  The speculative philosophy expressed in these writings is in keeping with the views that Ibn Kammuna expresses elsewhere. However, he has in mind here a very particular type of ‘ilm; “true” ‘ilm is not, as he tells us, what people generally think. Rather, it is self-knowledge: knowledge of one’s own shortcomings, and of one’s obligations to worship God. Knowledge of this sort is goal directed; it serves to weaken one’s connections or involvement in this world, and to produce a concomitant intensification of one’s inclination towards the other world. The sections on ’amal, which urge an ethical program steeped in piety, reveal a side to Ibn Kammuna that has not been mentioned, let alone adequately explored, in the scholarly literature to date. The following paragraphs are an attempt to bring to the fore some salient points. We shall offer some suggestions towards contextualization, which are necessarily tentative and preliminary.