Logic in Islam and Islamic Logic

Abstract

On the relations between logic and religion in the Islamic world, one may refer to logic in two different ways:

• 1. logic in religious texts, that includes doctrinal sacred texts such as Qur’ān and sayings of the Prophet (as well as Imāms, in Shī’īism), as well as the Qur’ānic commentaries and the texts related to the principles and fundamentals of jurisprudence, all of which make use of some reasoning to persuade the audience or to infer the rules and prescripts for the religious behavior of members of the religious community; and

• 2. logic as a discipline that is studied and applied both independently and as a tool for reasoning in (a) schools of Islamic theology (from Ash’aris to Mu’tazilis and Shī’īs), (b) systems of Islamic philosophy (from Peripatetics to Illuminationists), and (c) other types of knowledge in the medieval Islamic world, all being strongly influenced by religious doctrines of Islam.

Accordingly, this chapter addresses seven different aspects of the logic, as follows:

• 1. The different manifestations of the use of the logical reasoning, particularly analogy, in Qur’ānic arguments, e.g. for the existence of God and resurrection after death;

• 2. Some contradictions or paradoxes reported by different opponents in the verses of Qur’ān;

• 3. The place that logic holds in the classification of disciplines and the courses taught at the schools and seminaries;

• 4. The influence of the attitudes of different religious sects on logic;

• 5. The instrumental role of logic for both religious and secular reasonings;

• 6. The relation between reason and dogmatic religious doctrines, and, finally,

• 7. The reflection of this relation on progress or recession of logic in the medieval Islamic world.