commercial success alone. It is neither Singapore nor Dubai; it cannot confine itself to the role of a financial hub — not when it already projects considerable power and its defense industry has carved out a significant share of the international arms market. Syria: Turkey's key relay Is it not the case that Ankara is, in practice, the principal patron of Ahmed al-Chareh's rule 1 ? And so what, comes the retort — even if it provides military, political, and economic backing, it will never be able to turn the Syrian regime into a fully obedient proxy. Besides, the "Umayyad" policy is well on its way to diversifying and deepening its ties with the Gulf states. And on reflection, one can always count on Turkish haughtiness to cool the enthusiasm of even the most eager Damascene looking to offer his services and cooperate. That said, in the current configuration, it is through the Erdoğan–Chareh axis that Turkish penetration into Lebanon can be envisioned, with Ankara fearing that the United States might hand Tel Aviv too large a slice of the Middle Eastern cake — a region still struggling to reconstitute itself. A daunting task for the Turkish president in Bilad al-Sham. He must contend with Iran's ideological, military, financial, and sectarian influence — Iran, which will in all likelihood attempt to regain a foothold in Syria and reassert its dominance in Lebanon. But should the mullahs be definitively pushed off the stage, Erdoğan will need to fill the vacuum their retreat leaves behind. And that is not all, for the further Turkey pushes southward, the more it will find itself face to face with Israel — a country with which relations are visibly deteriorating, and which is just as formidable a partner as it is an adversary 2 . To put it plainly, while President Erdoğan has helped steady the steps of General Joseph Aoun 3 , he is simultaneously working without pause to consolidate Ahmad al-Chareh's regime. So when Turkey's hour comes, Syria will be Ankara's strategic complement, its armed wing — and why not its proxy! 1 See the joint press conference of August 6 between Syrian Foreign Minister Chaibani and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan. 2 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared last June that his country's security "does not begin in the province of Hatay, but in Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut," and that Turkey would not tolerate the illusions of the "Promised Land." He further stated that "Israeli attacks against Syria and Lebanon had reached a level that now threatens Turkey as well." 3 During talks held in Ankara, Erdoğan promised Joseph Aoun Turkish troops as part of a broader military alliance, to replace UNIFIL forces whose mandate expires at the end of the year.

Since the start of the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran, the Gulf's oil monarchies have been paying a heavy price: unable to strike Tel Aviv or Washington directly, the Islamic Republic has not hesitated to target its Arab neighbors on the pretext that they host American military bases — bases that have largely been evacuated. As a result, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar — despite being considered an Iranian ally — as well as Oman and Jordan have all come under attack. Recently, Tehran activated its proxies in Iraq and Yemen — Iraqi Shia militias and the Yemeni Houthis — who have targeted Saudi oil infrastructure. On top of that, further threats loom over the Arab countries' economies, with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the only maritime outlet of the Persian Gulf, and the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, the gateway to the Red Sea. This simmering conflict is yet another reminder of the lukewarm commitment shown by the great American ally toward its Arab "protégés." The announcement made by these three Washington allies sends a message to Tehran, but also to the United States, increasingly seen as an unreliable partner, according to experts. The NATO model Against this backdrop, it is easy to understand what drove Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey to conclude a defense pact linking the three countries, signed on Friday in Mecca. "The agreement aims to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression and stipulates that an armed attack against any one of the three states shall be considered an attack against all of them," Pakistan's Foreign Ministry stated, with Turkey describing it as "an important contribution to the preservation of peace" in the region. The three Sunni Muslim countries share a common interest in contributing to efforts to resolve the conflict between Iran and the United States, which has set the region ablaze and shaken the global economy. A nuclear power and NATO's second-largest army Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are also already bound by a mutual defense agreement signed in September 2025, the product of a long tradition of military cooperation. Its announcement raised many questions, given that Islamabad possesses nuclear weapons. On Friday, Riyadh denied any connection to "nuclear ambitions" and assured, as did Ankara, that the pact was not directed at any country in the region. Turkey also stated that the agreement with Islamabad and Riyadh was "not in contradiction" with Ankara's commitments to NATO. Ankara further stressed that this trilateral agreement, signed earlier in Mecca, "targets no third country or bloc" and is solely intended to "strengthen cooperation in the defense industry, military training, technology sharing, and regional stability." Turkey has NATO's second-largest military in terms of troop numbers, covers the alliance's eastern flank, and hosted the NATO leaders' summit in early July, which was attended by U.S. President Donald Trump, among others. Security hub in exchange for investment According to an analyst quoted by AFP, this announcement reinforces Saudi Arabia's ambitions to become the guarantor of regional security and to diversify its defense partnerships — a security that has been seriously threatened in recent times by its rivalry with the United Arab Emirates, a rivalry that risked escalating into open conflict in Yemen, well before the war with Iran. For Turkey, also a NATO member, and for Pakistan, the goal is to gain influence and attract Saudi investment. This rapprochement "is clearly directed against Iran," Oumar Karim, a Saudi Arabia specialist at the University of Birmingham, told AFP. The stakes of the straits According to him, the alliance "aims to address the new strategic approach" of Tehran, "which seeks to dominate the entire Gulf region and control maritime traffic through strategic waterways, whether the Strait of Hormuz or the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb." For Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, keeping these maritime passages open is essential. The Red Sea and the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb had become alternative routes as Iran once again locked down the Strait of Hormuz following the resumption of clashes with the United States in July. However, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have recently imposed a blockade on Saudi vessels and are also threatening shipping through Bab el-Mandeb, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. Beyond the maritime front, Saudi Arabia has been targeted on its own soil by the Houthis, who have struck oil infrastructure in recent weeks. The Riyadh-led coalition, which has backed the Yemeni government since 2015, also accused the rebels on Friday of carrying out strikes in the border region of Najran, wounding 11 civilians — an unprecedented attack on the kingdom since the ceasefire reached between the two sides in 2022.

The Lebanese crisis, which officially emerged in the autumn of 2019, has been explained almost exclusively through technical factors: the financial engineering of the Banque du Liban, bank profits, the lira-dollar peg, interest rates, capital transfers, and the trade deficit and consumption. These factors do indeed warrant scrutiny, but they are not sufficient on their own to fully explain the collapse. The political, security, and administrative causes — looting of the public sector, chaotic hiring in the state administration, spending without regular budgets, clientelism, the politicization of the judiciary, smuggling, the shadow economy, and involvement in regional conflicts — have been largely overlooked. Hassan Diab's government is not solely responsible for a crisis that had been building for decades. Nevertheless, certain decisions made or endorsed during his tenure accelerated the breaking point. First, no coherent emergency capital control law was enacted. This vacuum allowed for arbitrary restrictions, deepened inequality among depositors, and let a portion of liquidity drain away. An exceptional law — similar in principle to the measures applied after the 1967 war, the Intra Bank crisis, or the destruction of civilian aircraft on the ground during the raid of December 28, 1968 — would have limited the damage. Second, the Diab government chose to default on its Eurobonds in March 2020, refusing to meet a $1.2 billion payment. At the time, the Banque du Liban's reserves were estimated at nearly $29 billion. Lebanon could have honored its immediate obligations while negotiating an orderly restructuring with creditors and the IMF. The unprepared default destroyed the country's sovereign credibility, shut off access to markets, and deepened its financial isolation. Third, the government at the time subsidized more than 300 products rather than providing direct support to households. The system encouraged hoarding, entrenched monopolies, and above all, fueled smuggling into Syria. Its cost is estimated to have reached $12 to $14 billion. This irrational expenditure directly contradicts the argument that reserves had to be preserved by refusing to pay $1.2 billion in March 2020. Fourth, the plan drawn up with Lazard risked placing the bulk of the losses on depositors and the existing banking sector, with the stated goal of replacing current banks with five new banking institutions. The promise to return deposits remained without any concrete answer as to the funding, the assets to be mobilized, or the timeline. These choices accelerated the depletion of reserves, the liquidity