Subtle Insights Concerning Knowledge and Practice

Surprisingly modern essays on the unity of all monotheistic regimens by a medieval philosopher

Written in the mid‑thirteenth century for the newly appointed governor of Isfahan, this compact treatise and philosophical guidebook includes a wide‑ranging and accessible set of essays on ethics, psychology, political philosophy, and the unity of God. Ibn Kammūna,a Jewish scholar writing in Baghdad during a time of Mongol occupation, was a controversial figure whose writings sometimes incited riots. He argued, among other things, the commonality of all monotheisms, both prophetic and philosophical. Here, for the first time in English, is a surprisingly modern work on the unity of all monotheistic regimes from a key medieval philosopher.

Sa‘d ibn Mansur Ibn Kammūna al-Baghdādī was a Jewish scholar writing in Baghdad during a time of Mongol occupation in the mid-thirteenth century.
 
Y. Tzvi Langermann is Professor of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv.