The main insurgent faction in northwest Syria- Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham- continues to engage in active recruitment efforts on the ground and via social media. The most recent iteration of the group's recruitment efforts comes in the form of its "military recruitment administration" that has a number of branches in the regions under Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham's control. A recent video release from this administrative branch is one entitled "The stages of military recruitment in the liberated north," featuring the story of someone who signed up via the "Central Region" branch (al-Mantaqa al-Wusta). The first stage is to head to the recruitment office and fill in the form, then there is the Shari'i course followed by a break, and then there is the military course. I include a rough transcript of the video.

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Of the various surviving medieval Christian Latin texts that discuss Islam and Arab history, the tract De Statu Sarracenorum ('Concerning the Status of the Saracens'), attributed to one William of Tripoli (Latin: Guilelmus Tripolitanus), stands out as one of the most interesting examples, both for the grander narrative view of Arab history adopted in the text as well as the author's view of Islam and its relationship to Christianity.

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Divisions by sect among Christians have been a pervasive feature of Christian history. Long before there were the more well-known divisions between Catholics, Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox, there was the prominent division in late antiquity between the Catholics and the Arians. The latter designation refers to the followers of the teachings of Arius. In summary, the difference between the two groups pertained to the doctrine of the Trinity, specifically the relationship between the persons of the Father and the Son. Whereas Catholicism and most Christian groups today hold the Father and Son to be co-eternal and co-substantial, the followers of Arius asserted that the Son was inferior to the Father and created at some point in time (cf. here).

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A Druze sheikh called Aymenn Zahr al-Din, from the predominantly Druze province of al-Suwayda' in southern Syria, recently died following a period of illness. He is best known as the founder of a group called Suqur al-Watan ('Hawks of the Homeland') that functioned as an auxiliary force for the Syrian army. Here I will document Sheikh Aymenn's life, relying on the testimony of his son.

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In late November, Russian air-strikes in the area of north Idlib countryside killed two people from the remaining original inhabitants of the Jabal al-Summaq area (who are originally Druze but were forced many years ago to declare conversion to Sunni Islam, first by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham and then by Jabhat al-Nusra). The two martyrs are Aymenn al-Qouda from the village of Kafr Maris and Ibrahim Najdo from the village of Taltita. While it is important to document the oppression that the remaining original inhabitants of Jabal al-Summaq have suffered at the hands of armed groups, it is also important to document civilian deaths from airstrikes and not think of those killed as mere statistics. In this new guest post, my friend 'Odoacer' of the village Qalb Lawze in Jabal al-Summaq documents the lives of Aymenn al-Qouda and Ibrahim Najdo, whom he refers to as 'daraweesh' (a term for poor people with simple and innocent means of living).

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