crisis, the shift to a cash economy, and Lebanon's international marginalization. Acknowledging them does not mean absolving the Banque du Liban, the banks, or previous governments. All responsibilities must be established according to actual powers held and legal obligations, without turning any single sector into a scapegoat. Recovery requires restoring state authority, securing borders, combating smuggling, ensuring judicial independence, enacting a fair and fully funded deposit recovery law, pursuing transparent banking restructuring, negotiating the debt, and reforming public administration. The allocation of losses must respect the legal nature of each obligation. The state's claims, those of the Banque du Liban, the banks' liabilities, and depositors' rights are interconnected — but they are not the same. Conflating them would automatically shift the burden onto ordinary citizens. Priority must be given to small depositors, with clearly defined amounts, timelines, and funding sources. Public assets can contribute to the recovery through their future revenues, provided they remain protected, properly inventoried, and managed transparently. They must neither be sold off at a loss nor entrusted to structures that fall outside democratic oversight. Likewise, shareholders must bear their share of responsibility within the bounds of the law, while illicit transfers and unjustified enrichment must be subject to serious judicial investigations. Restructuring before determining available resources would be putting the cart before the horse. The crisis is financial in its manifestations, but political at its roots — no lasting solution can afford to ignore this reality. The restoration of confidence will ultimately depend on rebuilding Lebanon's relationships with its Arab and international partners, adhering to global financial standards, and placing economic policy exclusively at the service of the national interest.

It is a day of talks par excellence. In Rome, the third and final meeting of the seventh round of direct negotiations between Beirut and Tel Aviv concluded on a more or less positive note, though still without a definitive outcome. In the Gulf, Tehran and Muscat are reportedly on the verge of announcing a provisional agreement on navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. In both cases, a resolution is certainly not imminent, especially since the underlying problem — namely Iran's destabilizing influence in the region, and more specifically that of pro-Iranian militias — persists, as Syrian Foreign Minister Assaad al-Shaibani rightly pointed out during his visit to Ankara on Thursday. Recent developments in Yemen also support this assessment. On Thursday, the Houthi militia claimed attacks against government forces in response, according to its leader, to the recent reinforcement of Yemeni troops backed by Saudi Arabia. These attacks killed at least 38 people, making it the deadliest toll since the 2022 ceasefire that had ended more than seven years of devastating war in this Arabian Peninsula country. After his meeting with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, Assaad al-Shaibani announced that Damascus and Ankara agreed to "support efforts aimed at strengthening stability in Iraq and Lebanon," based on the principle that "restoring the monopoly on arms in both countries would promote stability across the entire region." He also emphasized the importance of "strengthening security coordination with neighboring countries and controlling borders in order to address the threats posed by armed groups operating outside state authority." While Iraq is fully engaged in a — admittedly complex — process of disarming militias, which have reportedly redeployed their forces on the ground amid fears of a renewed security escalation in the country, Lebanon appears to have put this issue on the back burner. For Beirut, the priority remains southern Lebanon and all the issues surrounding the disastrous consequences of the war into which Hezbollah dragged the country. According to information reported by Lebanese media regarding the latest round of direct talks — spread over three days and divided into three sessions covering political, legal, and military matters — the Lebanese delegation insisted on the continued gradual Israeli withdrawal from the southern part of the country, based on the bilateral agreement of June and the cessation of military operations. No final agreement could be reached on the issue of "pilot zones," which are currently limited to three, and which Beirut wishes to expand to additional sectors, including Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh. The agency al-Markaziya , citing sources from the presidential palace of Baabda, noted that the Israeli delegation requested a detailed presentation of the proposed sectors in order to examine their geographic characteristics. The Lebanese document is to be submitted to the political authority in Israel, according to al-Markaziya , which, citing the same sources, notes that an agreement was reached, however, on the references and procedures that should govern the coordination mechanisms between the three parties (Lebanese, Israeli, and