Logic in the Islamic Legacy: A General Overview

2016

In a fluid and ever changing global environment, the need to rationally engage and logically address the controversies that challenge the sanctity of Islam is an ubiquitous feature of contemporary times. As the challenges confronting Islamic thinkers are diverse and manifold, there is an urgent need for an advocacy approach that is premised on the rational application of Logic in Islamic Discourse. Nevertheless, the current approach of totally relying on Logic as a tool to elucidate the problems and controversies besetting the Ummah is replete with numerous shortcomings as evidenced by the advent of deviationist ideologies inimical to Islam such as pluralism, liberalism, and feminism. This paper purports to examine the nature of Logic within Islamic Discourse and how it is applied to not only portray Islam but to also delineate and clarify its adequacy in addressing contemporary issues and controversies bedeviling the Ummah. In seeking answers to these questions, the paper first sought to explicate upon the nature of Logic within the realm of knowledge. Next, it analyzed the use of logic in contemporary Islamic discourse. A qualitative approach which basically encompasses library research was utilized to obtain secondary data regarding the use of logic in contemporary Islamic discourse. Subsequently, the collated data was subjected to textual analysis. The findings reveal that there are at least two approaches that underpin the use of logic in Islamic discourse, namely, the reason (aql) based and the revelation (wahyu) based approaches with both approaches having their respective outcomes. Based on the analyzed data, the study recommends that the application of logic in contemporary Islamic Discourse should be premised upon on a hybrid approach named Contemporary Islamic Logic Approach (CILA) that draws its synergy from the revelation based approach but manifests itself via aql based arguments whilst simultaneously complying with four basic rules i.e., possessing a clear Islamic epistemology and tasawur, utilizing Islamic reasoning approaches, strengthening the Islamic framework and finally, emphasizing the means aspect of Western Logic rather than its end.

jurisprudence

Islamic Law and Society, 2010

... Also see Michael E. Marmura, “Ghazali's Attitude to the Secular Sciences and Logic,” in Essays on Islamic Philosophy and Science, ed. George F. Hourani (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1975), 100–9. 39) al-Ghazālī, Deliverence, 65. ...

History of Islamic Logic 750-1350; a Turkish translation of four of my articles, by H. Kușlu. Istanbul- Klasik Press 2013.

This entry limits itself to logical writings in the peripatetic tradition produced in Arabic between 750 and 1350. It is intended to provide a tentative framework for analysis of these logical works by describing aspects of the historical and intellectual context within which they were written. This is done by testing the model put forward in Rescher's Development of Arabic Logic against accounts of the syllo-gistic in a number of authors. By about 900, the Organon had been translated into Arabic, and was subject to intensive study. We have texts from that time which come in particular from the Baghdad school of philosophy, a school which at its best proceeded by close textual analysis of the Aristotelian corpus. The school's most famous logician was Alfarabi (d. 950), who wrote a number of introductory treatises on logic as well as commentaries on the books of the Organon. Within fifty years of Alfarabi's death, another logical tradition had crystallized, finding its most influential statement in the writings of Avicenna (d. 1037). Although Avicenna revered Alfarabi as a philosophical predecessor second only to Aristotle, his syllogistic system differed from Alfarabi's on two major structural points. It is in consequence relatively straightforward to assign subsequent logicians to one or other tradition. Avicenna differed from Alfarabi in his approach to the Aristotelian text, and assumed even less than Alfarabi had that it contained a straightforward exposition of a coherent system merely awaiting sympathetic interpretation to become clear. Due perhaps to the flexibility of the larger philosophical framework with which it was associated, a framework which proved adaptable to the needs of Islamic philosophical theology, Avicenna's logic came in time to be the dominant system against which later logicians set forward their own systems as alternatives or modifications.

I wish to thank the convenors of these two conferences as well as the participants for their comments and suggestions.

Vol. 24 No. 2 (2022): Afkar: Jurnal Akidah & Pemikiran Islam, 2022

Although the Islamic art of logic (mantiq) has circulated for more than two centuries in Indonesia, the mantiq works and their functions obtain little academic attention. In this regard, the article aims to study how the mantiq works entered and spread in Indonesia and what functions they play in Islamic educational and scholarship settings. This writing employs a qualitative-historical approach by reading critically primary and secondary works of literature related to the study of logics in the Muslim world, especially in Indonesia, in order to analyze how those logical concepts and scholarship spread and are used in Islamic scholarly works in Indonesia. In the end, the article finds that the spread and development of mantiq works in Indonesia primarily stem from the international learning networks of Indonesian Muslim scholars (ʿulama’), centered in Mecca, Madina, and Cairo. The Indonesian ʿulama, who used to study in the Middle East, brought the mantiq to Indonesia. It is instrumental and required knowledge for understanding scientific and scholarly traditions in Islam, such as Islamic law (fiqh) and theology (kalam). Furthermore, mantiq plays a crucial role as an instrument for academic debates among scholars from different religious affiliations on whether religious or non-religious topics.

2023

Paper presented at the International "Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Sanūsī Between Islamic Studies and the Social Sciences" Symposium held in Rabat/ Morocco, 31th January - 1st February 2023