The Poison of Philosophy 261
had praised logic, on the contrary, as an excellent, infallible instrument
of reason with no relation to the objects of knowledge. As such, it was
a useful tool for understanding scripture. The majority of kalām theo-
logians from the twelfth century onwards denounced only philosophy
or parts of philosophy (see below).^25 Ibn Taymiyya – and after him, Ibn
Khaldūn (d. 808/1406) – makes the use of logic in theology the essen-
tial mark of distinction between the kalām theologians, labeling those
who rely on logic the “later” ones (al-mutaʾakhkhirūn) and those who
don’t the “earlier” ones (al-mutaqaddimūn; al-aqdamūn).^26 Apparent-
ly from the late 13th century on, logic became a subject that was taught
at the madrasa.^27 Even Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200), one of the harshest
critics of metaphysics before Ibn Taymiyya, admits that the Greek phi-
losophers “possessed attainments in mechanics, logic, and natural sci-
ence, and by their sagacity they discovered hidden things.”^28 Neverthe-
25 For an overview of the scarce material concerning early Muslim critiques of
logic, see al-Nashshār, ʿAlī Sāmī: Manāhij al-baḥth ʿind mufakkirī al-islām wa-
naqd al-muslimīn lil-manṭiq al-arisṭuṭālīsī, Cairo 1978, and Hallaq, Wael B.:
Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians, Oxford 1993, pp. xlii–xlvii.
26 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 31; al-Suyūṭī, Jalāl al-Dīn: Jahd al-qarīḥa fī tajrīd
al-naṣīḥa, see idem: Ṣawn al-manṭiq wal-kalām ʿan fann al-manṭiq wal-kalām
wa-yalīhī Mukhtaṣar al-Suyūṭī li-kitāb naṣīḥat ahl al-īmān fī al-radd ʿalā manṭiq
al-yūnān li-Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya. Jahd al-qarīḥa fī tajrīd al-naṣīḥa, ed. by
ʿAlī Sāmī al-Nashshār, Cairo 1366/1947, pp. 208–209; Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya,
p. 15; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ, vol. 1, p. 250; vol. 3, pp. 96, 277, 287, 334;
vol. 4, p. 84 et passim; Ibn Khaldūn: Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldūn. Prolégomènes
d’Ebn-Khaldoun; texte arabe publié d’après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque
Impériale par M. Quatremère, Beirut 1970 (reprint of Paris 1858), vol. 3, pp. 41,
113; Ibn Khaldūn: The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History, transl. by
Franz Rosenthal, New York 1974, vol. 3, pp. 52, 143; Gardet, Louis and Anawa-
ti, Georges C.: Introduction à la théologie musulmane. Essai de théologie com-
parée, Paris 1948, pp. 72–74.
27 Street, Arabic Logic, pp. 524, 579–582; idem: Logic, in: Peter Adamson and
Richard C. Taylor (eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy,
Cambridge 2005, pp. 572–579, here p. 249. His statement seems convincing in
view of the many logical treatises that were written from that period on and in
regard to the “institutionalization” of logic in higher education in the Ottoman
Empire (see ch. 5), but an historical overview of the books and subjects taught at
the madrasas throughout the Islamic world is still missing. See also below, n. 80.
28 Ibn al-Jawzī, Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd al-Raḥmān: Talbīs Iblīs, ed. by Khayr al-Dīn
ʿAlī, Beirut n. d., p. 58; Ibn al-Jawzī: The Devil’s Delusion, transl. by D. S. Mar-
goliouth, in: Islamic Culture 9 (1935), pp. 1–21, here p. 19. For Ibn al-Jawzī’s
rejection of analogy in fiqh see Talbīs Iblīs, pp. 130–132; Ibn al-Jawzī: The
Devil’s Delusion, transl. by D. S. Margoliouth, in: Islamic Culture 10 (1936),
pp. 20–39, here 29–31.
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