American) for the implementation phase of the remaining mechanism. The two delegations also wrapped up the issue of the "guarantor third party" — meaning the entity responsible for ensuring on the ground that the measures taken comply with the provisions of the Lebanese-Israeli agreement of June. They agreed on a "shortlist" of candidates from which the entity tasked with assuming this role will be chosen. They also agreed to bring the matter before the United Nations Security Council in order to secure the adoption of a new resolution that will serve as a legal framework for the period following the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The prisoner file, which was discussed at length, is proving more problematic as it involves an exchange, according to the same sources. Lebanon has a precise list of names that it handed over to the Israeli delegation, which in turn provided a list of the names of missing Israelis and Lebanese Jews. However, Beirut does not have any data on this matter. In any case, the Rome discussions are considered "positive" according to Baabda. Steps are even underway to involve the International Committee of the Red Cross in the process. Talks are expected to resume on the 1 st of September. This date remains tentative, however. It will be confirmed depending on how diplomatic contacts evolve and on the preparation of the files under review. Thanks to American intervention, the Rome negotiations were not derailed by the military escalation in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army carried out successive violent raids against Mansouri and Burj Shamali, in the Tyre district. This surge in violence, which followed the deaths of two Israeli soldiers in a booby-trapped building in Majdal Zoun, was able to be addressed within the framework of the monitoring mechanism established since November 27 of last year, following the ill-fated "war of support" for Hamas, also launched by Hezbollah against Israel. On the sidelines of the negotiations, President of the Republic Joseph Aoun acknowledged to journalists accredited to Baabda that "the road will be long" before reaching an agreement that would shield Lebanon from further destruction, but that the state is "determined to see it through." An Iranian-Omani agreement? At the regional level, Iran and the Sultanate of Oman appear to be on the verge of announcing an agreement on the management of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. According to the pan-Arab channel Al-Hadath, the agreement in question — of which Washington has reportedly been informed — would require ships to use a corridor running along Iran's coast on the outbound journey and along Oman's coast on the return, in exchange for what are described as service fees. Discussions are said to be in their final stage, according to Iranian diplomatic spokesman Esmail Baghaei, as quoted by the official IRNA news agency. However, any reopening of Hormuz — which Tehran has locked down — will depend on the actions of Washington, which is imposing a blockade on Iranian ports, he specified. Yet this reopening risks becoming problematic if information provided by the Iranian agency Fars is confirmed. According to this outlet, a bill is currently under consideration in the Iranian Parliament that would ban ships flying Israeli or American flags, as well as those belonging to countries that host American military bases, from passing through the strait. This development, if confirmed, would be a further indicator of Iran's internal divisions, which, according to U.S. Vice President JD Vance, are at the root of complications in bilateral talks that are apparently continuing indirectly through Qatari and Pakistani mediators. Former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sharply criticized in this context "a minority seeking to drag the country into war," while reports circulating in various media outlets describe appointments and restructuring attempts aimed at consolidating the authority of the hardline faction within Iran.

In April 2026, Wissam Saadé delivered four lectures at the University of Bologna. The first lecture, at the invitation of Professor Giovanni Giorgini, entitled “The Prophet and the Philosopher: The Hierarchy of Knowledge between Avicenna’s Falsafa and al-Kirmānī’s Ismaʿili 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 first installment of that ten-part series. What, one might ask, is the thread that runs between the hierarchy of knowledge in Avicenna and Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī, the complexities of sectarianism in Lebanon, the dynamics of religious nationalism in South and West Asia, and the role of eschatology in Middle Eastern conflicts? These may be understood as different expressions of a broader—and perhaps persistent—oscillation within the theologico-political domain. This theologico-political dynamic first appears as a form of polarization—at the level of the hierarchy of knowledge, but also in the tension between truth-telling and what might be called right speech—when we turn to the tradition of Hellenizing philosophy in Islam and to Neoplatonism as it was adapted within the Fatimid da ʿ wa . It