Articles

The Israeli state appears determined to counter Turkish ambitions in Syria, drawing a lukewarm response from Washington. On Iran, the United States is now favoring a strategy of economic strangulation. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is facing increasing U.S. pressure. In the Middle East, the major development of the week of August 17–23 was the standoff between Israel and Turkey in Syria. The affair began on Tuesday with a strike on the Abu al-Duhur airport in the province of Idlib, in southwestern Syria — out of service since the start of the Syrian war, but home to a presence of the new Syrian army under Ahmad al-Sharaa's authority.

In April 2026, Wissam Saadé delivered four lectures at the University of Bologna. The first, at the invitation of Professor Giovanni Giorgini, was entitled “The Prophet and the Philosopher: The Hierarchy of Knowledge between Avicenna’s Falsafa and al-Kirmānī’s Ismaili Neoplatonism.” Its text is presented here in a revised and expanded version, as part of a series of ten articles. This series explores the intellectual landscape of Neoplatonism in Islam through a comparative reading of Avicenna and al-Kirmānī. Although both thinkers share a broad Neoplatonic horizon, shaped by a metaphysics of emanation, a hierarchy of being, and a synthesis of Aristotelian and Platonic thought, they develop two distinct philosophical projects: Avicenna within the Peripatetic tradition of falsafa , and al-Kirmānī within Ismaili theology. Despite their different intellectual contexts, their systems remain in constant dialogue around the nature of knowledge, the relationship between reason and revelation, and the ascent of the soul. Their respective projects also embody two contrasting conceptions of the political, illuminating different ways of understanding the place of philosophy in relation to authority, law, and the organization of the community. This article constitutes the ninth part of this ten-part series.

Superman is known as the Man of Steel, dressed in a tight-fitting suit and a red and blue cape, a figure who takes things seriously and bears on his shoulders, like a policeman, the responsibility of saving the world. This is the man embodied by David Corenswet in his modern Hollywood incarnation: he stops villains and intervenes to save lives threatened by wars, fires, or drowning. This American film also gives rise to another figure of Superman: a character who constantly intervenes in world affairs without stopping to consider the consequences of intervening in other countries’ conflicts. Such a geopolitical approach may seem ill-suited to the values of superheroes. Yet this is what U.S. President Donald Trump appears to suggest through his spectacular moves to reshape the world, in a metaphorical evocation of the villainous figure alluded to by the film’s director in the “MAGA,” without naming it, through the businessman character or others such as Lex Luthor. It is, in other words, a new version of America in an evil world ruled by predatory capitalism, an image of arrogant businessmen reminiscent of Gordon Gekko in the film “Wall Street.”

The Sunnis had found themselves quite alone when Yasser Arafat's PLO boarded French ships, with all their arms and equipment, bound for Tunisia. It was August 30, 1982; Bachir Gemayel had been elected President of the Republic, and the Israeli army was about to move into West Beirut. With the departure of Abu Ammar and his contingents, who had fueled Lebanon's civil and sectarian war, a chapter had come to a close. Taking stock of the situation, President Takieddine al-Solh, a shrewd statesman and keen observer, expressed himself with bitterness in these words: "The Muslims sacrificed so much that they perished in the process" (1).

Relations between Turkey and Israel have hit rock bottom: three days after an Israeli airstrike on a disused base in northwestern Syria — which Israel suspects Ankara intends to use — two new offensives, this time verbal, have accelerated the deterioration of ties between the two Eastern Mediterranean powers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Friday called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan an "antisemitic dictator," stating that Israel would act against "Turkey's attempts to destabilize the region." "We will not tolerate Turkish military entrenchment advancing southward, as it poses a threat to us," Netanyahu had said on Wednesday, while Turkey denies any presence at the bombed Syrian site.

In April 2026, Wissam Saadé delivered four lectures at the University of Bologna. The first, at the invitation of Professor Giovanni Giorgini, was entitled “The Prophet and the Philosopher: The Hierarchy of Knowledge between Avicenna’s Falsafa and al-Kirmānī’s Ismaili Neoplatonism.” Its text is presented here in a revised and expanded version, as part of a series of ten articles. This series explores the intellectual landscape of Neoplatonism in Islam through a comparative reading of Avicenna and al-Kirmānī. Although both thinkers share a broad Neoplatonic horizon, shaped by a metaphysics of emanation, a hierarchy of being, and a synthesis of Aristotelian and Platonic thought, they develop two distinct philosophical projects: Avicenna within the Peripatetic tradition of falsafa, and al-Kirmānī within Ismaili theology. Despite their different intellectual contexts, their systems remain in constant dialogue around the nature of knowledge, the relationship between reason and revelation, and the ascent of the soul. Their respective projects also embody two contrasting conceptions of the political, illuminating different ways of understanding the place of philosophy in relation to authority, law, and the organization of the community. This article constitutes the eighth part of this ten-part series.