takes on a different shape in the Lebanese context, where it appears as a certain difficulty—perhaps even an incapacity—to sustain pluralism on the basis of reciprocity, or to establish any shared hierarchy within a frustrated and faltering political model. The theologico-political takes on another dimension when one turns to the question of nationalism. Here, the dynamic unfolds through the labyrinths of secularization: a communal bond is first transposed into the form of the nation, only then to undergo a second movement of intensification—through processes of re-sacralization, mythologization, and eschatologization—of what had initially been rendered secular. What appears, then, is not a simple linear transition from the sacred to the secular, but rather a recursive movement in which the secular itself becomes the site of the return of the sacred in displaced form. This trajectory is particularly evident in the case of religious nationalism. Similar dynamics may also be discerned in the paradoxes of the Lebanese confessional state and in the evolution of sectarianism when approached from what might be called a post-Ottoman perspective. Professor Giovanni Giorgini’s work has consistently brought the history of political philosophy into dialogue with contemporary concerns. This is particularly evident through his engagement with tyranny—understood, in the wake of Leo Strauss, as both the rule of arbitrariness and a paradigmatic philosophical problem tied to the relation between knowledge, power, and the human search for the good—and with phronēsis , understood as practical wisdom. This form of prudence, in order not to succumb to arbitrariness, must give primacy to action, which cannot be indefinitely deferred. Professor Giorgini’s suggestion of reading The Prince through the lens of Aristotelian and Ciceronian phronēsis —that is, as an inquiry into the wisdom of prudence as the form of judgment appropriate to contingent political realities—has been a particularly suggestive point of departure for my own reflections. This perspective ensures that Machiavellian virtù is not viewed merely as a distortion of the classical virtue of prudence, but rather as a complex reimagining of it—one that is acutely aware of political effectivity while remaining decidedly less committed to the classical ideal of concordia . In thinking through these questions, I found myself returning to one that is less straightforward than it first appears: to what extent does phronēsis function as a subterranean form of resistance to tyranny, and at what precise threshold does its commitment to “the possible” transform into a meticulous veil for political passivity? In the Islamicate world, such an inquiry cannot be separated from another concern, one often difficult to articulate, regarding the transmundane, or rather the metaphysical and cosmological dimensions of the rule of arbitrariness. The endeavor to circumvent, on both cosmological and metaphysical levels, the inclination toward the arbitrary, while simultaneously taking care not to stifle the soul, lies, I am inclined to believe, at the very heart of the tension revealed in the two authors upon whom these reflections focus. I - Metaphysical Prudence: The Adventures of Phronēsis in the Islamicate The present essay considers the dialectic between the philosopher and the prophet in Hellenized Islamic philosophy ( falsafa ) through a comparison between Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, d. 1037) and his contemporary, the Ismaʿili thinker Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. c. 1020). In doing so, it also touches, if somewhat obliquely, on the problems of tyranny and phronēsis within the context of the eleventh-century intellectual landscape. For Avicenna, phronēsis , or practical wisdom, is associated with the practical intellect, the faculty concerned with action, ethical deliberation, and the ordering of everyday life. While working within an Aristotelian framework of intellectual virtue, Avicenna subtly extends its scope by relating practical wisdom to the perfection of the soul and orienting it toward a form of moral equilibrium. In Hellenized Islamic philosophy, phronēsis is linked to an almost cosmological journey of the soul. Aristotle and the Architecture of Phronēsis But let us return to Aristotle for a moment. In the Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle situates phronēsis (φρόνησις) within a broader architecture of intellectual and moral virtues that together enable the phronimos —the practically wise human being—to live and act well, thereby attaining eudaimonia (flourishing or the good life). Moral, or ethical, virtues ( aretai ēthikai ) concern character, emotion, and habit. They are not innate but acquired through practice and habituation rather than through theoretical instruction. Each consists in a mean ( mesotēs ) between two extremes, excess and deficiency, relative to a given situation. Thus, courage stands between recklessness and cowardice, temperance between indulgence and insensibility, generosity between wastefulness and stinginess, justice as the balanced rendering of what is due to each, and magnanimity as a properly calibrated sense of self-worth, avoiding both vanity and self-abasement. Alongside these ethical dispositions, Aristotle distinguishes the intellectual virtues ( aretai dianoētikai ), which pertain to the rational part of the soul and are cultivated through teaching, learning, and reflective inquiry. These include epistēmē , the demonstrative knowledge of necessary and universal truths; technē , the capacity for production or craft; sophia , theoretical wisdom combining epistēmē with insight into first principles; and nous , the intuitive grasp of those first principles themselves. Within this constellation, phronēsis —practical wisdom, or prudence—occupies a distinctive and irreducible position. For Aristotle, phronēsis is neither contemplative knowledge of eternal truths nor technical skill aimed at production. Rather, it is the capacity to deliberate well about action in conditions of contingency and particularity. It is, in this sense, the intelligence of praxis : an applied rationality that determines what ought to be done here and now for the sake of the good life. Crucially, moral virtues such as courage or justice remain structurally incomplete without phronēsis . While virtue defines a stable disposition of character, phronēsis provides the situational discernment through which that disposition can be properly enacted. One may grasp courage or justice in abstract terms, yet without phronēsis one cannot determine how they should be realized in a concrete and irreducibly complex situation. Prudence thus reveals that, in Aristotle, ethical knowledge is never purely theoretical; it is inseparable from judgment, deliberation, and action within lived circumstances. From Phronēsis to Ḥikma Against this background, a recent claim by a contemporary philosopher of Islamist orientation in Morocco, lamenting that the medieval Hellenizing philosophical tradition in Arabic remained “trapped” within the framework of the four Aristotelian virtues and thereby failed to develop an authentically Islamic ethics grounded in taqwā (تقوى), understood in the Islamic tradition as a form of God-consciousness, vigilant awareness of the divine presence, and ethical self-discipline oriented toward avoiding wrongdoing and fulfilling one’s moral and religious obligations, appears conceptually reductive. Such a critique assumes a rigid opposition between an allegedly “Greek” virtue ethics and an “Islamic” ethical horizon, as if the reception of Aristotle in Arabic philosophical culture were a form of conceptual confinement rather than a site of creative translation and transformation. This view overlooks not only the falsafa tradition itself, but also the broader culture of adab , both of which actively integrated ethical vocabularies drawn from multiple genealogies: Greco-Hellenistic, Persian-Sasanian, and Qurʾanic-Prophetic. Rather than abandoning Islamic references, these traditions often operated through a layered ethical synthesis in which revelation, inherited wisdom, and philosophical reasoning were placed in dynamic relation. The dissatisfaction expressed by this contemporary thinker, namely that medieval falāsifa failed to produce a fully “Islamic” ethics, thus reopens a deeper and more enduring misunderstanding regarding the nature of falsafa itself. It also raises the broader question of what counts as “Islamic” within ethical discourse, and whether authenticity should be sought in doctrinal purity or in the historically plural processes through which ethical reason has actually been articulated in Islamic intellectual history. For Aristotle, phronēsis is practical wisdom, the capacity to deliberate well about action, distinct from sophia , which denotes theoretical wisdom. With the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, sophia came to render the Hebrew ḥokhmah . Yet ḥokhmah is primarily oriented toward practical skill and know-how, whereas sophia increasingly came to signify theoretical knowledge and even ultimate reality. In later Hellenistic and Gnostic contexts, Sophia acquires a metaphysical and symbolic dimension, at times personified as a divine emanation or feminine aeon; in certain Gnostic narratives, she “falls” from the spiritual realm into the material world and requires restoration. In Arabic, ḥikma , a term closely related in form to the Hebrew ḥokhmah , derives from the root ḥ-k-m, which originally conveys the sense of restraint, control, or prevention. From this root emerge meanings tied to legal and administrative authority: ḥukm (judgment, ruling), ḥākim (ruler), and ḥakīm (the wise). The semantic field thus binds wisdom to judgment, governance, and measured discernment. In the Qurʾan, ḥikma is described as a divine gift bestowed upon figures such as David (Dāwūd): وَشَدَدْنَا مُلْكَهُ وَآتَيْنَاهُ الْحِكْمَةَ وَفَصْلَ الْخِطَابِ We strengthened his kingdom and gave him wisdom and sound judgment. and Luqman: وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا لُقْمَانَ الْحِكْمَةَ أَنِ اشْكُرْ لِلَّهِ We endowed Luqman with wisdom: “Give thanks to God.” Most classical Islamic scholars maintain that Luqman was not a prophet but a pious sage endowed with exceptional wisdom, and he is accorded a position of considerable honor. In later medieval literature, Luqman is often portrayed as a writer of moral fables, drawing comparisons to Aesop. Some traditions depict him as a judge or adviser in the time of David, who is explicitly identified in the Qurʾan as a prophet. Within the Islamic tradition, Luqman the Wise is not identified with the biblical prophet Nathan, although some later accounts suggest a genealogical connection, even presenting Luqman as Nathan’s father. The Metaphysical Expansion of Ḥikma While not etymologically related, ḥikma is, in its original semantic field, closer to phronēsis than to sophia . More precisely, it initially occupies a position at the intersection of the two, mediating between practical and theoretical wisdom. Like phronēsis , it carries the sense of sound judgment: the capacity to apply knowledge to concrete, changing circumstances in view of a virtuous end. In both cases, wisdom is not merely the apprehension of truth but the cultivated ability to enact it through discernment, character, and practical intelligence. During the Islamic Golden Age, however, ḥikma underwent a significant conceptual expansion. It came to function as a privileged Arabic equivalent of the Greek philosophia . Although the loanword falsafa was commonly used to designate the translated Greek sciences, early Muslim philosophers often preferred ḥikma because of its Qurʾanic resonance. This is already evident in al-Kindī, and it finds institutional expression under al-Maʾmūn with the foundation of the Bayt al-Ḥikma ( House of Wisdom ) in Baghdad. This institution functioned as an imperial center for the translation, classification, and development of the so-called “rational sciences” (ʿ ulūm ʿ aqliyya ), often distinguished from the transmitted sciences (ʿ ulūm naqliyya ). Because of its Qurʾanic legitimacy, ḥikma , both as a term and as a concept, remained relatively insulated from the suspicion often directed at falsafa or manṭiq (logic), which were at times criticized as foreign imports, overly dependent on Greek sources, or even associated with zandaqa (heresy). The charge of zandaqa played a central polemical role in medieval Islamic intellectual history. Religious scholars sometimes used it against the falāsifa (Islamic philosophers) to delegitimize their metaphysical doctrines, especially those influenced by Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism. Although originally associated with Manichaean dualism and heresy, the term gradually broadened into a flexible accusation applied to any thought perceived as undermining orthodox monotheism. Philosophers such as al-Fārābī or Avicenna were not usually accused of literal dualism, but rather of introducing foreign conceptual structures, such as emanation or the eternity of the world, which some theologians regarded as doctrinally dangerous or excessively Hellenizing. Broadly speaking, the critiques focused on three principal points. The falāsifa were seen as promoting doctrines affirming the eternity of the world, in opposition to the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo by God. They were also accused of advancing an emanationist conception of existence that left little room for the traditional framework of creation, revelation, and redemption. In addition, they were seen as undermining belief in bodily resurrection, either by following Neoplatonic tendencies toward the idea of a single universal soul rather than multiple individual souls, or by replacing the eschatological distinction between paradise and punishment with an intellectual form of beatitude reserved for the purified intellect. This creates a revealing paradox: although ḥikma originally leans toward practical wisdom, its adoption as a translation of philosophia , combined with its scriptural grounding, allowed it to expand into a far more comprehensive and speculative concept. The dominant tendency among the falāsifa was to equate falsafa with ḥikma , and vice versa, while gradually transforming ḥikma from a notion encompassing both practical wisdom ( phronēsis ) and theoretical wisdom ( sophia ) into an expression of ultimate logos —that is, a comprehensive principle encompassing both rational structure and metaphysical reality. As a result, ḥikma gradually came to denote not only ethical discernment but also a holistic, even cosmic, form of wisdom. This transformation becomes especially visible from Avicenna onward, and, in parallel, within Ismaʿili philosophy, particularly in the works of Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī, such as Rāḥat al- ʿ Aql ( The Quietude of the Intellect ). It reaches a further stage in the Illuminationist tradition of Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī ( Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq ), and later in the School of Isfahan with Mīr Dāmād and Mullā Ṣadrā. In these later developments, ḥikma no longer designates a balance between the practical and the theoretical. It becomes a form of theosophy in which rational reflection and spiritual realization are inseparably united. Wisdom, in this sense, is no longer only the capacity to know and to act rightly, but also a process through which the subject is itself transformed by truth.